Editing Monica Edwards (section)

==The ''Mary Stanford'' disaster==
In November 1928 Edwards witnessed the capsizing of the supposedly unsinkable [[RNLB Mary Stanford (ON 661)|''Mary Stanford'' lifeboat]] in Rye Bay with the loss of all aboard. <blockquote>
The unprecedented mass funeral, which was attended by representatives of King [[George V]], the Government and the Armed Services, was conducted by her father, the
Reverend Harry Newton.<ref>Parks 2006, p. 11.</ref>
</blockquote>Edwards knew all seventeen crew-members personally but was especially close to Charlie Southerden. In a letter to a school friend in January 1930 she described Charlie, who was six years older than she was, as her "boy friend" although the relationship was not public knowledge because of the difference in their age and social class.<ref>Parks 2010, p. 33.</ref> Much later she wrote a fictional account of the lifeboat disaster in ''Storm Ahead'', published in 1953.