After demobilisation in 1946, he took advantage of a government scheme to train as a teacher at Peterborough. He 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. He twice spent time in Perth as a visiting Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and also worked at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada. Charles Causley (1917-2003) was born and brought up in Launceston, Cornwall and lived there for most of his life. His father died in the First World War when he was only seven and this, as well as his own experiences in the Second World War, affected him deeply. His poems draw inspiration from folk songs, hymns, and above all, ballads. His poetry was recognised by the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1967 and his poetry is popular with everyone, making him, in the words of Ted Hughes, one of the “best loved and most needed” poets of the last fifty years. The Charles Causley Poetry Competition 2016". Give me challenge. 15 October 2016 . Retrieved 18 January 2017. In 1952 Causley was made a bard of Gorsedh Kernow adopting the bardic name Morvardh (Sea poet). [6] In 1958 Causley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and he was made a CBE in 1986. When he was 83 years old he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature: he greeted this award with the words, "My goodness, what an encouragement!" International Poetry Competition Results". The Charles Causley Trust. 9 December 2021 . Retrieved 9 December 2021.

Early in the Morning: A Collection of New Poems (1986), with music by Anthony Castro and illustrations by Michael Foreman Compare these two stanzas from Blake’s “London” with the opening of Causley’s “At the British War Cemetery, Bayeux”:

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Survivor's Leave followed in 1953, and from then until his death Causley published frequently. He worked as a teacher at a school in Launceston, leaving the town seldom and reluctantly, though he 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, and especially after his retirement which taken early in 1976 [2] was much in demand at poetry readings in the United Kingdom. He made many broadcasts. Guz" = Devonport; "tiddley suit" = very smart suit.—Partridge, E. (1961), A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English; 5th ed.; pp. 364 & 883. As well as words Causley loved music and was able to play both the fiddle and the piano. In his youth he was the pianist of a local band called the Rhythm Boys and provided the music for village dances around Cornwall. He once said ‘I think I have frightened more woodworm out of more pianos than anyone in the west of England.’ War & Teaching Causley’s work doesn’t focus exclusively on the county of his birth however. His time spent with the Royal Navy during the 1940s gave him some opportunity to see the world beyond the Cornish coast and to spend time with his other great love – the sea. Causley was born at Launceston, Cornwall, to Charles Samuel Causley, who worked as a groom and gardener, and his wife Laura Jane Bartlett, who was in domestic service. He was educated at the local primary school and Launceston College. When he was seven, in 1924, his father died from long-standing injuries incurred in World War I. [1]

Writing, editing and broadcasting after early retirement in 1976, Causley’s later years brought increasing recognition, honours and travel. He never married, struggling through later years in a modest terraced house in his beloved Launceston, before dying in 2003. His reputation and legacy grows steadily, and his home (now held in trust, and much restored) serves as a writer’s retreat and an occasional performance venue. A 60-minute documentary, ‘The Poet’, is scheduled for broadcast by BBC4 during his centenary year, 2017. Charles Causley Poetry Competition Winners". Literature Works SW - Nurturing literature development activity in South West England. 22 January 2015 . Retrieved 18 January 2017. The fifth festival in June 2014 was prefaced by the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Cyprus Well (another one later marked his nearby birthplace near St Thomas Church and the River Kensey). That festival also marked the centenary of the start of the First World War with a series of talks on war poetry. A documentary film about Causley's life and work, made by Jane Darke and Andrew Tebbs of Boatshed Films, featured in several versions across the 6th and 7th festivals (2015 and 2016). A shortened version of the full 1990 film, The Poet: Charles Causley, was broadcast on BBC4 as Charles Causley: Cornwall's Native Poet on 1 October 2017.He spent his evenings writing and his first collection of poems about his war time experiences, ‘F arewell Aggie Weston’ was published in 1951. In perhaps one of the most striking poems ‘Convoy’ Causley’s vividly laments the death of a sailor in the North Sea, perhaps an expression of the guilt he felt returning home when so many others didn’t. Writing because you must . . . After training in Plymouth and Lincolnshire, he joined the destroyer HMS Eclipse at Scapa Flow as an Ordinary Seaman Coder. Convoy escort duties took him to West Africa, and then Gibraltar, transferring to the shore base for service around the Med (where Eclipse later sank, with heavy losses). Rising to Petty Officer Coder, Causley joined the new carrier HMS Glory at Belfast, sailing to the Pacific. He was demobilised in 1946, chose to train as a teacher, and returned to teach in his old school for nearly 30 years. In “Cowboy Song,” another young man, bereft of family, knows he will be murdered before his next birthday. Even a seemingly straightforward narrative such as the “Ballad of the Faithless Wife” acquires a dark visionary quality when in the last stanza, personal tragedy unexpectedly modulates into allegory: The 2018 Charles Causley International Poetry Competition Results". The Charles Causley Trust. 7 January 2019 . Retrieved 25 August 2020. The June 2017 festival (the 8th) marked the centenary of Causley's birth in August 1917. There were rare performances of several of Causley's one-act plays from the 1930s, and a session from the illustrator John Lawrence and Gaby Morgan marking the reissue of Causley's Collected Poems for Children. The 2018 festival (the 9th) was headlined by poet and broadcaster Roger McGough, while the 10th festival was in June 2019.

Causley’s writing has many tones: not just sombre or portentous. His poetry – comic, magical, mischievous, mystical, spiritual (and spirited) by turns – has impressive technical skill, much learning lightly worn, and an unfailing instinct for coining an image or a turn of phrase.Causley’s next volume, Johnny Alleluia (1961), continues to explore the visionary possibilities of the demotic style. This fourth collection presents no stylistic break with Survivor’s Leave or Union Street. The poems remain exclusively in rhyme and meter, though he uses traditional prosodic forms with more overt sophistication to deal with increasingly complex material. The ballad continues to be his central form, though one now notices a pronounced division in the kinds of ballads Causley writes. In addition to ballads on contemporary themes (whose effects are often primarily lyrical), each volume now contains a group of strictly narrative ballads usually based on historical or legendary Cornish subjects. While Causley had from the beginning experimented with recreating the folk ballad, this enterprise now becomes a major preoccupation. In the introduction to his anthology Modern Ballads and Story Poems (1965), Causley confesses the basis of his fascination with “the ancient virtues of this particular kind of writing.” The narrative poem or ballad, he writes, allows the poet to speak “without bias or sentimentality.” It keeps the author from moralizing, but it “allows the incidents of his story to speak for themselves, and, as we listen, we remain watchful for all kinds of ironic understatements.” His poetry frequently refers to Cornwall and its legends, and Causley was recognised by being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd in 1955. His scope and interests, however, stretched far beyond his native county. In addition, many poems relate to fellow writers like Keats, Clare, Lorca, Day-Lewis, Clemo, Betjeman and to artists he admired: Van Gogh, Samuel Palmer and Maxim Gorky, as well as the sculptor of local East Cornish origin, Nevill Northey Burnard. Laurence Green (2013), All Cornwall Thunders at My Door: A Biography of Charles Causley. Sheffield: The Cornovia Press, p. 173, ISBN 978-1-908878-08-3.

Charles Causley gallery". Charles Causley Society. Archived from the original on 25 July 2011 . Retrieved 27 June 2011. Perhaps because of his years spent teaching Charles always had a special affinity with children and some of his best loved poetry was written for them. His book of poems for children ‘Figgie Hobbin’ named after a traditional raisin-filled Cornish pastry, was published in 1970 and I remember having it read to me as a child. Crammed with witty, satirical rhymes, many with a nod to Cornish legends, it became a firm family favourite. Among the English poetry of the last half century, Charles Causley’s could well turn out to be the best loved and most needed.’ Collected Poems: several editions, starting in 1975 and culminating with Collected Poems 1951-2000 (2000) Legacy [ edit ] Causley's grave in St Thomas Churchyard in Launceston, Cornwall, is barely 100 yards from where he was bornA bright and bookish child, he devoured the written word wherever he found it – including the romantic novels his mother, Laura, regularly borrowed from Launceston library. The Charles Causley Trust, a registered charity, exists to celebrate his life and work and promote new literature activity in the community and region in which he lived. [13] In 2006, the trust secured Cyprus Well, the poet's small house in Launceston, for the nation. After considerable repairs, refurbishment and upgrading, that has been opened on a limited basis to the public, and to provide a facility for a varied programme of activities. Most particularly, there has been a series of residencies for writers of all kinds, artists and musicians, as well as other heritage events. These promote both Causley's life and work, and the arts in general—especially across the South West region of Cornwall and Devon. Between 1962 and 1966, he was a working member of the Poetry Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain. After he retired from his career in primary school teaching , Causley was appointed as a Visiting Fellow in Poetry at the University of Exeter, and he was made an honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon. D.Litt.) there in 1977.