Category: Sailing ships

Lowlands away!

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Here’s a ghost story for Halloween – the great old slow sea shanty Lowlands, with an engraving drawn from Van der Velde and photos from Geoffrey Robertshaw.

To find out more about Robertshaw and his fabulous photos of the last days of sail, click here.

For more sea songs from our friends and ourselves, click here.

PS – Like many others, I was astonished to learn that this year’s Turner Prize has been won by a sound sculpture featuring this very song.

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Introducing jig doll Sailor Jan

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I’d like to introduce this engaging little dancing chap. He’s a jig doll, his name is Sailor Jan, and he was made by Harry Price, who was a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy.

Born in 1877, Price lived until 1965, and made his home for many years at Fingle Bridge, near Drewsteignton in Devon.

The young man in the video is noted Dartmoor-style melodeon player Mark Bazeley, who is the grandson of the legendary local dance musician and caller Bob Cann.

I’d just like to drop a name, if I may – I met Bob once or twice in music sessions in the 1970s, and as well as great player I must say he was a most charming and kind gentleman.

I should also add that the music here comes from banjo whizz Rob Murch, and Matt and Dan Quinn. (Everyone involved has given me permission to put this up, by the way.)

Here’s how Mark tells the story:

‘The doll was given to my grandfather at least 30 years ago, probably more, by Harry’s family. Bob always said it was around 100 years old.

‘We later heard from someone else that it was carved from wood from the old de-commissioned ship HMS Warspite. I’ve not been able to confirm this though.’

According to the Wikipedia, there have been quite a few vessels with the name HMS Warspite, but I’d like to think the ship in question was this one, and I wonder whether little Jan was made from a piece of furniture – perhaps a table –  that came from one of the messes.

Alternatively, it may have come from one of the two HMS Warspites that were destroyed by fire. However, I gather that a family joke has it that HMS Warspite’s days came to an end because someone cut a hole in her planking that just happened to be the size and shape of a jig doll just like Sailor Jan himself. Of course that couldn’t possibly be true – or could it?

The wreck of the Northfleet revisited

The Northfleet

Edgar March’s book Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar, volume 2 explains a little more about the famous collision off Dungeness that wrecked the Northfleet, and the rescue that followed it. (See an earlier post on this topic here.)

I had no reason to imagine that the story of the sinking would be included in a book about boats rather than ships, but what he has to say is an interesting surprise – he paints a vivid picture of the horror and chaos of that night.

‘On the 22nd January 1873, the emigrant ship Northfleet, while riding at anchor in Dungeness Roads, was run down by a large steamer which proceeded on her way. Panic broke out on board, the night was pitch black and only two boats got away in the fight to get aboard. Mary [a fishing lugger] was anchored off Dungeness and her master, George Pout, saw the distress rockets, hove up and bore away, narrowly missing one of the lifeboats, deep laden with 34 people and sinking, no one had thought of putting in the plug. After taking all on board the lugger went on, but found nothing. Northfleet had sunk with the loss of 327 lives. Later the Spanish [ship] Murillo was identified as the guilty steamship.’

The story of the wrecking of the Northfleet has interested me ever since I first heard local fisherman old Johnny Doughty singing it – and even more so after I first learned his version for myself a couple of decades ago. (Why not click on the link to learn my version and contribute to the process of oral transmission, aka the folk process?)

I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who has a version of this song, as I gather it’s still known, not least among the  communities of the Dungeness area. Please contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com.