IN SEPTEMBER 2011 (I am reminded by that diligent sleuth Robert Briggs of Harrington Street), I mentioned that Edgar Wallace had, as a lad, and out of sheer desperation, done a stint on a Grimsby trawler.
I was only able to tell you this because Mr Briggs had discovered mention of it in his search through old newspaper files. But we weren't able to tell you which trawler he'd sailed on, nor the name of the owners. This week I still can't!
But, further mention of this incident has come to light (thanks, of course, to the further diligence of Mr Briggs) and while it fleshes out the story it only adds a complication.
In 1938, Margaret Lane wrote Wallace's biography (Heinemann, 10s 6d!). Wallace left school aged 12 (in London) and drifted from one grim and short-lived job to another, mostly as a printers' boy and never for much longer than a fortnight.
But he met a chap near Billingsgate and having a juvenile desire to "run away to sea" was persuaded by this man to come to Grimsby and sign on. So he did.
A Grimsby trawler is the not the ideal craft on which to "run away to sea". But needs must and he became a captain's boy and the ship's cook "in one of the trawlers of the Hewett Fishing Company". The vessel's name is not supplied.
But the firm was not a Grimsby concern. It was, my files tell me, a Lowestoft firm of smack owners.
Anyway off he goes in December 1890, but a mile out of Grimsby he discovered he was no sailor.
"The trawler pitched and rolled and stank of fish (what else I ask myself?) and young Wallace, wrestling with cocoa and mutton stew in the cramped galley made him deathly sick and his misery did not diminish."
It was bitterly cold and his culinary offerings of soggy suet and greasy swill resulted in his ears being boxed by both skipper and mate.
On February 7, the trawler put into Grimsby and Wallace, who'd had enough, ran away – well, walked away – to London.
He walked to London, in winter, in his sea boots which lasted him to St Albans where he stole a pair of shoes.
He lived in old barns and stole food to survive.
It took him three weeks! Poor chap.
That's it really. But interesting.
Hewett's of Lowestoft I reckon had herring drifters. But by 1912 there is no mention of the firm. Its flag was plain blue and the drifter's funnel plain black. I dare say the firm was swallowed up in mergers and so on.
Wallace? Well he did get home and found yet another thankless job – milkman with a horse. The international fame that was to be his was just around the corner.
Read more from Peter Chapman in today's Grimsby Telegraph.
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