|
Nevil Shute Norway was born
17th January 1899 at Ealing, London,
the youngest of two brothers and
the son of a senior civil servant
in the General Post Office.
At an early stage it was obvious
that his interests lay not in things
academic as did his brother's but
in things practical, having been
caught playing truant from school
only to spend his time studying
the mechanical exhibits and early
flying machines in the Science Museum
in South Kensington.
The family moved from London
to Dublin in 1912 when his father
was appointed Secretary to the Post
Office in Ireland. Nevil Shute had
attended various schools in England
including Shrewsbury and it was
whilst on holiday from there that
he was in Dublin during the Easter
uprising in 1916, and acted as a
stretcher bearer.
In June, 1915, his older brother
Fred had died of wounds in Flanders
during WW1. He was quite fatalistic
about his future at this stage,
having seen many of his seniors
at school killed in the fighting
in Flanders as well as his brother.
His stammer, from which he was to
suffer to some extent throughout
his life, probably saved him from
this fate as it prevented his earlier
attempts to obtain a commision in
the army and then the new Royal
Air Force. After enlisting in the
ranks of the Suffolk Regiment he
was posted to the Isle of Grain
in the Thames Estuary for the last
three months of the war.
After the war he was demobilised
and secured a place at Balliol,
Oxford, where he studied Engineering,
graduating in the summer of 1922.
During the vacations he became acquainted
with boats by acting as crew on
a sailing cruiser and had already
started his connection with the
aircraft industry, working unpaid
at De Havillands where it was Geoffrey
de Havilland himself who gave Nevil
Shute his first experience of flying.
His first full time work was at
De Havillands near Edgware in January
1923 where he was employed as a
performance calculator.
He started writing in his spare
time in the evenings, first poetry
and then a novel, and in the spring
he learned to fly. Finishing his
first novel later in 1923 he sent
it to three publishers and was turned
down by them all. A second attempt
followed in 1924 with the same result.
Later that year he left De Havillands
to join the Airship Guarantee Co.
at Howden, Yorkshire, a subsidiary
of Vickers, as chief calculator
on the R100 airship project.
This was the private enterprise
project while the Air Ministry would
build R101 in competition. The Chief
Engineer at the Airship Guarantee
Co. was Barnes Wallis, later to
become well known as the designer
of the 'geodetic' aspect of construction
of the Wellington bomber and the
'bouncing bomb' used on the dams
raid.
His next writing attempt, 'Marazan',
an aerial drug-smuggling adventure
was accepted and published in 1926.
At this stage he decided on his
peseuodonym of Nevil Shute, not
wanting his writing to undermine
his credibility as an engineer.
As the R100 project continued
he carried on with another novel,
'So Disdained', an aerial spying
story, published 1928 (US 'The Mysterious
Aviator'). By November 1929 the
airship R100 was complete and ready
for trials in 1930. Shute was by
this time Deputy Chief Engineer
under Barnes Wallis and after the
first flight of R101 effectively
in charge of the project. The trials
were successful as was a proving
flight to Canada and back and the
airship was then hangared whilst
the testing of R101 was supposed
to be carried out. In the event
there was very little testing and
R101, en route to India on a proving
flight, crashed in France killing
48 of the 54 passengers and crew,
ending all development of airship
travel in England.
Nevil Shute had become engaged
to be married to Frances Heaton,
a doctor at York Hospital and at
the end of the R101 project, when
he found himself unemployed and
newly married, he decided to start
an aeroplane manufacturing company
(as one does!). Aviation was booming
and with a senior designer recruited
from De Havillands and the backing
of Sir Alan Cobham, Airspeed Ltd.
was formed, based first in Yorkshire,
and held its first board meeting
in 1931 with Shute as Joint Managing
Director.
'Lonely Road', a novel of gun
running and political revolution,
was published in 1932 and selling
the film rights brought an additional
welcome income but the next novel,
'Ruined City', did not appear until
1938, a reflection of his concentration
on the fledgling company. Producing
gliders to earn some quick income,
eventual success came with multiple
orders and a move to a new factory
at Portsmouth but still little,
if any, profit.
The Airspeed Oxford, a twin engined
trainer, was used to train most
bomber command pilots and 8751 were
built (most under licence by other
manufacturers). The peak for Shute
was selling one of their aircraft,
an Airspeed Envoy, to the King's
Flight in 1937 but this had been
at the cost of little home life
with his wife and two daughters
except for occasional weekend cruising
in their yacht, Skerdmore.
In 1938, with war brewing and
orders for aircraft for the RAF
in the hundreds, the Board of the
company dispensed with Nevil Shute's
services, an action which he says
in his autobiography 'Slide Rule'
(1954) was probably quite right
- his forte was as a starter of
companies and not a runner. With
a generous settlement from Airspeed
Nevil Shute could now reassess his
future.
Prior to the outbreak of war
in 1939 his novel 'What Happened
to the Corbetts' had been published,
an account of Britain under aerial
attack and which his publishers,
Heinemann, issued in a special presentation
edition to the newly formed ARP
(Air Raid Precautions) personnel.
By 1940, deciding to give up engineering
research to take part in the war,
he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer
Reserve.
Within two weeks Sub. Lt. Norway
was seconded from his training ship,
still in civilian clothes, by the
Admiralty's Department of Miscellaneous
Weapons Development where they wanted
someone with aircraft experience
to work on combatting air attacks
on shipping. This Department of
highly qualified scientists and
technicians evaluated numerous proposals
for aiding the war effort, some
highly successful and others less
so. Amongst them was a project inititiated
by the Petroleum Warfare team of
a large flame thower firing a mixture
of diesel oil and tar as a shipboard
defensive weapon - an idea familiar
to those who have read his novel
'Most Secret' (1945). He wrote the
foreword to the history of the work
of the department, 'The Secret War
1939-45' by Gerald Pawle.
His novel, 'No Highway', 1948,
covered the problems of metal fatigue
and sudden in-flight failure of
structures in aircraft, almost as
if he had prior knowledge of the
Comet disasters of the 1950's. Prior
knowledge and second sight were
themes that recurred and he also
uses them to effect in 'An Old Captivity,
1940, and 'In the Wet', 1953, set
in the rainy season in Australia.
'Round the Bend', 1951, a story
of diligent aero engineer is set
against the background of the development
of a commercial air freight company.
After the war, disillusioned
with political changes and the financial
restraints of post-war Britain,
Nevil Shute settled in Australia
and his later novels reflect this
change of domicile. Probably his
most famous was 'A Town like Alice',
1950, a love story set firstly during
the Japanese occupation of Burma
and the East Indies and later in
Australia.
Throughout most of his books,
however, you can see him drawing
on his personal experiences whether
in the aircraft industry, wartime
or his sailing but, authentic as
they are, these are only background
settings. He had a natural ability
to tell a story, to build sympathetic
characters and write in such a way
that grips the reader from an early
stage.
It seems from his autobiography
that he spent his life as if each
day were of 30 hours instead 24,
in his engineering days doing a
full days work before starting his
writing in the evenings. Such a
pace would wear down even a physically
fit man but he had a long history
of heart problems which finally
caught up with him and he died 12th
January 1961 at the age of 61 years.
|
Marazan 
So Disdained 
Lonely Road 
Ruined City 
What Happened to the Corbetts 
An Old Captivity 
Landfall 
Pied Piper 
Pastoral 
Most Secret 
Vinland the Good 
The Chequer Board 
No Highway 
A Town like Alice 
Round the Bend 
The Far Country 
In the Wet 
Slide Rule 
Requiem for a Wren 
Beyond the Black Stump 
On the Beach 
The Rainbow and the Rose 
Trustee from the Toolroom 
Stephen Morris 
The Secret War 1939-45 by Gerald Pawle