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At Home With The Poet Laureate In His Eightieth Hear: Now eighty, and only recently recovered from illness, it is good to see pictures once again of Dr. John Masefield, M, the Poet Laureate, and to have read his Poem of Welcome, written to celebrate Her Majesty's return? Down at Bureote Brook, near Abingdon, where he has lived for long years, Dr. Masefield, is still active in and about the house and garden caring for his library of books, working on his hobby of painting ships, attending to the garden shrubbery, and doing a certain amount of writing. John Masefield became Laureate in 1930, succeeding Robert Bridges. He was the son of a Hertfordshire lawyer who refused the call to desk work, and preferred the call of the seas. At 14, he went to sea and travelled the world over, raining experience for his later writings. At 23, he wrote his first poetry, after trying to work on dry land in a variety of jobs. His first volume was published in 192 entitled Salt Water Ballads'. 1908 saw his novel Captain Jargaret, and his first drama The Tragedy of Man a year later. Many works, fiction, fact prose and verse followed, till in 1930 his career was crown by the Laureate, and in 1935 with the Order of Merit. As Laureate, an office descended from that of Court Jester, he receives97 annually from the Civil List, 70 being emoluments and the remainder in place of a butt of sack. The Poet Laureate Today: John Masefield At Eighty: After an illness recently, Dr. Masefield is again at work in his home near Abingdon

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Abingdon Amount Annually Attending Ballads Brook Caring Certain Descended Doing Eightieth Eighty Entitled Experience Fact Followed Hear Hertfordshire Hobby Jester Laureate Lived Masefield Merit Poem Preferred Prose Raining Recovered Refused Remainder Sack Shrubbery Succeeding Till Travelled Verse Writings Wrote

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