About the crew
We are a crew of mates who just love to sing traditional working shanties along with more modern maritime songs and Bristol sea shanties. Our mantra is "Fun and Friendship, Melody and Mirth"; we sing anything with a nautical theme and a good tune or a good lyric, but our priority is to enjoy ourselves and to entertain our audiences. We give our time for free to support Festivals or charity fundraising events. We are also available to sing at private functions - all we ask in return is a reasonable donation to support our chosen charity.
100% of the money we raise goes to support the excellent work of the Teenage Cancer Trust (Charity# 1062559).
We don't claim to be Bristol's best or Bristol's brightest shanty crew. We just know that we "arrrrgh!"
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Fun and Friendship
The Crew was founded by Ian (Nobby) Dye and Steve (The Rev) Hawkins in February 2022. Nobby has been singing shanties since 1972 and has been singing with Rev since they met and became shipmates in 1985. The two incorrigible rogues recently found themselves marooned, but encountered a few more shipwrecked sailors washed up on the shore. These like-minded souls were soon press-ganged into service and so Skipper, Fish, Art, Paddles, Chuffer, Doc, Old Bill and Ash duly joined the crew.
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After two years of sailing the seven seas, the crew realised that a few new stanchions would help to support the ship and so landlubbers Oggie and Chilli were recruited in the summer of 2024 as new apprentice crewmates.
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Since starting out together, we have become not just a Shanty Crew but a group of friends who simply enjoy each other’s company, singing our hearts out together and dressing up as sailors.
Melody and Mirth
Whether the weather be stormy or balmy, the seas rough or millpond-calm, we can be found singing Shanties and songs of maritime adventures in pubs, folk clubs and at Shanty Festivals across the South West. Nobby even acts as resident composer and has written some wonderful songs around Bristol’s strong sea faring tradition such as the Corncrake, Welsh Back Quay, Walton Bay and Bristol Johnny. A relaxed, humorous style is a key part of our performances (and our rehearsals!) - we like nothing more than connecting with an audience and encouraging them to join in with the choruses of our songs. It's all part of being a pirate and as a group of good friends, we love to sing shanties and play our part in sharing and keeping alive these wonderful songs from the days of sail and having a few pints and sharing a merry yarn at the same time. The added bonus is that every performance gives us an extra opportunity to knock another hour off our community service order and raise essential funds to support the Teenage Cancer Trust.
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The origin of the sea shanty - a brief explanation by Nobby
Shanties (from the French Chanter - to sing) were the songs of the working seaman and were each suited to a task of work, for example Windlass where a shanty like Santy Anna would be used; Brake Pump - Leave her Johnny; Capstan - Rio Grande; Halyards - Blow the man down; Stamp’n’go - Roll the Old Chariot. Other songs called Forebitters were usually sung at leisure time, sometimes sitting around the Forebitts especially on a calm sea or in the Foc’sle. When work was needed at a particular task the Mate may be heard to shout "Well, who's the Nightingale among you?" in order for the Shantyman to rise up and begin singing a shanty suited to the task.
Stan Hugill, in his book "Sea Shanties" (Barrie and Jenkins,1977) points out that the Mate would have little prior knowledge of the experience or abilities of the seamen coming aboard from shore. "Seeing that they had been brought aboard by the Boarding House masters the evening before, most if not all in a state of drunkenness, for all he knew the whole raff might be nothing more than Shanghaid yokels with hayseeds in their ears, or crimped counter jumpers, pen pushers and boot-blacks, or just plain unwashed sailortown derelicts." This gives some idea of the ragged state of some crew aboard the old sailing vessels. Hugill goes on to give some idea of the Mate's reaction to the crowd: "Looking up from his sidelong inspection of the dripping links of the Anchor chain as, one by one, they slowly emerge from the muddy surface of the water, the mate,clapping his hands to his mouth with a roar like the Bull of Basham ,queries “Who's the bloody nightingale among yer? Aw ye men or are ye cawpses? If there’s a ruddy shantyman among yer lot of hobos, fer gawds sake strike a light will yer”, then the bellowing voice of a seaman would blast out a shanty, if the men sing right the ship goes right, the mate was then happy.
C.Fox Smith (A Book of Sea Shanties, Methuen, 1927) writes: "Everywhere one goes nowadays, one hears Sea Shanties…the feelings of some hairy Shellback of days gone by, if he were to be set down suddenly in a modern concert hall where a highly trained Artiste in what he would no doubt term a ‘B’iled shirt’ was giving a strictly bowdlerised rendering of one of his spiciest favourites, may be better imagined than described-very much mote pointed than polite." The average Victorian looked upon shanties, as upon the songs of the old countryside, as exceedingly vulgar and often unprintable. Ciceley Fox Smith published a under C.Fox Smith, possibly thinking that readers would not buy books about salty sailors written by a woman. I recommend you to read them if the opportunity arises. I have spent many hours in dusty old bookshops researching her writings. She has recently become quite popular again and books can be found on Abebooks.com I would wholeheartedly recommend the anthology of her poetic verse as a good place to start.
Our fundraising so far
£32,724
Since our very first gig on 28th May 2022, we have raised £32,724 from donations in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust
(figure updated as of 12/10/24)
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and made this possible.
Teenage Cancer Trust
(Charity # 1062559). www.teenagecancertrust.org
If you wish to donate, please click on the button below
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