Adrian Morgan
CRAFTSMANSHIP
Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea:
Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux
Conjured by that strong gale-warning voice,
Collapse into a sibilant penumbra.
Seamus HeaneyT
he Shipping Forecast has become rather popular
in recent years, to those who may have never
heard it in anger. From the late Seamus Heaney
to Stephen Fry and a raft of lesser poets, writers and
musicians, from Silly Wizard to Radiohead (fittingly),
the bulletin has become an inspiration, quite missing
the point that this is just a weather forecast, and would
still be if the sea areas had been named Pigpen, Fishbox,
North Lymeswold and Wibble. Although Wibble is quite
a nice name for a sea area, combining the notions of a
dribble and a wee – all rather wet and nautical.
Why are some arty folk so taken with it? Are we so
alienated from the sea, the nation of Drake and
Nelson, disconnected from the waters that protect and
sustain us that we get all artistic about a weather
forecast? Maybe. A neighbour who lands fish at the
pier took a bagful of hake round to a newcomer to thevillage a while back. One glance was enough. “Ooh,
they’ve got eyes,” she said, recoiling in alarm.
One BBC announcer put it like this: “To the non-
nautical, it is a nightly litany of the sea. It reinforces a
sense of being islanders with a proud seafaring past.
While the listener is safely tucked up in their bed, they
can imagine small fishing-boats bobbing about at
Plymouth or 170ft waves crashing against Rockall.”
Whatever the cadence and rhythm of the words, it
is the meaning that is important. If one definition of a
poem is “just the best words” then the shipping
forecast, in that sense at least, is indeed a poem;
nothing added, nothing wasted. Wind direction,
strength, barometer, its rate of rise or fall, visibility.
And yet few of those who romanticise it bother to
explain its true meaning. Unlike a poem, the “best
words” of which often need forensic dissecting, the
forecast needs no explanation, if you know the code.
A forecast, like a poem, relies to an extent on the
person reading it. There’s a radio operator at
Stornoway Coastguard who will melt a man’s heart,
especially if the forecast for that day is fine and fair. I
cannot say who she is, indeed I would not want to
know her name; so let us just call her Catriona. And
when Catriona comes up on the VHF, sensitive hearts
the length of The Minch are set aflutter. There may
well be a crusty old Lewisman hauling crab pots for
whom those soft, honeyed tones
will fall on a deaf ear, possibly
because he is indeed deaf, deafened
by the din of his wheezy,
unsilenced diesel. For the rest of
us, she could stay on air for hours.
One particular Irish announcer
on Radio 4 had a similar effect on me. It was the way
she said visibility “good”, as in visibility “good”.
I longed for the day when visibility right around the
British Isles was deemed to be “good”, as that meant
(unless the sea areas were elided) I could hear her say
“good” 34 or so times.
Such simple pleasures come to those who go to sea
in little ships. But behind the way the shipping
forecast is enunciated and the poetry lies that serious
purpose.
Yet, ironically it could be the poets and writers and
musicians who will save the bulletin from the axe that
has threatened it ever since weatherfaxes and
smartphones took over the business of warning us
what to expect from the weather gods. The anxious
listeners at sea or in port waiting for a window to
nose out, will shout in vain at those in the BBC’s high
offices. It may well be that those most likely to ensure
the survival of what, to use a well-worn phrase, has
become a national institution (used at the opening
ceremony of the 2012 Olympics no less) are the Frys
and Silly Wizards who love the words but haven’t a
clue as to their meaning.A word of warning
Are we so disconnected from the waters that protect us?
“Why are
arty folk
so taken
with the
shipping
forecast?"CHARLOTTE WATTERS