We Came by Sea

Every day and every night when the sea was calm they came, and most days the newspapers and the websites said the same thing: 'migrants' in 'small boats' were crossing the English Channel. Rescuers were 'overwhelmed', coastal towns were 'up in arms'. Over and over, the headlines and the photographs told us this story.

But no story has only one side, as Horatio Clare discovered when he began his journeys between Dover and Calais, where he met and listened to the volunteers who help thousands of people every year, from the lifeboat crews mounting operations to the countless unrecognised, uncelebrated British people who are giving their all to help the vulnerable and desperate.

We Came by Sea bears witness to hope and humanity. It is a journey through an unexamined nation – a nation which is every bit as great and good as the people in the dinghies believe it to be. This is not the story that we have been told, but it is a true story.

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2025.

About the Author

Horatio Clare is a critically acclaimed author and journalist. His first book, Running for the Hills, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His second book, Truant, was heralded by The Irish Times as a 'stunningly well-written memoir.' A Single Swallow was shortlisted for the Dolman Travel Book of the Year while Down to the Sea in Ships won the Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year in 2015. Horatio's first book for children, Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot, won the Branford Boase Award for debut children's book. He has written two books about mental health: Heavy Light and Your Journey Your Way. Previously with Little Toller Horatio has published Orison for a Curlew and Something of his Art. He lives in West Yorkshire.

Praise for We Came by Sea

'I would read anything Horatio Clare wrote. His prose is always brilliant, and by turns funny, furious and heart-piercingly compassionate. He lights up – no, he scintillates – any subject that finds itself in receipt of the gift of his attention.'
– Robert Macfarlane

'It feels comforting and right to have a writer of Clare's skill turn attention to this topic, and he does not avoid referencing corruption and other wrongdoing by those in power'
– Sally Hayden, The Irish Times

'[Clare's] job, executed wonderfully well, is to help us to think calmly and intelligently about those arriving in small boats, to consider giving them a chance and to recognise that we have more in common with them than we might imagine.'
– Maggie Fergusson, The Spectator