Rochester

GEORGE ERNEST ROCHESTER (1898 - 1966)

Rochester was the most popular writer of air adventure stories during the 20s and early 30s, before the advent of W.E. Johns (q.v.) and Biggles. He was born in Alnmouth, probably in Front Street; his father was a joiner and his mother a Durham-born nurse. Rochester enlisted as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in 1918. Shot down in August of that year, he was a prisoner in several camps, eventually ending up in Landshut - Captain W.E. Johns' prison. In 1924, he was living in Alnmouth at the same time as Johns was in residence down the coast in Whitley Bay.

In 1924, Rochester married Dorcas Shotton in Morpeth and sent his first story to Boys Own Paper in 1925. His character Harry Davies, known as 'The Flying Beetle' became a popular figure and Rochester topped the BOP ratings in 1927-8 by a mile. In 1928 he began writing for the famous Modern Boy magazine, which became his home for the rest of its existence. In 1929, he moved to Broadstairs in Kent. In 1936 no fewer than sixteen of his titles were published by John Hamilton and he was declared to be the most popular writer of flying stories. After serving with the RAF in World War II, Rochester continued writing but after the death of his wife in 1952 he went into a decline. His last known book Drums of War was published in 1957.

Rochester possessed fewer literary resources that W.E. Johns but could, at times rise above the formulaic, to evoke and sustain an atmosphere. - poignantly doom-laden in the case of The Despot of the World (1930;1936). James Mackenzie writes:

'Who could fail to be moved? The opening words combine that note of melancholy and wonder that Browning captured in "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" :
'Day is almost done, and shades of the coming night are creeping in across the restless sea to swathe in grey shadow the silent dunes of sand. As I sit here by my window I see again in the deepening dusk that strange fantastic company of Castle Grim. They pass before me, a phantom host, but I can name them all: the cruel and merciless Zanderberg, warped of mind and body, yet brilliant of wit; the gentle Guillaume, scarred by the knout, crippled by the fetters, yet with the hint of gallant laughter in his weary eyes; the brutal Borstorge.'

As the narrator drifts into this dream of the past, he takes the reader with him to the quest that was "the most perilous and most tragic of them all." And so a giant shadow already hangs over this story of the flying adventurer, Harry Davies, the Flying Beetle. The reader knows that, whatever difficulties are overcome and whatever triumphs are achieved, death awaits the hero. The book's success lies in its tone – an impenetrable sadness that pervades it from the first. And, at the end, is also a turn of the plot that I dare not give away – a sacrifice that is both wonderfully upsetting and tragically uplifting.'

The story opens in Alnmouth where a message comes to Major Beverley from a ship's captain who has docked in Amble. He has walked the six miles in a gale of wind and driving rain merely to deliver it to Beverley's lonely, breaker-besieged house . To Danzig and then to Zilsen is the first lap of our narrator's pilgrimage to Castle Grim, the particular dark tower of this story. Flying adventures involve encounters with the Soviet Air Force over Siberia, and a full-scale battle between Communist fighters and the pirate squadron leaves you uncertain about which side you want to win. Beverley finds a comradeship with the very men that he is meant to be defeating and a champion in the man who earlier he believed wanted to kill him.

The poignant self-sacrifice of Harry Davies led (as in the case of Sherlock Holmes) to a public clamour for his resuscitation

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
GEORGE ERNEST ROCHESTER (1898 - 1966) Rochester was the most popular writer of air adventure stories during the 20s and early 30s, before the advent of W.E. Johns (q.v.) and Biggles. He was born in Alnmouth, probably in Front Street; his father was a joiner and his mother a Durham-born nurse. Rochester enlisted as a cadet in the Royal Flying Corps in 1918. Shot down in August of that year, he was a prisoner in several camps, eventually ending up in Landshut - Captain W.E. Johns' prison. In 1924, he was living in Alnmouth at the same time as Johns was in residence down the coast in Whitley Bay. In 1924, Rochester married Dorcas Shotton in Morpeth and sent his first story to Boys Own Paper in 1925. His character Harry Davies, known as 'The Flying Beetle' became a popular figure and Rochester topped the BOP ratings in 1927-8 by a mile. In 1928 he began writing for the famous Modern Boy magazine, which became his home for the rest of its existence. In 1929, he moved to Broadstairs in Kent. In 1936 no fewer than sixteen of his titles were published by John Hamilton and he was declared to be the most popular writer of flying stories. After serving with the RAF in World War II, Rochester continued writing but after the death of his wife in 1952 he went into a decline. His last known book Drums of War was published in 1957. Rochester possessed fewer literary resources that W.E. Johns but could, at times rise above the formulaic, to evoke and sustain an atmosphere. - poignantly doom-laden in the case of The Despot of the World (1930;1936). James Mackenzie writes: 'Who could fail to be moved? The opening words combine that note of melancholy and wonder that Browning captured in "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" : 'Day is almost done, and shades of the coming night are creeping in across the restless sea to swathe in grey shadow the silent dunes of sand. As I sit here by my window I see again in the deepening dusk that strange fantastic company of Castle Grim. They pass before me, a phantom host, but I can name them all: the cruel and merciless Zanderberg, warped of mind and body, yet brilliant of wit; the gentle Guillaume, scarred by the knout, crippled by the fetters, yet with the hint of gallant laughter in his weary eyes; the brutal Borstorge.' As the narrator drifts into this dream of the past, he takes the reader with him to the quest that was "the most perilous and most tragic of them all." And so a giant shadow already hangs over this story of the flying adventurer, Harry Davies, the Flying Beetle. The reader knows that, whatever difficulties are overcome and whatever triumphs are achieved, death awaits the hero. The book's success lies in its tone – an impenetrable sadness that pervades it from the first. And, at the end, is also a turn of the plot that I dare not give away – a sacrifice that is both wonderfully upsetting and tragically uplifting.' The story opens in Alnmouth where a message comes to Major Beverley from a ship's captain who has docked in Amble. He has walked the six miles in a gale of wind and driving rain merely to deliver it to Beverley's lonely, breaker-besieged house . To Danzig and then to Zilsen is the first lap of our narrator's pilgrimage to Castle Grim, the particular dark tower of this story. Flying adventures involve encounters with the Soviet Air Force over Siberia, and a full-scale battle between Communist fighters and the pirate squadron leaves you uncertain about which side you want to win. Beverley finds a comradeship with the very men that he is meant to be defeating and a champion in the man who earlier he believed wanted to kill him. The poignant self-sacrifice of Harry Davies led (as in the case of Sherlock Holmes) to a public clamour for his resuscitation
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