NORMAN NICHOLSON
Image courtesy NWEvening Mail
Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson was born on January 8th, 1914 at 14 St.George's Terrace, Millom. At the time, Millom was a small mining town and the life blood of the community. Norman's father, Joseph, ran a men's clothing shop, and his mother Edith died when Norman was only a small child. Joseph later remarried to a woman named Rosetta, who became Norman's deeply loved guardian. His grandparents settled in Millom during the mid 1800's while the haematite mining industry was experiencing rapid growth. Within Norman's lifetime, his town would see a drastic decline in the industry that eventually failed altogether. The mines closed in 1968, affecting all manner of life for the people of Millom. Norman commemorated that day with the poem "On the Closing of Millom Ironworks." Millom remained his home for the whole of his life, and the tribulations that it was subjected to would profoundly affect his thoughts and who he would become. The autobiography, Wednesday Early Closing, documents Norman's childhood.
Norman Nicholson was diagnosed with tuberculosis when he was 16, and spent two years in a Hampshire sanatorium to recover. His hermetical days led to voracious reading, and his continued fragility of health throughout life gave rise to him answering the vocational call from Calliope, the muse of poetry. His love for his town was affected by the bleakness that industrial loss had brought to it. It was no longer a thriving town, but rather a disheartening, sombre place. In an effort to avoid his dreary surroundings, he spent time trekking to outlying locations. He discovered that all around him were things that deserve to be marvelled at. The Duddon Estuary and the West Cumbrian coast was full of remarkable life. Birds, flowers, and other wildlife managed to thrive in the same environment that to him felt so oppressive.
During his early career, Norman published reviews for the Times Litereary Supplement and became a lecturer to the Workers' Educational Association in Whitehaven. He published his lectures in Man and Literature in 1943. That same year, some of his work was published in a compilation called Selected Poems. His writing career was taking off very quickly now. Only one year later, he released Five Rivers, a collection of poems about Cumbria and other topics that were close to him. Five Rivers won the Heinemann Prize for poetry. His second book of poetry, Rock Face, was not to be released until four years later. In the interim and beyond, Norman wrote several religion based plays, some of which were performed in London. His slightly unusual themes saw, in one example, the Prophet Elijah relocated to Cumberland. His warnings of famine and keeping of the land was used to relay a message about man's harmful exploitation and damage to the earth. No doubt this came from his personal philosophies; seeing the ravishing Millom took due to mining.
A busy man, Norman produced two novels, The Fire of the Lord in 1946, and The Green Shore in 1947. He released another collection of poems in 1954 called The Pot Geranium; however, he was at this point he started a new line of writing. He managed to write several biographies about people important to him. Included in this were works about Wordsworth, H.G. Wells, and William Cowper, who wrote about life in the English countryside. Norman, too, wrote about life in the countryside, of course focusing on his own favourite part of the country-the Lake District. He produced works entitled: Cumberland and Westmorland, The Lakers: The Adventures of the First Tourists, Portrait of the Lakes, and The Lake District: An Anthology.
Gradually, Norman Nicholson began to focus more on the people that inhabited the region, rather than the physical location itself. Sea to the West, which was published in 1981, may be the finest of his work of this type. It was focused on Norman's family life, and those people that surrounded him.
In 1982, Norman lost his wife of 26 years, and claimed he would never write again. Fortunately, he did. To coincide with the 1985/86 appearance of Haley's Comet, he wrote the poem "Comet Come," which it is said his father had seen in 1910 from his own window in St George's Terrace. It would be in that same house that Norman Nicholson died on May 30,1987. During his long and rich career, he had many commendations which would include the Heinemann Prize, the Cholmondeley Award, and the Queen's Gold Medal. In 1981 he was awarded the OBE. There is now a plaque that marks the house in which he lived. It reads "Norman Nicholson, Man of Millom."
Hear 5 poems beautifully written by Norman Nicholson.
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