I have chosen self publication of my book as unless one has achieved notoriety either by gigantic national fraud, become a pop idol, or indulged in suicidal one-man glorification attempts etc. it is extremely difficult to interest a publisher.
Thus Edward W. Martell explains in his foreword why he published his book himself. One might also comment that publishers tend to avoid autobiographies which might kindly be described as uneventful. At any rate, he was certainly right in his assessment of the level of interest his work would excite in the hard-nosed world of conventional publishing; we must be glad therefore that he was not deterred from spending his own money to bring us this delightful little book, peppered as it is with instances of Pooterish anti-climax and inconsequentiality.
It is the story of an ordinary man, and how he rose from a menial job at an engineering works to ownership of a removal company and suburban prosperity - which he eventually packed in for the rural life and the hard reality of running a farm. This is the “moving on” of the title, by which he contrasts his far from extraordinary life with that of someone he knew who stayed forty years in the same house. In other words, there is always someone even duller than oneself. In fairness, his story is not entirely free from interest - we learn both how to mate pigs and castrate them - but his unselfconscious habit of recording pointless banalities, such as this description of his early working life, gives it a different value as entertainment to that intended:
One of my first jobs was to take small strips of brass, place each one in a vice, bend over the end with my fingers, take each piece out of the vice, then again squeezing it in the vice. This was a simple enough job except that the quantity required was for one thousand which entailed opening and closing the vice two thousand times. I was not to know that in a few years to come I was to make a press tool obviating these tedious operations.
Future historians hoping to learn more of the young inventor may be frustrated by certain curious omissions:
I cannot remember anything outstanding at my twenty-first birthday party held at number seven.
And, even more tantalising in its hints of darker forces:
I have tried to pinpoint the final break-up of my courtship with Gladys Browning. The last recording in my diary was a social dance at her place of employment, Peter Robinsons, the West End store, on 25th October, 1922.
Fortunately he did keep a record of another, more important occasion; he does not seem to have been an adventurous type, on the whole, but he has this thrilling tale to tell of a voyage on the high seas:
Holidays at this difficult period were not an annual event. I recall an unpleasant experience during a short stay at Eastbourne accompanied by my now regular girl, Ada Abbott. We had become engaged a year or so earlier. I do not have any record of the date of our engagement, our parents could not afford to pay for parties or even announcements in the press. During this holiday we had booked a sea trip from Eastbourne to the Isle of Wight and had risen early in order to obtain a favourable position in the boat. The morning was bright and clear. We were among the first on board and had a feeling of joyful anticipation of a pleasant journey.
The boat or ship, I am not sure when a boat becomes a ship, had pulled into the pier, having come from nearby Hastings. From the first moment that I felt the then slight rise and fall of the boat I was aware that Ada and I had bought and paid for something not so good. I could see evidence of seasickness from the passengers from Hastings not yet cleared up by the stewards. I endeavoured to dismiss my fears and put on a show of nonchalance as also with us were three young girls from our boarding house. The distance from the Eastbourne pier to the lighthouse at Beachy Head was quite short, but long enough for Ada and the girls to show the first signs of seasickness.
By the time the boat had rounded Beachy Head almost all the passengers had their heads over the rail, dignity and breakfast thrown to the wind. The vessel rolled, dipped, rose and fell continuously. I managed, although feeling shaky, to hold out longer than some, but at last was forced to go below. I have been told since that this stretch of water off Beachy Head will even upset many hardened sailors. We knew that this Hell on water that we were in was due to call at Brighton and decided to crawl off there. In our misery we thought that we could see Brighton pier in the distance - the thought of terra firma made us both feel slightly better. But what we thought was Brighton pier, like a mirage in a desert, turned out to be Newhaven. At this disappointment we were both ill again and remained so for the rest of the tortuous journey. We both staggered off the boat on to Brighton pier looking like death warmed up. I am sure that the pier was also in motion. On reaching the beach we flopped down nearly exhausted and even the beach did not seem steady.
After an hour or so, still feeling unwell, we booked a coach back to Eastbourne. I have recorded earlier that I was not a good traveller