Man o’ War

Description

I’m related to Charles Algernon Fryatt, aka Captain Fryatt. It has been family folklore for many years that we are related to the brave Captain, although exactly how is a bit of a mystery. My maternal grandmother came from the east coast (in the Hartlepool to Hull area). Captain Fryatt was born in Southampton, but he plied his trade as a Captain in the merchant marine from the east coast particularly Harwich – so maybe, just maybe it’s true. There are many people out there whose bloodline to the good Captain is authenticated. Louise Gill, his great granddaughter, for example, has been involved in articles on the BBC website to explain the story of the Captain and the important historical context of his adventures and eventual demise. A lot of the information that makes up the story has only recently come to light so it is justified in an updated retelling.

As a distant relative, albeit unqualified, I felt that it was appropriate and justified for me to write an account of the historical context for Captain Fryatt’s story and how his part was important for public consumption during the Great War. My research pointed to how important his story is for today too as more and more details of the political climate at that time becomes available to us.

The resultant short story is a kind of historical fiction cum documentary. The story touches on Captain Fryatt within the drama of the time: sinking of the Lusitania, execution of Edith Cavell et cetera. Upon completion in February 2008, I sent it to a Literary Agent who’d told me that because of the centenary commemorations of the Great War, stories about the war that focused on peripheral human stories rather than battlefield tactics et cetera were in demand. The Agent asked me to turn it into a novel, but at the time, I was embroiled in other writing challenges and having never thought about writing it as a novel I never re-worked it. And so it remained in the bottom draw – until now.