Shipwrecks of the Channel Islands

In today's episode, we are going to be diving into jersey's rich maritime history. We'll be focusing on the shipwrecks of the Channel Islands with local historian and former Jersey heritage curator, Doug Ford.  We'll be sharing stories of life at sea and the perils of navigating our treacherous waters which take us into darker stories of cannibalism and survival.


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Transcript

Perry  (00:02):

Welcome to the Jersey Heritage Podcast,

Melissa (00:06):

The Small Island Big Story sessions.

Perry  (00:08):

You are listening to Melon Perry.

Melissa (00:11):

In today's episode, we are going to be diving into jersey's rich maritime history. We'll be focusing on the shipwrecks of the Channel Islands with local historian and former Jersey heritage curator, Doug Ford.

Perry  (00:23):

Doug will be sharing the stories of life at sea and the perils of navigating our treacherous waters.

Melissa (00:30):

So, welcome Doug, to our podcast. Thank you for joining us today. It's alright. So in terms of jersey's shipwrecks, I guess my logical place to start would be what is the oldest shipwreck that we know of in Jersey's waters?

Doug Ford (00:42):

Well, the oldest one in Channel Island waters that we can name would be the one in Guernsey, the Roman wreck from 285 that was discovered in the harbor at St. Peter Port on Christmas. The reason it was discovered then is because the male boats weren't running in, and so the diver could cut down <laugh> and look on the seabed and 'cause there'd been a new ferry churning up the, the bottom of the, of the harbor. That was when they uncovered the, the remnants of the wreck. The oldest one, as far as jersey's concerned, that's recorded would be the one that St. Heller tried to wreck in, well, probably 555, because obviously the guys on board were a bit peeved and came and chopped his head off. Hella lured these passing semen on shore tradition says Vikings, but that's very trendy 'cause they don't really pay for another 300 years. So they're probably passing Fris or something like that who came and, and chopped his head off. That would be the <laugh>, the earliest record of a shipwreck in Jersey.

Melissa (01:41):

And how many do we have?

Doug Ford (01:43):

We dunno, simply because most shipwrecks would've been wooden ships and ships would've been broken up, and then timbers would've floated off both if they came on shore, the locals would've basically dried out and burned it. So most of the ship wrecks around Jersey are the remnants of metal ships, which breed out only like 150 years old.

Melissa (02:04):

And roughly, where are the ones that we know about? Where are they located? Like, is there a a an area around the island that kind of is kind of more precarious?

Doug Ford (02:14):

Well, as jersey's concerned, it would be the more, or as the South coast from Colier inwards into, into <inaudible>, that that's where most of 'em, that, and o obviously out towards the minke as well. Do

Perry  (02:27):

You think that the, the kind of channels that they would've been coming into Jersey before, the kind more modern period Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, do you think they would've been going different ways around Jersey before the kind of main harbor was built there at St. Heller?

Doug Ford (02:39):

Well, of course the ships in the past were shallower drafts. Yeah. And of course they didn't need harbors, they just ran on onto the beach. Mm. So potentially there would be coming a different route 'cause they didn't necessarily need the deeper water. But of course, deeper water is calmer most of the time, so you don't want to come through shallow water and go bouncing about. So if they're coming from England, they'd come down probably from roundabout Albany, and maybe they'd come down the east coast of Jersey and around that way. Obviously you don't wanna come on the North Coast coast. You've got the Dway and the Paterno and the, the Aho stuck in the way. Yeah. Yeah. So we know that

Perry  (03:17):

There's,

Doug Ford (03:18):

You've around a bit, a bit of a, a wide berth. Well,

Perry  (03:21):

Actually, because one of, one of the things is I've, I've got a map here that I just, we just looked at of all the kinda shipwrecks around Jersey and there's notably not many recorded kind of from the, from the west off sink St one's bay. But there is the folk story of the Spanish shipwrecks, you know, of the wreck that happened in the 14 hundreds where it said that there was a shipwreck off. 

Doug Ford (03:45):

Well that was a case of any port in the storm, wasn't it? Yeah. It's like the wreckers were supposedly there, alluring ships onto, onto the rocks. Did they, did they, we haven't a really clue, you know, there there's yeah. In a way that, that story was set up to try and explain the inundation of the decent farming land on the west. Mm. So obviously God did it, his revenge for these nasty wies and Saint luring Spanish ships on, on the rocks. Yeah. Any ship, when it breaks up spews, its, its cargo under the water gets washed up on the show. There's various rules governing the distribution of that crown's gotta make its for it, its money somehow. And by the time there was reported and the locals would've had stuff away. I mean, the, the most famous case recently, I suppose is the story of whiskey galore, isn't it? So the cabinet minister run a show on, on, on the Heber Dan Islands and carrying whiskey during the war. And that's just a classic case of, of people collecting stuff from, from the show, from it from a shipwreck. Yeah. Nowadays you get prosecuted in the old days, you got your head chopped up or whatever. If you, if you got there before the crown, you got their, their their cut. So did it happen? Probably, yeah. Ships did get wrecked and cargo did get washed to shore and locals did gather.

Perry  (05:05):

There seems to be a real fear of wreckers in kind of maritime stories, at least from what I've read. I know in Canada there's the similar stories of people luring in ships with lights and even on the North coast that we were talking about this yesterday, won't we Mel, there's a story of, and obviously it's very kind of mythologically, but there's a story of a pagan priest and priestess on the north coast around kind of sorel that would lure in Norman sailors and sacrifice 'em and all that grizzly stuff. Do you think this reflects like an actual fear of these people who are wreckers? I mean, were they, were there people on the shore who were really kind of gunning for boats that get washed up? Or is it mainly a, a fact that people didn't like wreckers because they're robbing from the public kind of

Doug Ford (05:52):

Well, I think wreckers that they existed, they actually really lure ships on shore. Well, in hell. You tried to Mm, yeah. The original, there there are, there are stories. One thing that would happen of course is you didn't want witnesses left behind. So if anybody did get washed up still breathing, it was better if they, if they stopped breathing before they could report you. Yeah. And that seems to be, that's pretty good reason to fear them. Mm-Hmm. As to legends, myths and legends. But it's all romanticism, isn't it? Yeah. A lot of it comes out in the 19th century, you know, late the 18th century when people are creating sort of myths and legends to

Perry  (06:33):

Tourism for the, the coast.

Doug Ford (06:35):

Yeah. Essentially. Yeah.

Perry  (06:36):

Yeah. Or perhaps there is a, a story there, but it gets embellished when, when the guy comes along and says, can I record your

Doug Ford (06:43):

Story? Yeah. And, and course the stuff that was being washed to show in those days was useful, unlike nowadays where it tends to be like thousands of gallons of crude oil, which isn't too clever. Yes.

Perry  (06:52):

Isn't there something in France from the northern French beaches where Garfield phones, these, you know, these plastic phones that they used to make back in the day, these novelty phones, a whole ship of them sank and they get washed up to this day.

Doug Ford (07:06):

It's the really, I it's the rubber ducks in the Pacific, isn't it?

Perry  (07:10):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug Ford (07:11):

The ship went down and it, there's all these little rubber ducks have been sailing around or floating around the Pacific for the last 30 or 40 years

Perry  (07:19):

Now that makes sense to have an explanation. But

Doug Ford (07:22):

It's, and around the world, obviously, because they get, you know, ocean current. So they end up going on Cape Horn and the Pacific into the Atlantic and, and the Indian Ocean. So these little rubber ducks circumnavigate the world.

Perry  (07:36):

But you were saying before about about the Crown kind of wanting to get their piece from, from the shipwrecks, and there's a title for that and the receiver of rec. Yep. I know that title still exists today. I don't know if he gets much work in 'cause there's a bit less wreck than they used to.

Doug Ford (07:52):

Well, it's not so much now be simply because there isn't as many ships as there used to be. Yeah. You know, the, the number of of cargo ships that were floating around the these waters was phenomenal. Really? Mm-Hmm. You know, if you take something as simple as the the lifeboat, it didn't save anybody from a, a sinking ship until Howard D came on station in 1937 because it had a motor. So it could get out there and do thi before that, by the time the lifeboat got to a scene, a passing fishing boat would've, you know, given aid or a passing cargo or a passing ferry. There was so much marine traffic.

Perry  (08:32):

So these wrecks then that we we're sort of getting in Jersey with the Channel Islands and, and Northwest France in general, where are they all coming from? Like, where's their origins? I mean, obviously the world was, was globalized really, you know, in the kind of modern period and in the archeological fines, I record, when I do work, I get loads of coins, Spanish coins, French coins, Italian coins. I get like all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't really expect. I've even had the Egyptian stuff here. Would you say that a lot of the wrecks kind of represent that

Doug Ford (09:04):

Most would've been British or French

Perry  (09:07):

Yeah.

Doug Ford (09:08):

But where they'd been,

Perry  (09:09):

Yeah.

Doug Ford (09:10):

You know if you take say a simple trading vessel from the 1860s from Jersey, would've left Jersey taken trade, going over to the Gaspe from Gaspe, would've brought, tried fish maybes down to South America and brought coffee or some whatever. Yeah. Back over to Europe, probably Portugal. Because what you have to do is stock up with salt, go back to the gas bay, drop your salt off, pick another co load of, of cord up, take the Mediterranean like somewhere like Odessa or Yeah. Into the Black Sea. Then you're bring in goods from the Black Sea back either to England or maybe it's up to Archangel in, in Russia. And then you bring in that, and that's all in the course of a year. So those sailors have got a very pocket full of <laugh> Yeah, yeah. Of guilt. Yeah. Basically. So coins from all over the, over the place, but still a jersey boat

Perry  (10:03):

Must have been such a disaster going all the way to South America, getting right back near to Britain and then sinking it.

Doug Ford (10:10):

It was confusion as to where you were, you know, bad pilot age, bad weather. There was a, a Swedish shipwreck on the on the acro in about 1820. And they were aiming for the channel and mist, they, they'd come across Atlantic in the fog in a gale, and they misread the, the position and end up on the acro. Mm-Hmm. Only 20 mile at the end. You 20 mile out after say three and a half thousand male voice. Not bad, but not good enough <laugh>. Yeah. You know, so you, you've gotta be accurate, you've gotta have good charts, you've gotta be able to navigate well, otherwise you're lost and you're in danger.

Perry  (10:46):

And it is particularly dangerous around Jersey, isn't it?

Doug Ford (10:50):

The waters. And it doesn't matter whether you're off the north coast of Jersey or going on Cape Horn, if you're sinking, you're sinking.

Speaker 4 (10:57):

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Doug Ford (11:17):

I think the most interesting shipwreck in Jersey, I think from my point of view, is HMS havoc in 1805 sorry, 18 hundreds, November the ninth, they were, the island was hit by a Gail, and the Channel Hill was hit by a Gail. And the British Navy lost more ships to that wind that one night than they did to the French and the entire year of the French Revolutionary Wars. And one was actually wiped out here. That was HMS havoc. The pelican was washed up behind Elizabeth Castle, but Reflowed, a couple of others, scraped their way out of the out the bay into deeper water. But havoc didn't, and literally it was driven a shore near Bell Royal. And then the wind swung around and the tide went out. Literally, the, the tide, the gale had been probably a hurricane, had been keeping the tide up so the men couldn't get off the ship. But as soon as it passed and swung, blew the water out until they all got off the beach and off the boat and crawled up the beach. But it's interesting because the metal detectors found it because it, the, the bottom of the ship had been wedged into the, the seashore and been covered over with wind blown sand. And the rest of the ship had been smashed up.

Perry  (12:32):

Yeah. And we've got a lot of that

Doug Ford (12:34):

You lot that reflections.

Perry  (12:35):

Yeah, those fine in the collections. Yeah.

Doug Ford (12:36):

Yeah. You've got the metal sheeting, which is how we could recognize the, which ship it was. You got various bits and pieces tools off, off the ship. Yeah. And you got the court martial records as well. So we know exactly what happened. Who was involved the, the master, let say the captain of the ship, Philip Barmy never got another ship. Right. but that was very common, even though it wasn't his fault. He wasn't on board the ship when he got blown on on shore.

Perry  (13:03):

Do we have many military wrecks that did go down through, you know, fighting or anything like that?

Doug Ford (13:10):

Not, no, not really. They had the determinate, which was about 1805, which was a troop ship that was sunk off, off Nomore. It basically cut the corner and paid the price stuff in the collection from that. Then you, you've got the PT 5 0 9, which was shot up in 1944 just off, well just off <inaudible>. It was attacking a German convoy. And it came off second, right about nine men were killed on that one. There's a little memorial about one more to them. That was an American crew. And you got bits of that in the collection. There's a German Ubo song from the First World War somewhere around here. Really? Yeah, probably. That'd probably be more towards the channel. Probably off Guernsey, north Coast of Guernsey, something like that.

Melissa (14:04):

And in terms of the pieces that have been salvaged from the wrecks that we have in our collection how, how do we go about looking after them? Do you, like, is there any, any light you can shed

Doug Ford (14:15):

On that? Yeah, the, the big secret is you give it to Neil <laugh>. Yeah,

Perry  (14:18):

Neil Neil is the, the backbone. He's the

Melissa (14:21):

Neil Mara

Perry  (14:21):

Backbone of the whole operations

Melissa (14:23):

Servicer.

Doug Ford (14:23):

Yeah. I mean, but basically if it's wood, then if you do nothing with it, it, they simply dry out and, and disintegrate. You want to shipwreck by the hole in the head. The problems that they're having with the Mary Rose are the problems that they had with the vasa 10, 15 years ago. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So, at least the guys at Mary Rose knows what, know what's coming. And what's interesting is that these circle modern ships, 15 and 16th, 17th century ships aren't preserving as well as the Viking ships, things like the GDA and Berg ship. And that's because the Vikings were using really rubbish metal <laugh>.

Melissa (15:03):

Wow.

Doug Ford (15:03):

That's, that's the actual cr to the, the ion. The better preserved, the better longer than it last than it lasts.

Melissa (15:12):

So you brought some notes with you, Doug. I have What notes have you got for us? Well, what, what can you share about these interesting shipwrecks? 

Doug Ford (15:20):

All sorts of things. I mean, we do have the 1862 Book of common Prayer. The, the Prayer for Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. It's the front page from the first of the Lifeboat magazine that was produced in 1852. What's interesting, it just says it, it's just the fact of the, the scale. So official returns, it appears in the course of the 1850, there were 692 vessels, 127,000 tons of, of shipping belonged to the uk, which was wrecked. That's, that's nearly two a day.

Melissa (15:56):

That's yeah, that's a lot.

Doug Ford (15:57):

And of that 692, 277 were total wrecked. 84 was sunk by leak collision, 16 were abandoned and the rest were abandoned. That's quite impressive. You know, you get one storm, but one good storm and a single gale in, in the 31st of August, 1st of September. So of the night, 18 33 61 vessels were lost off the North Sea. And then it says a disastrous Gale, 13th of January, eighteen forty three, a hundred and three vessels were wrecked on the coast of the uk. And then just to, to really tweak in, it just says in the Gales of 18 46, 39 vessels got a shore and Hartley pool. And what was happening is they were, they're producing these shipwreck maps and you can see where the ships that will being, you know, smashed up mouth of the river, tal mouth, the of the weir. And because you, you've got this wide entrance coming to a narrow river, you got SHOs either side and ships collide. You even get ship with <inaudible>. Fascinating. You get ships bumping in each other in the middle of the ocean.

Melissa (17:03):

But how does that happen?

Doug Ford (17:04):

Because there is, you can't see it on the water, but there are shipping route. Yeah. And what I find fascinating about maritime history is the ship's cap and pitches up at some port, and then he's given a cargo and a destination. How does he know how to get there? He can't know every port in the, so he has essentially a encyclopedia where he look up the name of the port he's going to, and it'll give him the altitude and longitude so he knows roughly where he is going now. And then there's a big book of sea roots, which tell him, you sail down on this course for so many miles, and then you have to change direction because this is whether certain winds are gonna come in and certain currents. And so actually the, the Atlantic might be 3000 miles wide, but at certain points it's probably only five miles wide as far as shipping is concerned.

Perry  (17:56):

See, it sounds like a very dangerous old job shipping then. And I'm glad, I'm glad planes don't go down as much as those

Doug Ford (18:01):

Boats were down. The reckon that it's in the 19th century, about 8% of British shipping was lost every year,

Perry  (18:07):

Wouldn't fancy your chance. And

Doug Ford (18:09):

Then there was no, until psel comes in in the 1870s and start, well, you, you know, well, you shouldn't be loading this much and you should, you know, be building better boat. There was no regulations boat building. You know, you were as good as your, your last ship that you built. There was reputation. And so certain ships, like even in Jersey, had a bad reputation. So they went outta business. But if you happen to be sailing on one of those badly built boats, tough. Really.

Perry  (18:37):

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Doug Ford (19:02):

The 50 Reasons for Nautical Loss. This was published in 1841 where Thetical Magazine published in an article where they set a, a list of causes which resulted in loss. And obviously the, the first one is the short compliment of men. So under crewed number two and three are bit born, their deficiency of materials in stores, bad materials is number four. So bad chains, boats, spars, whatever. Number six is my favorite. Tea totality,

Perry  (19:37):

<Laugh>

Doug Ford (19:37):

Give you a crew and 18 foot give you a crew coffee instead of room. And you're in danger of wracking

Perry  (19:43):

<Laugh>. <Laugh>. I feel like they got the wrong end of the stick with that one be, but who am I

Doug Ford (19:48):

To? Drunkness is only number 13.

Perry  (19:51):

Right.

Doug Ford (19:52):

T total talent is number six. Drunkenness number 70, bad condition of the ship from age, wanting to repair bad construction. That's seven, eight incapacity of Masters or others. Number nine, then a great one. Number 10, presence of captain's wives and other women.

Perry  (20:08):

Of course.

Doug Ford (20:09):

What distraction. Yeah. so it's understandable. It wasn't a a sex, the crews were just distracted by Yeah, yeah. These,

Perry  (20:17):

It should be said, it feels like most of the boats that went down didn't have any women on them.

Doug Ford (20:21):

You do have stories of like the captain being incapacitated and the wife taken over the, the, the navigation. Wow. Simply because, you know, she sat next to him as he's been doing it and knew how to navigate probably better than the, the mate or certainly most of the other guys. 'cause Navigation was a very, it was guarded. It was and certainly in the Royal Navy, they didn't like the, the irks. They didn't want common men being able to navigate and, and read charts. And it was the famous case of cloudy shovel hanging this, the seamen who pointed out that he thought the ship was in the wrong place. So they hung the guy and then the, then the ship ran onto the the sies and they all drowned. Yeah. And discord and dissension sort of was number 17 then.

Doug Ford (21:06):

Fire collision upsetting of the school, shifting the cargo. That's like 19 to 22. Strangely enough. One of vigilance, a bad lookout was only number 31 or 32. And then you get down to the forties where you've got things like sleeping on watch. So the drowsiness of the headland, and because of course, semen in the Royal Navy certainly didn't sleep more than three hours because of the watch system. You, you worked a four hour shift, four hours on, four hours off. And so by the time you got off, watch down below in your hammock fell asleep, and then you'd be woken up to get for your next shift in four hours time.

Perry  (21:48):

And that doesn't mix well with the drunkenness. You wouldn't have thought, you know, and of

Doug Ford (21:51):

Course, what what they're doing is they, they're being, you know, in the Royal Navy up until the sixties, they're being given this pint of rum a week a day. Yeah. And they go, I suppose if you are climbing up a a mast, you have to be slightly more relaxed. You don't wanna be too tense. Pa Lubbock just, he was less of aose. He just said that there, there were four reasons for shipwreck leaks. Le holes the enemies of won countries and pirates. And the material. You've got, I think one of the me favorites was ship up and down on the Minkes in about 1862. Yes. The Paris 1863. It was, it stuck rocks and San on its way to Jersey from St. Marla, July, 1863. And what we have in the collection is a flushing toilet.

Perry  (22:39):

Oh, that's posh.

Doug Ford (22:40):

It's one of the first ship borne flushing water closets in the world. And we have it now collection

Melissa (22:46):

And we have it at Jersey Heritage people.

Doug Ford (22:48):

Exactly. And if you're a bit NiPy, you've also got a bit of curl from the the ship's boil <laugh>

Perry  (22:53):

<Laugh>. And the minke still has the most southern toilet on the British is It does,

Doug Ford (22:58):

Yes. So

Perry  (22:59):

There's quite a toilet based kind of thing around there. Yeah.

Melissa (23:02):

We should add add that into the description of this episode. Yeah, yeah,

Doug Ford (23:06):

Yeah. So yeah, so that's what you got in the collection. You got all sorts of things really from, from the, the term near the havoc shock, of course, the, the the, the German ship that was UNK in 1943 or whatever. And then of course, not everybody, you know, dies in the ship rest. You know, they had the famous, the, the St. Marco shipwreck that got some at Colier, that at Eastern

Doug Ford (23:35):

That was actually on the radio, that it was about 300 odd lifted off that, that shipwreck because of the way that we are now, you know, modern shipping, modern lifeboat, life saving you know, you can find, you can find people quite easy now which you couldn't in the past, where once they a ship collides or once they, a ship founders ships don't have lifeboats that have little tenders, the fall running back and forth to sho. So if you're lucky, you'll stick with a ship until it, it's too late and, and goes down hoping that somebody's gonna pass you and see, see you're in, in trouble. If you're then forced into the boats, then you pack as much water because that's gonna extend, hopefully it gonna be in the the survival. Yeah. The survival rate. And then eventually you're gonna run out.

Doug Ford (24:27):

So what do you do? The customer of the sea was survival at any cost. So if you went down, you ran out the food, and you start looking around you Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And so cannibalism was the customer of the sea. So maybe the most famous example is the wreck of the Medusa, a very famous picture from 18 16, 18, 18 of all the, the, the shipwrecks of, I was hanging onto a, onto a, a raft. The best written account of it was and chase the record of the whale ship Essex, which was the basis of Moby Dick where the ship, the whaling ship got sunk by whale. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> obviously had a bit of a thing against them. And of the three long boats that that got away from the boat, only the, the men in one survived because they ended up eating the, the, the flesh of the the, the shipmates.

Doug Ford (25:26):

And it all comes to a crutch in a, a case in about 1870, it comes to the public eye because when the survivors got back to Falmouth, the local police sergeant was a Methodist and everybody knew what had happened. But this guy was from, from inland, and it fronted him. So he prosecuted the, the, so the sailors for cannibalism. And one of them turned king or queen evidence. He got let off. The other two got put in prison. It is a, it is a marvelous thing that if I, I can find it. It was a, a song by Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan's fame in 1860, Gilbert wrote a ballot called The Honor of the Nancy Bell. And it was turned down by punch because it was too cannibalistic <laugh> <laugh>. It was published in a magazine called The Fun. And then it became sold on the streets of the, as a, as a sheet ball.

Doug Ford (26:23):

And the, the, the chorus is, oh, I'm the cook and a Captain Ball. And the mate of the Nancy Brigg and the Po Tight and the Midship mate and the crew with the captain's gig. Was that, when was that from that, that was 1860. 1860. So people were still doing it at that time. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Right. World. And, and of course this is, is the hierarchy of Cannib blm because you kill people based on if you have to kill them on how useful they are. You wouldn't kill the captain 'cause he could actually get you somewhere. Usually it was the women went first, then the boys, because they were the least skilled on border ship. So they go next, they always say the best thing to do isn't a revert to cannibalism, is to chop the body up and use it to catch fish.

Perry  (27:14):

Mm-Hmm.

Doug Ford (27:14):

Because by the time you are psychologically ready to eat human flesh, most of the protein, or most of the, the goodness of the is, has been wasted away. It was a clear, wonderful case of it was a British ship where the woman didn't get killed first. 'cause Her skill was she was a butcher <laugh>. Oh, <laugh>. And she knew how to cut the bodies up. That was about, again, never about 1830s. There you go. Wow. But yeah,

Perry  (27:40):

Which isn't that long ago. I I people like to think of it as being like all this time ago, but it was, it was a time of science.

Doug Ford (27:47):

It's, it's necessity. And of course it's not spoken about now. No. But yeah, literally in the last 10 years, there was a, a case of a fisherman who survived something like 110 days at sea looking terribly perky. But his mate was gone <laugh>. 

Melissa (28:04):

Well, I'll tell you, when we, when we invited you to come and speak on this podcast, I did not expect this episode to go in this direction. Yeah. Well, it's the customer of survival, isn't it? Yes.

Doug Ford (28:13):

It's just, and and that's it.

Melissa (28:14):

But it's interesting that it happened quite a lot in terms of, in terms of this, these specific stories. Yeah. I didn't realize that that was what they would <laugh> what would they they would do. Yeah. That's just mind blowing really.

Perry  (28:28):

Did anyone write down their experiences?

Doug Ford (28:30):

Yeah. Well, yeah. The, the general Brock the, the guys from St. Lauren's did write about it. Really? I say just in El Paso, as they say, the bow and chase was much better than the record of the WorldShip Essex. Yeah. That's the, a classic one.

Perry  (28:45):

You mentioned a bit of like the music that was recorded and the, and the ballads. Mm-Hmm. How many, are there many about the Chan Islands? Are there many these sea shanties or folk songs about

Doug Ford (28:55):

Chand? No, the, the only sea shanty collected was a version of Maggie May, which was collected from Commander Holiday by Peter Kennedy in about 1958. Slightly different. It's got a fifth first at the other versions done. But then he was an Englishman anyway. He just came to live here. He married him in the twenties. Most Shan is out, I suspect on Jersey ships would've been song on English or in French. Yeah.

Perry  (29:22):

But it's interesting that there's no Jersey mentioned in them. But people weren't really that interested in recording stuff like that until quite late in the Well,

Doug Ford (29:29):

It was the norm. It was the norm. And the thing about Sea Han of course, is you didn't sing them on dry land. And what survived is the clean version. Yeah. Like verse five. And it stops. These songs could last half an hour just to, to haul a boat out a port and sea Shan is interesting 'cause they're a bit like the rough guide to the world. If you want to know where the best brothel is in the next port, then somebody would've said it in the, in the sea shanty Madame Ki is in, in Val Prize if he interested <laugh> or Mrs. Shillings in Brisbane, and which boarding houses to avoid 'cause of the crimps and things like that. So it was lots of advice to, to sailors passed on in, in sea shanties and you wouldn't sing 'em on, on board on dry land.

Melissa (30:16):

Only on your ships.

Doug Ford (30:17):

Only ships. Yeah. And you'd only sing them when you were working. You did. It was a different song you sang at in your leisure time.

Perry  (30:24):

I'd love to have hit heard so many of these that we're never gonna have a chance to hear, you know, but

Doug Ford (30:29):

Absolute rubbish. <Laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. It's, I was dodgy area of Malta, and I was talking to a Norwegian guy and he was lamenting the loss of Sailor down Sima. And, but we end up talking about Han. He says they don't work, and he'd been on a, a square ridge ship being filmed for something. And he says, and they brought this old English guy and he says he started singing sea sh and we couldn't work to it. The rhythm was wrong. And I know who it was. It was Stan Il who sang The Last Sea Shanti on a working sailing ship when it s sank the Garth pool. And the song he sang was Fire Down Below. But then he becomes professional singer. And of course, over the years he's become more melodic and he's not taken into account the number of men on the rope or how long they're doing. And so the tune becomes melodic and they lose that purpose. And that's why Odd found it difficult. He couldn't, wouldn't work because the guy was singing in tune. Yeah, yeah,

Perry  (31:30):

Yeah. He's not percussive enough.

Doug Ford (31:32):

No, no. And when you, when you hear like recordings done in the field, like 1910 of these old guys in, in card of docs singing, they're pretty awful <laugh>

Perry  (31:40):

<Laugh>.

Doug Ford (31:44):

Well, that's, but they do the job, you know, that that's what they're there for. Yeah.

Perry  (31:46):

So if someone, if there was someone out there listening who really wanted to learn and delve into, you know, shipwrecks and shipping in general, where's a good place for them to start?

Doug Ford (31:58):

As far as Jersey's concerned, we did that. And Neil wrote the thing about Tony Ting in the 2007 2008 Heritage Magazine which sums, sums it up. People at the Sea is by Alan Jameson's, a very good book on Channel Island Maritime History

Melissa (32:20):

And Visit the Maritime Museum.

Perry  (32:22):

I still love that boat in there that you can go inside of and it gets all creeky.

Melissa (32:26):

Well, the cabin. Yeah.

Perry  (32:27):

I love, love that. I love that.

Melissa (32:29):

I always get seasick when I go down there. Do Yeah. He used to freak me out as a kid. Yeah, yeah. And the, the, the black dog of Bully Babies was scary. That's

Doug Ford (32:36):

A right passage. That Yeah. E every kid goes up there and frightened now and they're no longer frightened. They a big boy or big girl.

Melissa (32:43):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Perry  (32:44):

I'll tell you what really frightened me is that cannon that goes off just as you pass it at the end. <Laugh>. Oh my God. When I was a kid, I jumped out my skin.

Melissa (32:51):

Oh. And the sea creatures, like the, as you go into the globe room, you know, you go down the ramp Mm-Hmm. And you've got like these people that are like really scared. They've got like scaly scared. Oh

Doug Ford (33:02):

Much. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa (33:03):

They're terrifying. They're scary. And is there a, is there a, do you have a favorite piece of our collection that's to do with maritime history?

Doug Ford (33:11):

I like the boats,

Melissa (33:12):

The actual physical boats that we have. Yeah.

Doug Ford (33:14):

The ones that you can sail in. No one's at work otherwise, you know, if, if it doesn't work, it's just a collection of timber and string, isn't

Melissa (33:20):

It? And those are the ones that are, that are docked outside the maritime museum. Right. Yeah.

Perry  (33:24):

That's really cool, isn't

Melissa (33:25):

It? Which I think is cool. I don't think lots of pe not many people know that we actually have those there to see. Well, you've given us some absolute gold today, Doug, so thank you very much. We're really pre we learned a lot today. Yeah. So thank you.

Doug Ford (33:37):

It's pleasure.

Perry  (33:39):

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