At some time in the mid-1950s, fifteen pupils at Monkton Combe Junior School, near Bath, Somerset received a hand-written letter and accompanying drawing from John Masefield in response to what he calls their ‘letter of appreciation and enquiry’. In it, he explains to the boys his vision for the quinquereme described in the poem ‘Cargoes’, which was included in Ballads, his second published volume of verse. 1