What a Good Man Looks Like

The quiet heroes of Matthew Seller's journey

Matthew with the men who taught him more than they will ever know.

Matthew Seller was ten years old in 1822. He ran from his abusive father with nothing but over-sized boots, the clothes on his back and a desire to change his life. Before he could meet the man who would mentor him towards that, he needed to learn that some men could be kind and that being a man meant more than drunken rages.

That, as it turns out, required two men he never expected. A gardener named Nigel Beck, and a boatman named Bert Austin. Neither of them sets out to heal Matthew. Neither of them probably even noticed that's what they were doing. Even the reader may not notice that this is their important place in this book so this blog shines a spotlight on the small characters with a big impact.

The World Matthew Is Running From

A Legacy Forged starts when Matthew Seller leaves home in the dark. He is still a boy, but he has already seen things that will take years to quietly unpick. A legacy he brings with him is the fear that he will turn into his father, a man filled with rage driven by poverty. You will see Matthew wrestle with that throughout the book. It manifests in his suppression of rage which affects him physically — no spoilers!

His father, Matthias, is not a monster in any simple sense. He is a man ground down by poverty and the memories of beatings from his own father. His rage erupts into violence when the drink finds him and even though he loves his wife, Mary, he cannot stop hurting her. Matthew has felt the back of his father's hand more times than he can count, and he has watched his mother — a gifted, gentle, remarkable woman — absorb blow after blow while holding her children together with her free hand.

His brothers, John and Tom, are cut from their father's cloth. Solid, physical, unimaginative. Matthew, with his hunger for learning, his sensitivity with animals, his mother's eye for herbs and his restless, fizzing brain, has always been the odd one out. He has never quite fitted inside his own family.

He also had a boss who didn't respect his gift with horses, a sensitivity that in Matthew's world has been dismissed as softness. So when Matthew slips out of the cottage under a full Hunger Moon, he is not just running away from poverty, he is running away from a version of manhood that frightened him. A version that said strength meant hardness, authority meant domination, that a man who feels things is a man who is weak.

Matthew arrives in Wombourne not yet knowing what he is looking for, but desperately needing someone to show him there is another way.

Nigel Beck: The Quiet Dignity of a Good Man

Nigel Beck doesn't say much. That, in itself, is a lesson. When Matthew first arrives at Iron Forge House, scruffy, hopeful and with blistered feet, it is Charlotte Beck who takes him in, feeds him, and sees the potential inside the filthy, broken little ragamuffin. It is Charlotte who steers him towards her husband, Nigel who, without ceremony simply puts the boy to work. Charlotte is a blog for another time.

The work is backbreaking and Matthew discovers that his father was right. Sometimes you have to get on and do the jobs you don't want to do. Nigel Beck does not lower his standards because his helper is young, but here is the difference: the standards are clear, the work is honest, and — most importantly — the atmosphere is safe. Matthew knows exactly what is expected of him, and when he delivers it, he is respected for it. He feels part of the team. At last he fits.

Working alongside Nigel Beck in that kitchen garden is where Matthew first begins to notice colour. I mean that literally. It was as though his eyes were opened to the white of the frost, the early green of spring bulbs pushing through icy grass, the contrast of dark twigs against a blue winter sky. His world at home had always been described through the lens of gloom, of that low, heavy cloud that hangs over a house where fear and poverty lives. Here, with his hands in the soil and a quiet, steady man beside him, the world starts to reveal itself differently.

Nigel Beck is also watching. He sees his wife come alive in a way she hasn't for years. Charlotte had never been able to carry a child to full term, and the arrival of this curious, ragged boy fills something in a heart that she had stopped believing could be filled. Nigel cherishes what Matthew's presence brings her. He worries quietly about the day Matthew will leave, because he can see — with a clear eye that doesn't interfere or try to hold on — that this lad is built for more than a gardening assistant's life. He says it to Charlotte. He means it without resentment.

And when the day comes, when Matthew stands in front of him with a throat too tight for proper words and says,

"Thanks, Mr Beck, fer everything," 

Nigel puts his arm around his wife's shoulders and waves the boy off. No drama. No attempts to keep him. Just a man holding his woman steady as they both let go of something they loved.

Matthew had never seen a man be gentle with a woman he loved. Not like that. You will see that Matthew eventually has the opportunity to exercise gentleness with his own special woman.

Bert Austin: Firm Without Fury

Bert Austin is not a cuddly man. He is burly and quiet but in a surly way. He prefers his own company and finds conversation an interruption to getting things done. He has a contract with the nail warehouse to fulfil and he doesn't have time for a boy full of questions about things beyond the canals.

What he is, though, is fair and for Matthew, fairness from a man is something close to revolutionary.

Their meeting shows the reader the real Matthew. A horse in distress, a frustrated boatman jabbing and shouting, getting nowhere. Matthew, motivated by a need to help the horse, steps in not with force, but with calm. Matthew finds the horse's sweet spot at the base of his neck, talks to him quietly, and tells the boatman to try again. The horse allows it and Bert's temper settles. Matthew makes a poultice from bread, an onion and Mrs Beck's bicarbonate of soda and goes back every day with fresh dandelion leaves and cow parsley until the horse is sound.

Bert watches all of this. He doesn't say much. But he notices. What impresses him most is not the speed of the healing, but the way the normally grumpy horse tolerates Matthew without complaint. That tells Bert something about the boy's character. He watches and says nothing, other than offering him a deal. 'You walk with Samson, work the locks, leg us through the tunnel, unload thirty tons of nails in Birmingham and I'll get you to Brum.'

It's hard work, arh-kid. You good for that?

It's a business transaction, not a kindness; that is important. Matthew isn't being offered charity. He's being offered an honest exchange based on demonstrated ability. He has earned his place on that boat.

The journey takes almost three days at a slow, meditative pace. Bert is not a teacher in any conventional sense. He will tell a lad something twice at most and expects it to be remembered. He has no patience for weakness or repetition, but he is not cruel. When Matthew struggles with the windlass and has to call for help, Bert comes. He doesn't berate. He just comes. He teaches Matthew the locks methodically: how to draw the boat in, close the gate, release the water, move on. Travelling up water. Travelling down. The windlass. The paddles. The quiet, physical logic of a system built by brilliant engineers. Matthew, whose brain spins at the thought of mechanics and problem-solving, is entranced. The slow rhythm of it, the tap-tappetty-tap of Samson's hooves on the towpath, the steady draw and release of each lock, settles something in him that all the noise of his childhood had never beehttp://quiet.Liken able to quiet,

Like a marble in an empty tin, 

as Bert puts it.

Bert is economical with words. But the words he chooses are good ones.

What These Men Taught Matthew Without Knowing It

Neither Nigel Beck nor Bert Austin sits Matthew down and delivers wisdom. Neither of them knows they are parenting a wounded boy. They are just living their lives, getting the garden sorted, getting the nails to Brum and Matthew happens to be there, watching. But here is what Matthew sees:

He sees men who have authority without aggression; who set clear expectations and hold them without cruelty. Who do not need to raise a hand or their voice to make themselves understood.

He sees a man, Nigel Beck, who loves his wife quietly and demonstrates it by steadying her when she is sad, by noticing what she needs, by being present. Matthew sees a marriage that has warmth in it.

He sees another man, Bert Austin, who reads character through action rather than words. Who makes a fair deal and sticks to it. He sees a man who will come when he's needed but doesn't suffocate him; who respects a young lad's capability enough to give him real work, real responsibility, and real pay in the form of passage to the place he needs to go.

Between them, Nigel and Bert begin to draw the outline of something. An idea of manhood that Matthew had never had drawn for him before. Strength that doesn't require violence. Firmness that doesn't require humiliation. Kindness that doesn't ask for anything in return.

It is not the complete picture yet. That will come with Joe Murdoch, who will take everything these two men began and help Matthew to build a life with it. Then he will hand it, generous and whole, to Matthew.

But before Joe, there had to be Nigel and Bert.

Before Matthew could become the man he became, he had to see that such men existed at all.

A Word from Me

I was surprised at how moving it was writing these chapters. I jumped straight in with the violence that Matthew showed me through channelling. As I connected with him I felt Matthew's terror and the heartbreak of leaving his mother and sister. I felt the heartbreak of Mary too. I wept a lot as I wrote and realised that I was healing the grief of my ancestors, not just my own. It was a powerful few weeks. The next few chapters to Wombourne, with the dear-hearted Mr and Mrs Beck, and along the canals with Bert to Brum, was a time for Matthew to heal. It was a time of healing for me too and I found that it was an opportunity for me to get to know the real Matthew. Not the portrait which sits on the wall by my desk (Matthew is my great great great grandfather) but the ten year old who left home with nothing and created a legacy that put me where I am now — you can read the story behind this story here.

Matthew carries Nigel Beck and Bert Austin with him for the rest of his life, even if he never quite finds the words for what they gave him. I know this because when Matthew finally meets Joe — when the man who will make him looks him in the eye for the first time — Matthew already knows, somewhere deep in his bones, that this kind of man is real and can be trusted.

Nigel and Bert showed him that.

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