"BULLY” MARTIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 14 September 1936, Page 8

"BULLY” MARTIN

(To The Editor) Sir, —The Ben Boirlick was commanded by Bully Martin. How Captain Martin came by this doubtful compliment of his nickname is something of a mystery. It suggests on the face of it one of those flambuoyant and rumbustious personalities full of strange oaths and armed with a perennial belaying-pin who figure in nine out of ten of the sea novels of the present day. Captain Martin was nothing of the kind. I have been told by another captain who knew him that he felt the implication of the sobriquet very keenly. “He was no bully,” says a man who served under him in the Ben Boirlick; and he goes on to describe him as a strict and rather aloof type of shipmaster—redhaired, very regular in all his ways, every hair of his head a rope yarn, and every drop of his blood Stockholm tar. His invariable “rig,” when at sea, would no doubt horrify the kind of modern officer who is a stickler for uniformed smartness and likes to imitate to some extent his naval brethren. Skippers in those days were highly individualistic in their garb. The tall hat of course, was the official insignia of command ashore—that and a neatly rolled umbrella. But on board they indulged their personal tastes in ways which were surprising. Captain Woodget, of the Cutty Sark, always sported a Scotch cap; some wore bowlers, some saw-edged straws. There were captains in carpet slippers. There was even one who indicated his agricultural leanings,—further manifested in the shape of a regular poultry ranch on deck—by clothing his nether man in breeches and gaiters, as if he had actually carried out the proverbial' advice to sell a farm and go to sea. Bully Martin’s get-up, which never varied in the slightest, was as follows: Black tailcoat, cloth peaked cap, boiled shirt with white peaky collar and black tie. This account of - Bully Martin was written by Cicely Fox Smith. I shipped as a sailor before the mast

with this same ship, and Bully Martin was then captain of her. I joined her in Sydney bound for London. —I am., etc.,

C. W. J. TURNER. Atawhai, 11th September.