SCHOOL TREASURE

Not a lot achieved today as the systems crashed this morning, had a very grumpy engineer running around the building setting up codes, replacing switches, annoying Residents all day long, gave me a chance to thumb through the book in the photograph . One of my old gents was sent to board on HMS Conway as a boy, this grand old vessel was used as a training ship for the merchant navy from the late eighteen hundreds until it ran aground off the coast of Anglesey in the early fifties, there's an interesting history here
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Conway_(school_ship)
The book was a present from his father on his passing out in 1941, written by John Masefield, himself a alumina of this fine ship, it's been a treasured possession through his life, David spends a lot of time reminiscing about his time at sea during the war, I've heard the story's ten times over but still listen attentively to him as I'm afraid he doesn't seem to have that many friends left & due to Ill health never seems to get out and about much.
Back to the book, it's a history of the Conway up to about 1933, full of facts & anecdotes of a schooling on the waves with many fine photographs, written as I said by John Masefield who from a poor start as a rotten seaman became poet Laureate in 1930, like the ship he has an interesting biography which can be found here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masefield#section_1
for those who remember their own schooldays I'll end up with one of the poems I was taught to recite in the days when the three r's ruled.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.


From "Sea-Fever", in Salt-Water Ballads (1902)