Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Medway, Swale and the Kent coast
This is what we want to see at the top end of Faversham Creek – a thriving busy area of water, workshops and quayside that preserves and is in keeping with the history and spirit of the place. This is where barges, smacks and smaller boats, boat building and boat maintenance belong, and where they could add to the real interest of the town.
I hope it happens.
The Faversham Creek Trust, whose plan this is deserve our support. Read more and consider joining them here.
Despite the controversy, there’s something that touches the soul about seeing the newly re-hulled paddle steamer Medway Queen on her home river again.
I only hope some kind of regulatory miracle can be achieved that will make it possible for her to carry passengers. Her new riveted hull may be an accurate reproduction of the original, but I gather there is a big question over whether she will be able to work as a pleasure steamer under the rules – and over whether she would be viable if she did.
Read more about her here and at the Medway Queen Preservation Trust website.
My thanks to cruising sailor, bargeman, singer and melodeonist Mick Nolan of the Thames Sailing Barge Trust for the photos! (Why not like the TSBT’s very popular Facebook page?)
A new recording of this striking little song notable for its Shakespearean theme of gender confusion on board ship. I’ve stuck my neck out rather by recording it for Islington Folk Club’s annual Trad2Mad competition for singers who perform unaccompanied, so wish me luck! (PS – the late news is that I’ve been shortlisted! Now my fingers are seriously crossed!)
My wife and I are starting a series of free monthly singing workshops in the evening of the first Tuesday of each month in our home area of mid-Kent.
Julie is a formally trained singer who knows a lot about technique, while I’m a folkie with a long-standing interest in traditional songs including sea songs (as regular readers will know), and a passion for engaging an audience’s attention with a good tune and a story full of human interest.
Although it’s nice to have one, we don’t believe you have to have a wonderful voice to be an effective singer. So our aim will be to help people gain enough confidence to sing, to make a musical sound and to communicate their story.
Among other songs, sea songs will be a regular feature of these workshops – partly because they’re often great, earthy songs and popular almost everywhere, but also because they don’t generally demand a big vocal range and so are very suitable for those who are just getting started.
If there’s anyone you know who might be interested, please let them know.
Read all about the Horsmonden Song Workshops.