NAUTILUS P01 OCTOBER 2010.qxd - Nautilus International

30 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | October 2010
MARITIME HISTORY
Cadet became
master writer
John Masefield in his later years. He died in 1967, at the age of 89
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From Merchant Navy trainee to Poet Laureate is quite some career path.
Trevor Boult tells the story of the seafarer-turned-writer John Masefield…
F
John Masefield has been
described as ‘A brightness
not of this world’. To
seafarers, and many former pupils
of school-taught English, he will
be largely remembered for two
poems: Sea-Fever, and Cargoes.
This is a testament to his talent,
for these poems were amongst
the earliest of his published writ-
*Based on total number of students
ings, which were to span a period
of some seven decades.
Masefield was able to pen
such verses in his early 20s from
the conviction and sensitivity of
youthful personal experience —
a potent quality openly acknowledged
by the great writer of the
seas, Joseph Conrad.
His current reputation largely
rests on these sea poems, but this
obscures his wider
achievements.
He was as much
a celebrant of
the English countryside,
was Poet
Laureate for many
years, and became e a
best-selling author
— publishing many
volumes of verse,
plays, novels, historical
works and volumes
for children.
Yet Masefield was
so much more than a
writer. Regarded as a sea
poet, his actual experiences
of sea life were relatively
short. But they were
intense, and of a nature
that quickly gave his ing undeniable and lasting
writ-
authority.
F
Born in Herefordshire
in 1878, Masefield’s early
years were spent in idyllic
rural surroundings. Beyond
the garden of the family home
lay a reach of the Hereford and
Gloucester Canal, then still active
in the movement of coal. To the
young lad the canal was one of the
wonders of the world, the barges
carrying ‘hearts of gold and
cargoes of wonder, and always,
always, returning a salute, even at
a distance’.
Water had a compelling attraction
for Masefield, and the early
experiences which meant most
to him were those which occurred
when he was alone amidst the
beauty of nature.
His mother was an able inventor
of stories for her children, also
delighting in poetry, and the first
ever poem which moved young
John he learnt by heart for her.
Poignantly, it was Tennyson’s The
Dying Swan.
Before Masefield was seven
years old, his mother succumbed
to a fatal illness. Her
son became ‘a
swift, eager,
gluttonous
reader’, par-
ticularlyo
of
exciting
fiction.
Such
avid reading
was to bear rich fruit, ling both his creative imagination
fuel-
and his innate abilities to retell
out loud the stories he had read.
Inspired by a godmother whose
supportive influence shaped his
ideas and tastes, these were the
positive elements in Masefield’s
life, which countered the grievous
family loss and the increasing disruption
to family life.
John Masefield began life as a
boarder at Warwick School before
he was 10 years old and for the
first time he committed verses
to paper. ‘I was too young... and
they found that I wrote poetry. I
tried to kill myself once by eating
laurel leaves but only gave myself
a horrible headache.’ But he soon
adapted and came to enjoy life at
the school.
After his father died, Masefield
was taken under the guardianship
of an uncle and aunt. Although
this was considered a courageous
and unselfish act of family loyalty,
the aunt’s personality did not permit
a happy atmosphere. To John,
especially, she was brutally scathing.
His artistic leanings were
met with crushing disapproval,
whilst his love of books aroused
her scorn.
To toughen him up, it was
she who first
suggested
that he should
be trained to
go to sea. Such
were the work-
ings of fate
that a callously
motivated
act
should
unwit-
tingly combine
with
an inspir-
ing
account of
life on
the school
ship HMS Conway,
and
John Mase-
field scuppered his
aunt’s intent in the
onrush of his enthu-
siasm to enrol.
I
F
In common
with
other
such school
ships of the period, HMS Conway
provided initial training and a certain
amount of general education
for boys wishing to become officers
in the merchant service. The
transition from sail to steam was
well advanced at this time, but
an apprenticeship in sail was still
considered the best preparation
for a career at sea.
At this time the Conway was
moored in the River Mersey.
Masefield joined her when he was
13. He was overawed by his first
sight of the great port of Liverpool,
but he had no inkling of ships or
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Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
from Cargoes by John Masefield