Clements Romancing Ireland

Richard Hayward, 1892-1964
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-84351-632-3
Verlag: The Lilliput Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 424 Seiten

Richard Hayward was one of Ireland's best-loved cultural figures of the mid-twentieth century. A popular Irish travel writer, actor and singer, he led an intense and productive life, leaving behind a remarkable body of work through his writing and recordings. However, since his death in a car crash in 1964, the man who was a celebrated Irish household name has suffered neglect. Originally published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death, Romancing Ireland has now been reissued in an elegant paperback edition. Paul Clements brings to life the flamboyant personality, laced with hubris, of a largely forgotten figure who contributed a cosy and unthreatening narrative to the construction of an Irish cultural world. Romancing Ireland uncovers an extraordinary man with limitless energy and passionate perceptions, who captured a newly independent Ireland in all its changing hues.

Paul Clements is a travel writer, broadcaster and author of three other books on Ireland: Irish Shores: A Journey Round the Rim of Ireland (1993), The Height of Nonsense: The Ultimate Irish Road Trip (2005), and Burren Country: Travels Through an Irish Limestone Landscape (2011). He has written and edited two books on travel writer and historian Jan Morris, and is a contributing writer to Fodor's Guide Ireland and Insight Guide Ireland. A former BBC journalist, he is a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and lives in Belfast.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Clements, Paul

Leseproben

ONE‘Soaked in Irish songs and stories’ (1892–1910)

The main street lined with open booths heavy-laden with yellow-man, hard nuts, cinnamon buds, and divers other tongue-tickling morsels. And old Mary Kirk nearby with her oranges and Larne Rock, and Ned Welch, and “Zig Zi Ah” Alec MacNichol, and ould Jimmie Morne. I don’t know Jimmie’s real name but he was always called Morne because he came from Magheramorne. Alec always affected a straw hat and a white waistcoat, and even as a child I used to envy his carefree life.

Richard Hayward, In Praise of Ulster, 1938

Although he took pride in his Irishness and had a great love for the country, Richard Hayward was born in Lancashire. On 24 October 1892, at 21 Forest Road, Southport, Harold Richard became the fifth of six surviving children. Within three years of his birth the family moved to Ireland where he grew up on the east coast of County Antrim. In later life he grappled with his birthplace trying to mask his English origins. His passports contain conflicting places and dates of birth. One states that he was born in Larne, County Antrim on 23 October 1893 and gives his profession as actor and singer, while a later passport in which he is described as an author, lists his place of birth as Southport and date of birth 24 October 1892.

His father, Walter Scott Hayward, the son of a London ironmonger who owned a foundry, was born on 17 April 1855 at 20 St James Walk, Clerkenwell. The company was called Hayward Brothers and was based in Union Street, Borough. They made manhole covers that are still visible in Irish, British and foreign cities bearing the name Hayward. During the late 1860s as a teenager, Scott Hayward spent time in deep-sea voyages before beginning a yachting career in 1871 with a small five-ton single-mast sailing boat, Rover. When he moved from London to the north of England he continued a lifelong interest in designing and sailing yachts. His first club was the Royal Temple in London, which he joined in 1871, racing his boat in club matches. His parents moved around different locations in England; firstly to Brighton on the south coast in 1873 where he joined the local sailing club, and then north in 1877 to Manchester. There he became a member of three clubs: the prestigious Royal Mersey Yacht Club, Cheshire Yacht Club, and New Brighton Sailing Club. Cruising and racing on the Mersey, as well as involvement in coastal regattas and local matches, took up a good deal of his time.

Conflicting passport details show that Hayward tried to disguise his English place of birth: the left-hand passport states that he was born in Southport on 24 October 1892 while the one on the right incorrectly lists his place of birth a year later as Larne, County Antrim on 23 October 1893.

With his handlebar moustache, Scott Hayward comes across as a confident dashing figure, perpetually busy, mixing business with his passion for sailing. After taking an examination in 1878 he was awarded a Board of Trade certificate as Master – a distinction achieved by few amateurs – and the following year chartered a small schooner, Resolute, making a trip to the coast of Morocco. On his return he was soon on the move again, settling in Southport where the attraction of the sea and opportunity to pursue his sailing skills held immense appeal. In 1880 he married at Ormskirk registry office Louisa Eleanor Ivy, the daughter of a local silk merchant, John Robson Ivy. Known as Louie, she was born on 24 January 1859 at Shoreditch in Middlesex and was four years younger than her husband.

Hayward’s father, Walter Scott Hayward, one of England’s leading yachtsmen, photographed in 1896 with his Royal Mersey Yacht Club cap and Liver Bird badge.

Hayward’s mother Louisa Ivy, known as Louie, was born in 1859 and was the daughter of a silk merchant.

The newly married couple lived in a redbrick house in an affluent area fifteen minutes’ walk east of the town centre and close to the main central station. The advent of the railway from Manchester in the late 1840s had brought the wealthy to Southport. Alongside them were the elegant mansions and well-appointed residences of prominent cotton industrialists, mill owners, jam manufacturers and a large Jewish business community. Forest Road, which ran through a tunnel of ash trees at one end, was a mix of terrace, semi-detached and detached houses with their own gardens. Many were built with the distinctive Accrington brick that gave a glazed shining effect. Surrounding roads, some lit at night with cast-iron lamps, reflected the Victorian arboreal fascination.

It was the era just before the arrival of the electric trams in Southport at the turn of the century. When baby Richard was born in 1892 horse-drawn trams and milk delivery carts plied the cobbled streets along with cyclists and the occasional landau carriage. As a baby he was taken in his pram to the Fairground or the Winter Gardens with its conservatories, promenade walkways, aquarium and roller-skating rink. He was too young to be aware of the newly installed and controversial ‘Aerial Flight’, which carried visitors high overhead in gondolas suspended from wires across from the fashionable Marine Lake. It was not to everyone’s taste. Some residents complained vehemently that it spoilt the vista from the promenade and it was removed in 1911.

Locals cared passionately about their views. From the long seafront promenade the mountains of Cumberland and the Wyresdale hills of Lancashire stretched away to the northwest while to the southwest from the esplanade, the Welsh hills, ending in Great Orme Head were visible in the distance. Lying between the estuaries of the Ribble and Mersey rivers, Southport, facing the Irish Sea, was less brash than Blackpool, its neighbour to the north. Since the 1860s the town had developed considerably as a genteel tourist resort. Day-trippers enjoyed the mild climate and bracing flat coastal walks along the beach or over the sand dunes as well as secluded sea bathing. Sand-yachting was also a popular feature of interest to holidaymakers. They dined in the tea rooms and coffee houses lining the fashionable boulevard of Lord Street where handsome glass-topped wrought-iron verandas stretched out in front of the shops. The resort was noted for traditional family seaside entertainment such as coconut shies while sweet stalls offered toffee, chocolate, boiled and health sweets, and the must-have labelled stick of Southport rock. By 1891 the population of the borough had risen to 41,406. It had become a desirable residential town and the ideal place in which to bring up a young family.

Some ancestral Hayward details are difficult to verify. But a letter to Dorothy Hayward from one of Richard’s brothers, Rex, after his death in 1964, claimed a fascinating family history, including a connection to Haywards Heath in Sussex – although this was never established:

Richard must have told you that our father was a famous swordsman. I have a photograph of him with his breast covered with medals. Both he and his wife were crack shots. Mother could hit a three penny piece with a revolver at 20 paces. My father used to cut an apple in half on my mother’s head.1

Whatever the potency of the Hayward name, his forebears appear to have been colourful characters, and for the children it was to be a peripatetic existence during the early years of their lives. The exact birth date of their first child and only surviving girl, Gladys Ivy, is unrecorded but was most likely in early 1883. Her first brother, Charles Hembry, was born on 19 February 1884 at Oakford in Devon, and was followed by another boy the next year: Basil Dean, born on 18 October 1885 at Oughtrington, Lymm, in Cheshire. Just over three years later, Reginald (known as Rex) Ivor Callender was born on 21 October 1888 at Altrincham in Cheshire. Harold Richard became the second-last child when Louie gave birth again on 24 October 1892, and Casson Boyd was born on 6 January 1899. Three other children had died in childhood, including twin girls who succumbed to an epidemic disease. The surviving family comprised one daughter and five sons.

Even with a large family to support, Scott Hayward threw himself com- pletely into the local sailing scene, emerging as the leading small yacht racer in the northwest of England. He helped form the Southport Corinthian Sailing Club, becoming the first vice-commodore, a position he held for three years. He later became captain for three years. At the start of 1899, the Yachting World carried a 500-word profile of him in its series ‘Yachting Celebrities’ along with a full plate photograph showing him wearing his Royal Mersey cap complete with its Liver Bird badge. The magazine outlined why he set up the club:

During 1894, seeing that something must be done if Southport wished to take a position as a yachting centre, Mr Hayward decided to form a yacht club, purely for the improvement of the sport and for the education of the younger men, this being barred to a very large extent by the difficulty which attended becoming a member of the existing clubs.²

Apart from his involvement with this club he was instrumental in forming the West Lancashire Yacht Club (WLYC) of which he was commodore for six years. On its formation, he was also appointed commodore of the Rhyl Yacht Club in north...