20 Facts About Charles Causley

Charles Stanley Causley CBE FRSL was a Cornish poet, school teacher and writer.

Charles Causley's work is often noted for its simplicity and directness as well as its associations with folklore, legends and magic, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.

Charles Causley was educated at the local primary school and Launceston College.

Charles Causley enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1940 and served as an ordinary seaman during the Second World War, firstly aboard the destroyer HMS Eclipse in the Atlantic, at shore bases in Gibraltar and northwest England.

Charles Causley later wrote about his wartime experiences in his poetry, and in a book of short stories, Hands to Dance and Skylark.

The collection Survivor's Leave followed in 1953, and from then until his death Charles Causley published frequently, in magazines, in his own volumes and shared ones, in anthologies and then in several editions of his Collected Poems.

Charles Causley then worked full-time as a teacher at his old school for over 35 years, teaching for his very final year at St Catherine's CofE Primary elsewhere in the town, where the National School had been relocated.

Charles Causley twice spent time in Perth as a visiting Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and worked at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada.

Charles Causley travelled still more widely and frequently after taking early retirement in 1976 to pursue a full-time career in writing.

Charles Causley made many television and radio appearances over the post-war period, particularly for the BBC in the West Country, and as the presenter for many years of the BBC Radio 4 series Poetry Please.

Charles Causley used to say that he could have lived comfortably on the fees paid for the reproduction of 'Timothy Winters':.

In 1952 Charles Causley was made a bard of Gorsedh Kernow adopting the bardic name Morvardh.

In 1958 Charles Causley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and he was made a CBE in 1986.

Charles Causley was presented with the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in 2000.

Charles Causley was twice awarded a travelling scholarship by the Society of Authors.

Charles Causley was interviewed by Roy Plomley on Desert Island Discs on 1 December 1979: his music choices included five classical selections and three others, while his chosen book was Boswell's Life of Johnson.

The full text of "Eden Rock" accompanies a recording on the Poetry Archive website of Charles Causley himself reading it aloud, shortly before his death in 2003.

Charles Causley himself declared that he did know whether a given poem was for children or adults as he was writing it, and he included his children's poetry without comment in his collected works.

In June 2010, the first of a continuing series of annual Charles Causley Festivals took place in Launceston, held over a long weekend.

In recent years, the Charles Causley Trust has administered a children's poetry competition.