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At their 19th-century peak, English seaside towns welcomed millions every summer. The middle classes flocked to the coastline, to “take the air” and spend their leisure looking out at the waves over which Britannia then ruled.
Seaside piers brought these visitors still closer to the waves. To step onto one is to experience in purest form the Victorian spirit: idealism plus heavy industry. The otherworld of the pier rests on engineered pilings, steel beams and timber; but it seems to float, as though visitors are walking on the sea itself. Lapped by waves, they are meticulously constructed no-places that hold an interzone of pure play: fried treats, cheap souvenirs, the mass-produced leisure of Britain at the height of its imperial grandeur.
One senses a yearning in these structures, as interwoven with the history of these islands as the stories of kings and abbeys. It’s a spirit that still animates many today: a hankering to be not just by the sea, but on it. And it can occasionally end in tragedy, as in recent news that the British woman Sarah Packwood, 54, and her Canadian husband Brett Clibbery, 70, have been found dead on a liferaft, having washed ashore on Sable Island in Nova Scotia — a sandbar 300 kilometres south-east of Halifax, inhabited mostly by seals, birds and wild horses.
The couple had recently set sail on an attempted Atlantic crossing in Theros, a 42ft sail-and solar-powered yacht. It’s not known what happened to their vessel. But Packwood and Clibbery are far from the first seafarers to fall foul of that area, which is known as the “graveyard of the Atlantic” for its lethal combination of currents, major shipping lanes, and foggy, stormy weather.
My condolences go to their families — and my admiration to the couple themselves. They belong in a long tradition of Anglos who heard the call of the ocean. And in that they aren’t alone: last year, Liverpool-based sailmaker Andrew Bedwell attempted to cross from Newfoundland to Cornwall in Big C, a sailboat the size of a suitcase which he constructed himself.
The sea has long been in our blood: after all, the inhabitants of the British Isles were forged from successive waves of seafaring invaders. And at the most inland point here, you’re still barely 70 miles from the ocean, meaning its whisper is never very far from our ears. So from Captain Cook and Horatio Nelson to Ben Ainslie and Ellen MacArthur, the waves have always sung to us. John Masefield captured that longing in his 1902 poem Sea-Fever:
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SubscribeThe Royal Navy was, at least in part, established and enlarged to fight the predations of slavers from the Barbary Coast. Hence the words:
When Britain first, at Heaven’s command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
“Britons never will be slaves.”
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Such a lovely essay. I wonder if the lack of true adventure is at the heart of what ails so many young people today? Certainly they can attempt to cross the Atlantic in a tiny boat, but, assuming they survive, they know exactly where they are going, who lives there, what visa they’ll need…
Unlike Lt. Col. Waddell, they can’t explore the far reaches of India or Tibet at a time when much of those countries remained unexplored. And if they decide to publish a treatise on Tibetan dialects they’ll discover an army of graduate students have beaten them to it.
I wonder what would happen if a great rift in the “space-time continuum” appeared that led to an earth-like planet uninhabited by human-like life. If governments or corporations provided the rudiments of modern convenience in that new planet (electricity, housing, medical support), I’ll bet many young people who currently languish on-line, would come alive, jump through the rift, and embrace adventure and exploration. The net zero, anti-tech, anti-family, anti-everything madness would disappear overnight.
Yes, though perhaps the young people need know that the hero’s journey is about voluntarily confronting your own fears as much as anything else.
Fifty-six years ago I left New Zealand to live in Singapore. It was utterly magical, entirely unlike anywhere I had ever seen. Then I travelled to northern Thailand and on to India, similar in some ways, unique in others. Now they all have the same fast-food outlets, the same mega-malls, drowning in plastic waste, the youth wearing the same American fashions. There are still plenty of outdoor adventure destinations but if, like me, it is new and exotic cultures that excite you then you will have to go a very long way indeed to find even little pockets of that. Sic transit gloria mundi.
The British Isles have a rich maritime history. Unfortunately it is a shadow of its former self. Up to about 1970 the UK had the following: a large mercantile navy; a large Royal Navy; a large if battered shipbuilding industry; a large fishing industry; pre container docks in or close to port cities, the ports being British owned.
Most people would have had a family or social circle connection with some kind of maritime exposure (including shipping services in London and elsewhere ).
A lot of Brits, now, if they are interested, can only read books, visit maritime museums or visit skeletal or re- purposed remains.
I’m pretty sure the first line of that poem is I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky…
The word go is omitted from the line. Poetic licence and all that.
Sorry but you are mistaken, it is
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky . . .
(Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse)
Apparently when the poem was first published, it did omit ‘go’, but a later revision added it. So John Riordan is quite correct, but so is Claire D. Very satisfactory!
Beautifully written, thoughtful and interesting essay, thank you so much Mary.
RIP all those lost at sea.
It’s another classic Mary Harrington piece – utterly random and completely wonderful.
Not a great fan of this Author, but as ex RN 22 years enjoyed that.
More “Messabouts” required ? In my experience, they can solve many of the current human conditions.