Edward FitzGerald and Posh | Page 6

men, as, for a brief period of exaltation, he certainly did.
From the first meeting to the inevitable disillusionment FitzGerald delighted in the company of the illiterate fisherman. Whether he took his protege cruising with him on the Scandal, or sat with him in his favourite corner of the kitchen of the old Suffolk Inn at Lowestoft, or played "all-fours" with him, or sat and "mardled" with him and his wife in the little cottage (8 Strand Cottages, Lowestoft) where Posh reared his brood, FitzGerald was fond even to jealousy of his new friend. The least disrespect shown to Posh by any one less appreciative of his merits FitzGerald would treat as an insult personal to himself. On one occasion when he was walking with Posh on the pier some stranger hazarded a casual word or two to the fisherman. "Mr. Fletcher is my guest," said FitzGerald at once, and drew away his "guest" by the arm.
It must have been soon after their first meeting that FitzGerald wrote to Fletcher senior, Posh's father:--
"MARKETHILL, WOODBRIDGE, "March 1.
"MR. FLETCHER,
"Your little boy Posh came here yesterday, and is going to-morrow with Newson to Felixtow Ferry, for a day or two.
"In case he is wanted at Lowestoft to attend a Summons, or for any other purpose, please to write him a line, directing to him at
"Thomas Newson's, "Pilot, "Felixtow Ferry, "Ipswich.
"Yours truly, "EDWARD FITZGERALD."
{11 Market Hill, Woodbridge (showing tablet outside FitzGerald's old rooms): p36.jpg}
At this time Posh was earning his living as the proprietor of a longshore "punt," or beach lugger. In those days there were good catches of fish to be made inshore, and it was not unusual for a good day's long-lining (for cod, haddock, etc.) to bring in seven or eight pounds. Shrimps and soles fell victims to the longshoremen's trawls, and altogether there were a hundred fish to be caught to one in these days. Moreover, before steam made coast traffic independent of wind, the sand-banks outside the roads were a great source of profit to the beach men, who went off in their long yawls to such craft as "missed stays" coming through a "gat," or managed to run aground on one of the sand-banks in some way or other. The methods of the beach men were sometimes rather questionable, and Colonel Leathes, of Herringfleet Hall, tells a tale of a French brig, named the Confiance en Dieu, which took the ground on the Newcome Sand off Lowestoft about the year 1850. The weather was perfectly calm, but a company of beach men boarded her and got her off, and so established a claim for salvage. As a result she was kept nine weeks in port, and her skipper, the owner, had to pay 1200 pounds to get clear.
All things considered, it is probable that a Lowestoft longshoreman, in the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century, could make a very good living of it, and even now, now when poverty has fallen on the beach, no beach man, unspoilt by the curse of visitors' tips, would bow his head to any man as his superior.
FitzGerald always took a humorous delight in the business of "salwaging" (as the men call it), and in his Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast (No. II), he defines "Rattlin' Sam" as follows: "A term of endearment, I suppose, used by Salwagers for a nasty shoal off the Corton coast." In the same publication (I) he defines "saltwagin." "So pronounced (if not solwagin') from, perhaps, an indistinct implication of salt (water) and wages. Salvaging, of course."
Posh tells how his "guv'nor" would clap him on the back and laugh heartily over a "salwagin'" story. "You sea pirates!" he would say. "You sea pirates!"
In the spring of 1866 FitzGerald stayed at 12 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft, in March and April, and passed most of his time with Posh. In the evenings he would sit and smoke a pipe, or play "all-fours." In the day he liked to go to sea with Posh in the latter's punt, the Little Wonder. The Scandal was not launched that year till June, and although he "got perished with the N.E. wind" (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 101), he revelled in the rough work.
{12 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft: p39.jpg}
He must have been a quaint spectacle to the Lowestoft fishermen, for Posh assures me that he always went to sea in a silk hat, and generally wore a "cross-over," or a lady's boa, round his neck. Now a silk hat and a lady's boa aboard a longshore punt would be about as incongruous as a court suit in a shooting field. But FitzGerald was not vain enough to be self-conscious. He knew when he was comfortable, and that was enough for his healthy intelligence. Why should he care for the foolish trifles of convention?