And here is the shipping forecast...

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There is something about the shipping forecast that is fascinating. I must have been listening to it for fifty years or so but I never seem to tire of it, In fact I eagerly await the broadcasts. I usually catch the early morning forecast when I’m off on my travels, suited, pointy shoe booted, Windsor tie knotted, and out into the stormy seas of the big wide work world.

Those seas have been pretty stormy of late and at times I’ve felt tossed and tumbled like a piece of flotsam, but somehow the constant of the shipping forecast makes me forget all that and I’m transported to ‘sea area whatever’ at least for a short time.

It conjures up all sorts of images in my head; old black and white movies, boyhood story books, lighthouses and foghorns, whales and whalers, it’s almost an adventure in itself – no it IS an adventure in itself and all good adventures deserve a soundtrack. So here’s a little sea shanty and to accompany it my illustration of me lost on the (air) waves of the shipping forecast.

BTW - look closely at the illustration and see if you can spot the fish.

The Shipping Forecast

Here is the shipping forecast, the radio says.
From my seat I’m transported to sea.
Riding white tipped waves,
From my armchair ship,
An uncomfortable place to be.

Sea area Viking
Horn helmeted Hun
And Shannon and Fastnet and Malin.
Straight out of a book where whalers kill whales
And cabin boys fall from the rigging.

Sweet Dover and Sole, so good when light fried,
And Portland and Dover and Wightey.
Bailey, Hebrides too
Faeroes up high and true,
And Forties, brow botoxed so tightly.

Up Utsire North, then down Utsire South.
I relish them both when first heard.
Neither much when first read.
But banshees when said,
Ut-seeeeeeeeeeeeera - a scream of a word.

Then Cromarty, Forth,
A black and grey chap, jumps onto the bridge from a train.
Wearing a Fair Isle sweater –
Sorry, I should know better!
Suspended so high in the rain.

It was Fitzroy who founded The Met - I’m astounded!
No forecast if not for he.
As predictor of weather
I doubt he was better
Than seaweed hung up from a tree.

Like the wheels of that train, the names are ingrained
Trafalgar, Dogger and Tyne.
Fisher, German Bight,
Irish Sea, Fair to light.
And Rockall alone on the rime.

Then Humber (a car) and Lundy (la la).
The train rolls on through the night.
To Port smuggled Plymouth
With Brandy and Vermouth
From Bay of Biscay on the right.

Then says the forecaster (I need a sou’wester),
Warns all on the sea as he should -
Northwest four or five,
Severe gales force nine.
And occasionally moderate to good!

Continuing calm, with no note of alarm,
He goes on to say slow and mellow,
“Perhaps gale eight later.”
He’s such an orator,
I applaud, he’s such a fine fellow.

At last all is over as the radio announcer
Concludes the forecast for today.
I sit in my chair
Glad I’m here and not there
As my heart beats a merry mayday.

DotDotDot, DashDashDash, DotDotDot, DashDashDash.
Oh ‘Save Our Souls’ says me
The Shipping Forecast over,
I’m back in safe harbour,
It’s a listener’s life for me.