I lived from 1900-1987.
We don't know a lot about Hamish Maclaren. He was born around 1900. His father in northern Scotland sent him at the age of twelve to the Osborne and Dartmouth Naval Training College where he trained to become a "Naval Officer and a Gentleman," and received his hands-on sailing experience aboard a black cutter called the Wideon. He graduated in 1917, in time to serve as a gunnery officer aboard a destroyer, which had a skirmish with German armoured cruisers.
Read full description by Charles Ipcar and Lucilla Maclaren Spillane...
After the war Maclaren returned to Scotland on leave, wandered around England for a while, and then rejoined the Royal Navy. He was sent out to the Mediterranean and later the China Station, where he mustered out in Shanghai during the mid 1920's to follow a life of personal adventure and literary work. Upon his return to England he supported himself by writing articles and stories for various magazines; his articles and poems appeared in The Spectator, The Blue Peter, and The Cornhill Magazine.
During this period he also began his major literary work. His first published novel was THE PRIVATE OPINIONS OF A BRITISH BLUEJACKET in 1929; be warned that this book is written in lower deck language and spelled phonetically with scant punctuation. His sailor's folk opera SAILOR WITH BANJO followed soon after in 1929, with an expanded edition published in 1930; there is no evidence that this folk opera was ever produced and there is no surviving musical scores for the songs. His semi-autobiographic book COCKALORUM, a collection of personal sketches and short stories, was published in 1936.
In the 1930's he married Jean Tringham.
After that according to his surviving daughter, Lucilla Maclaren Spillane:
"He was on Naval reserve and in WW II was recalled and promoted to Commander. He was with the Naval Press Bureau and whilst walking home one evening, a bomb went off close by. He was ill as a result of the bomb blast, but made a full recovery. However, the literary field waits for no man and by the time he had fully recovered, he had lost touch with a lot of useful people and his planned next book (remained) unwritten. He did not resume his literary career."
Maclaren died in 1987.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
His books include:
The Private Opinions of a British Bluejacket [p:1929
Sailor with Banjo [p:1929, 1930
Cockalorum [p:1936
Bio by Charley Noble and Lucilla Maclaren Spillane
My poetry
Now we are the rodent mariners,
As nobody needs be told,
65 lines
O I'll never see my lotus lady more,
Away boys, walk away together!
29 lines
Who has seen the Silver Feather
Flying in across the foam,
41 lines
Where is Henry Adams now, that planned the Agamemnon?
Sink him in his hammock, boys, he's gone far away!
13 lines
A stranger came out of the west,
And there swung at his belt a key.
34 lines
To-morrow I'll up, at red of morning,
Shoulder my traps, and leave behind
41 lines
O a lady in Pennsylvania, lovely Nancy, you'll be! —
Sweet my lady blow away and blow away!
18 lines
If all the young maidens were blackbirds and thrushes —
Sing merry, sing merry, now fly not away!
14 lines
Listen, sailor, listen! Who is this that calls
In the shadowed nutmeg island, under the blue walls
24 lines
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