A Perfect Captain

by J C Noble

 

         Intelligent, educated, honest and capable Captain Freeman proved to be someone most of us would  want by our side in an emergency. He left no account of his early life or close family connections in Suffolk but hopefully this paperback and E-Pub book, A Perfect Captain by J C Noble, will introduce him to a host of new admirers. (Book will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Nook, iBooks, the Lulu.com bookstore and many other retailers..)

       Captain Freeman became famous after saving his ship the SS Roddam following the volcanic disaster of 8th May 1902 on Martinique when his was the only ship to escape the devastation. In later years one of his crew said of him '… he exemplified all the virtues of a perfect Captain …’.

      He spent his early years in the comfortable middle class world of Suffolk, a rural county which, throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enjoyed a slower pace of life. He lived through a time when horse power was slowly giving way to traction engines, steam ploughs and the railways although the muscle power needed to move goods and people, and to work the land remained with the horse well into the twentieth century.

      Captain Freeman lived and sailed in an age when  elegant sailing ships, which today we call ‘tall ships’, were gradually being replaced by iron ships initially driven by both sail and steam, and eventually by steam alone.

       This is the story of his life -  his birth in Frostenden, Suffolk, his family and the events which forced his family to move to Walton on the Naze in Essex when he was eight, and the tragedy surrounding his father's death when he was nine. His schooling and apprenticeship to a Liverpool shipping company, his travels around the great Capes, the captains he met along the way, and his gradual rise in the Merchant Navy to captain of the Roddam. 

       His travels took him on voyages all over the world including Australia, South Africa and the United States during which he encountered storms, the loss of shipmates, ship's rescues as well a living through the volcanic disaster on Martinique when Pelee erupted killing tens of thousands on inhabitants in St Pierre including his own brother-in-law. He saved his ship and was later involved in another ship's rescue while in command the York Castle for which he received a gold watch from President Theodore Roosevelt.

       Much has been extracted from written records and included are newspaper reports of various incidents, his own description of some events, and those of some who witnessed and experienced the same events in which he was involved.

       This is the first book published which tells the story of the man who was Captain Freeman of the Roddam.