For one of those, Sea Change, he won the 1948 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
He spent three years there, starting as an errand boy and progressing to greaser, labourer and crane driver.
His book Sabotage at the Forge (1946), set in a steelworks, is highly regarded for its accurate and effective description of a boy's experience in such an environment.
[3] After the First World War he went to sea in the Merchant Service and for seventeen years sailed in many types of vessel, gaining the experience which he later put to use in his books about seafaring.
His first published book was The Mystery of Obadiah (1943), an adventure novel set in Tynedale and featuring Thias Stringer, a 13-year-old boy.