Francis Brett Young by W

^ > x ;- ¦"'"¦<"s^*- 's/St^'% >%fcf ¦¦*$ *' Physicians in literature. Part VIII: yet to be discovered: Francis Brett Young By W. E. Swinton Brett Young was doctor, poet, soldier, ham Quay, where his patients were the Royal Army Medical Corps, he was writer and musician but seems never mainly the fishermen and sailor folk, posted to a Rhodesian unit that ended to have got the acclaim he should have who combined a hard life with uncer¬ in East Africa. It was part of the drive had. His name is not much in encyclo- tain earnings and whose integrity much against the Germans in German East pedias, but perhaps his death is too impressed the young physician. Brett Africa, and he was one of the many recent for that. His books are still listed Young had stated with assurance that officers under the command of General in "Books in Print" but one will find he would be a poet, but that was when Smuts, whom he always admired and them more readily in the public li¬ he was 5 years old and his own gifts came to know well. His services as cap¬ braries than in the bookshops. Yet he in that direction were not yet to be tain and eventually major were much wrote eminently readable novels, he seen, though he had a keen apprecia- interrupted by sickness, and he was composed songs and set others' poems tion of others' . especially the poems finally invalided with a 60% disability to music, he was the companion to of Robert Bridges, the physician and because of malaria. During his con¬ famous writers and statesmen, but his current poet laureate. He was, how¬ valescence he wrote a novel and a book name is not among those that are read¬ ever, an able pianist, and when he mar¬ of poems. He was not well enough off ily recognized today. ried Jessica Hankinson in 1908 he was to adopt an idle life in a more pleasant In some ways he is like Conan Doyle, climate. Visiting Ana Capri, he and his in others like Somerset Maugham in CMAJ concludes the series by Dr. wife found a beautiful villa at an in- that he travelled widely and had ac- Swinton on physicians who have con¬ credibly low rent. Here was a cool rest¬ with ministers and tributed to literature. The articles, ing place in a setting, complete quaintance prime In¬ lovely men of affairs; all three shared an sponsored by the Jason A. Hannah with a shady garden. As for neighbours, early interest in historical tales and stitute for the History of Medical and what aspiring writer could ask for more Related Sciences, were stimulated by than Axel Macken¬ mythology. the interest of the CMA committee on Miinthe, Compton zie and D.H. who were He was born June 29, 1884 in Hales archives. The illustration is supplied Lawrence, all Owen, Worcestershire, England, the son by the Metropolitan Toronto Library concentrated on the island at that time of T. Brett Young, MD. His mother Board. Reprints of the series are avail¬ with their wives? Here Brett Young be¬ came from a medical family, her father able from the institute at 50 Prince came a warm friend of all of them, John Jackson, being a well known Arthur Ave., Ste. 105, Toronto especially of his physician colleague "hunting" doctor hunting for foxes M5R 1B5. Axel Miinthe. rather than patients. Hales Owen was The scene was surely set for some a mining and industrial town, its cul¬ beginning a lifelong pattern of accom- form of concerted literature or for tural fame resting on William Shenstone panying her as a well known singer and high-level indolence, but it was not so. (1714-1763), the poet who had some also of setting Robert Bridges' songs to Brett Young wrote and wrote, earning influence on one of Brett Young's music for her. a living meantime by translating. And characters and earlier was the subject Their life in Brixham was happy, cer¬ although the gentle climate and the of a biography by Samuel Johnson. tainly in retrospect, and continued so glorious sea might inspire an author to Young Francis was brought up by until 1914. The sea was to become one localized writing, he wrote as he felt his mother on the romantic tales of of Young's favourite subjects and the about anywhere and anybody that cap- Scott and Stevenson (as was Conan theme of his first novel, "Deep Sea" tured his fancy or was begotten in his Doyle), and these must have had a (1914). To share the fishermen's ex¬ mind. While he passed some of the days lasting effect upon him. Unfortunately, perience he interrupted his practice for in medical conversation with Axel his mother died when he was 14, and nearly 2 years to be a ship's surgeon on Miinthe (one of the favourite topics ap¬ in any case he was shortly sent to voyages to and from Japan. It may be parently being pederasty), 13 of Brett school at Epsom College in Surrey, presumed that the practice was not un- Young's most English works were writ¬ which has had a long connection with duly disturbed by this hiatus, though ten in Capri. The streets of Bromsgrove the medical profession and where he one of the most notable aspects of his and the medical wards of its hospital won a prize for English literature. From life was the very deep affection that he are as clear as if they had been written Epsom he went quite naturally to med¬ and his wife had for each other and in Warwickshire. ical school, that of Birmingham Uni¬ their sense of deprivation, even desola- Nor did he forget the war and its versity where in due course he took his tion, at the other's absence. toll on his contemporaries. His "Elegy MB, ChB in 1907. When World War I came, he was at in Whitehall", from his novel in verse He began practising in 1907 at Brix- once anxious to play his part. Joining "The Island", written for Nov. 11, 1920, CMA JOURNAL/MARCH 20, 1976/VOL. 114 557 may be quoted for its contrast to that books were not successes or good of John McCrae's writings. novels. All perhaps show that a medical man has an initial advantage as a writer. Gladly they fell - and we who live complain He can observe details, combine the Not that they died, but that they died in symptoms of character as well as he vain. can those of disease and he can diag- In vain? Ah let no bitterness dispraise nose the moral and the immoral. Like Their shining valour, nor with doubt many another writer, Brett Young's becloud genius was itself most accurately diag- Their vision of the peace they dreamed nosed when he was dead. But there was they won not only his writing. It is interesting For us, the heirs of sovereign sacrifice. that when he was invited to address the But see... the impatient crowd Royal Society of Literature in London Stirs, its brief rite of reverence is done. 4 Hark! The shrill silver of reveille shakes he chose as his subject "The Doctor in The stillness of grey skies, Literature". Here he dealt with Rabe- And, with a mighty shudder, London lais, Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich, wakes! Lodge and Campion (the Elizabethan In her huge heart the quickening pulses poets), Vaughan the Silurist, Locke the swell philosopher, Crabbe, gentle Goldsmith, Their rhythmic beat. Dear Dead, we wish Smollett, Keats and Shelley (who both you well. walked the London hospitals), Francis Their stay in Capri was not uninter- Thompson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, rupted. They visited South Africa in Robert Bridges, Chekhov and Balzac. 1922 and made two visits to the United He had a heart attack in 1944 after States. Despite his fluency with prose writing "The Island", and recovery was and verse and his industry in fiction, he slow. He and his wife decided to re- was almost unknown until, in 1927, he move themselves to South Africa, near won the James Tait Black memorial Cape Town, whose climate he had en- joyed and where he had made friends, prize for "Portrait of Clare". Francis Brett Young during World War I He declared, about this time, that including his old commander, Smuts. "My task is, by the power of the writ- of fishermen and deep sea sailors, had He still wrote, but the days were grow- ten word, to make you hear, to make come a long way, but he never forgot ing shorter for him, and he died Mar. you feel - before all to make you his medical background. As early as 28, 1954. His ashes were brought back see." 1918 the writer and critic Edward to England and laid in Worcester The call of England, its green fields Garnett wrote to him about "The Cres- Cathedral. and the villages that smell of flowers cent Moon": "This book raises the It may be of interest to those who after rain, began to be heard. Even sun- question - on what lines might you overlooked his novels that he was shine becomes tiresome and England develop your quite considerable talent? greater than the bookshops seem to can be relied upon for climatic variety, It might help you to study the example know. John Masefield named him so in 1932, thanks to the success of of Chekhov who was also a medical "The most gifted, the most interesting "My Brother Jonathan", they took a man." and most beautiful of mind among the house in the Lake District, a handsome Brett Young himself analysed author- younger men writing English." Comp- house with gracious rooms, and a good ship.

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