THE tragic story of a Falklands war hero from Blackburn has been told in an e-book.

The story of Garry Whitford, who died when his ship HMS Ardent was sunk in Falkland Sound on May 21, 1982, is told in ‘Through Fire and Water’.

Author Mark Higgitt painstakingly researched the story of the sinking of the Royal Navy’s ‘forgotten frigate’ by Argentinian planes, which resulted in the loss of 25-year-old Garry and 21 of his shipmates, and caused injury to 30 more.

Although Garry, who lived in Moorside Avenue, only joined HMS Ardent at Easter 1982, ‘Through Fire and Water’ charts the frigate’s journey from Christmas 1981 in Amsterdam, to her sinking in Falkland Sound – and beyond.

It follows the families who waved off sons, lovers, brothers, husbands and fathers as the ship left the dockyard.

Former journalist Mr Higgitt’s cousin had served on board the ship, and the author had initially planned to write the story as a series of news features to mark Remembrance Day.

But after carrying out research into HMS Argent, he realised the story to be told was much bigger.

He spoke to families of five of the men who died, including Garry’s brother Alan, in order to tell their stories, and the stories of those who were left behind.

He said: “It was such an untold story with so many different points of view, and the ship had played such a part in the retaking of the Falklands that I realised pretty soon after doing the first interviews that this was probably too big to be written for the following weeks.

“People knew some of what had happened but not all – people at one end of the ship didn’t know what was happening at the other end.

“The more I spoke to families the more determined I was that the book should be published and that’s what I set out to do.”

The book has already received rave reviews on Amazon and it has now been selected from thousands of titles as one of Amazon’s ‘Daily Deals’, on Friday, October 11.

Each day the website unveils new book deals at a specially discounted price-for that day only. Deals start at midnight and end at 11:59pm.

‘Through Fire and Water’ will be available at a special discounted price next Friday from: http://www.amazon.co.uk