Charles's father died when he was seven, leaving his mother Laura to bring the boy up on her own. Charles was different from his classmates at his Cornish primary school: short-sighted, shy, old for his years and fascinated by language, he found it difficult to fit in, and his closest bond was with his mother. In adolescence, he began to look elsewhere for the love he craved, only gradually realising that it was not the kind of love society looked kindly on.

When war broke out, Charles joined the Navy with the newly-establlished rank of coder. His escape from the narrow confines of Launceston to the colour and violence of war saw him face not only the possibility of a brutal death, but the constant danger of a love that was as clandestine as his work. Always intensely private, Causley kept his most intense feelings to himself all his life, but Patrick Gale has found in his poetry and journals the clues that have allowed him to recreate imaginatively the making of one of our best-loved poets.

1/10 A pair of broken glasses. Laura takes matters into her own hands when Charles comes home from school with his spectacles smashed.

Writer: This is Patrick Gale's seventeenth novel. He lives in the far west of Cornwall on a farm near Land's End. As a patron of the Charles Causley Trust he was already passionate about Causley’s poetry, but it was only when he started to look more closely into the poet’s life that he hit on the idea of basing a novel on him.

Reader: Tristan Sturrock was born and raised in Cornwall, and was lucky enough to know Charles Causley. He has worked for many years with the theatre company Kneehigh, has taken leading roles with the National Theatre and is known for his TV roles in Doc Martin and Poldark.

Abridger/Producer: Sara Davies Show less