The Midnight Folk: memory, magic, and consolation

The private griefs and terrors behind John Masefield's classic children's book

John Masefield was in his last year as Poet Laureate when I was born in 1966. I remember copying out his poem ‘Cargoes’ in primary school – “Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir”, and all that – wondering dimly what all these strange, beautiful-sounding words meant as I laboured over my ascenders and descenders. That John Masefield, stiff and dista…