Ships, Signs & Sea Shanties - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt  image  shows a group enjoying pre-dinner drinks on a cruise ship.  None of my family have ever been on a cruise ship, so I am focussing  instead on the past and my (very loose) connections with the sea, plus memories from school days of poems and sea shanties.  

Family connections with the sea rest with my husband's family who across generations moved from Leith (Edinburgh's seaport), to South Shields on Tyneside in North Eest England and Portsmouth in the south coast of England - the site of Her Majesty's Dockyard. 

 

 The occupations of the Donaldson's and their extended family (White and Moffet)  ranged from merchant and master mariner to  seaman, caulker, roper, ship's carpenter and river policeman.  

Great Great Grandfather John Robert Moffet (1814-1881)   - a photograph  supplied by an Internet family contact - the only image I have of my husband's mariner ancestors who faced storms at sea  as part of their daily lives.

At Tyne & Wear Archives  I discovered the ships that GGG grandfather Robert Donaldson and GG grandfather Matthew White  sailed on around Europe - on ships, many of which came to a sad end - though not under their captaincy. 

It  is amazing what diverse directions family history can take you.  To me "snow" was the white stuff falling in winter and a "smack" was a slap to a recalcitrant child. But that all changed as I began researching maritime history, and learnt about the different names for ships in the 19th century - barque or bark or barc, brig, sloop. smack and snow. 

 

 

 

 

 An aerial view taken as we were coming into land at Newcastle Airport, with a clear picture of the River Tyne estuary, its north and south piers. and on the left South Shields.  A piece of gtivia information - the first purpose-built lifeboat in the world was built in South Shields in 1789.

 

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My own connection with boats, ships is slight  

 

The Cal Mac ferry   leaving Oban for Mull. 

Oban, meaning "little bay" in Gaelic, lies on the Firth of Lorne on the west coast of Scotland. and is often regarded as the unofficial capital of the West Highlands. and "Gateway to the Isles", with the  Cal Mac  (Caledonian McBrayne) ferries sailing from there  to Mull, Coll, Tiree, Colonsay, Barra and South Uist. 

  Husband and daughter plus our pet - we had the top desk to ourselves on this dreicht day, sailing from Oban to the Isle of Mull.  Even our dog did not look very happy!  

Not the Greek Islands, not the Caribbean - but a beautiful scene on the  island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland, (often portrayed as "it always rains"),   looking across to the hills on the Isle of Mull. 

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 In September 1966,  I returned home from a year in the USA, travelling aboard the Cunard liner "Sylvania" from New York, calling at Boston and Cobh, Ireland,   before reaching Liverpool.  The ship, small by today's cruise ship standards, was very quiet and I was lucky to get a cramped 4 berth cabin all to myself.  Goodness knows how four adults could have managed in the space, without someone  being perched on top of their bunk.  Commercial jet planes services  were hitting the transatlantic  scheduled shipping and the Liverpool-New York sailings were axed in November after my return.  Still I enjoyed this experience  and had my first glimpse   of Ireland with dawn over Cobh. 

 

 

 

Across the Atlantic sailing ships were my focus on these two lovely signs in New England.   

 

In Newport, Rhode Island

 

 By the 19th century Edgartown on the island of Martha's Vineyard  was one of the main whaling ports on the American Atlantic coast. Scrimshaw is the craft of decorating or carving whale bone or ivory, done by sailors as a recreational  activity.   

Maintaining the link with whales, Edgartown was used as the main location for shooting the  town of Amity in Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster "Jaws".  

 

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Talking of sailing ships brought to mind two of my favourite poems remembered from school days.  Do children learn poetry any more at school?  Writer John Masefield (1878-1967)  went to sea at age fifteen on a large sailing ship, then worked for a time in New York City before returning to England in 1897. His experiences aboard the ship provided him the raw material that made him famous as a sea poet. 

 

The poems are just made to be read out aloud, with   the use of alliteration,  colourful imagery, and evocative language. 

 

 

             "CARGOES"                    

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores

 

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days

With a cargo of Tyne coal

 Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

 

I remember in the school choir, singing a choral versions of  the poem, which I have never heard since.  We particularly enjoyed the last verse where we had to spit out to enunciate the  staccato words "Dirty British coaster with a salt caked smoke stack" - try it!



"SEA FEVER"
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

 Did you sing sea shanties at school?  In my primary school days,  every Wednesday afternoon we gathered in the hall for community singing and I learnt such patriotic songs as   Hearts of Oak, and Rule Britannia which we sung with great gusto.  Sea shanties were among our favourites  as we swung from side to side to sing "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?"    Another favourite was the one below  - especially the chorus lines at the end of each verse.

 T''was a Friday morn when we set sail

And we were not far from the land

When our captain, he spied a fishy mermaid

With a comb and a glass in her hand

Oh the ocean waves do roll

And the stormy winds do blow

And we poor sailors are skipping at the top

 

While the landlubbers lie down below, below, below

While the landlubbers lie down below

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Finally to my very tenuous sea connection - taking part in a student production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore".  In the first photo, I am second from the right with the pink parasol.  

 

 

 

 

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share
their family history and memories through photographs.

 

Launch yourself  HERE to discover 

other shipping tales from fellow Sepians.

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