North Atlantic Drifter #5

AN OLD HAM HAMS IT UP AT CHRISTMAS HAM TIME

The Cutty Sark was an absolute blast, thanks to everyone who came along. As I’ve bored everyone with for ages, having grown up in its vicinity that ship means a lot to me so it was always going to be a special night. It was the Cutty Sark’s 155^th birthday into the bargain and not only that, friends of mine twigged how important this hootenanny was for your number one shipping forecast show-hawking pal and descended on Greenwich from all over. People showed up who I hadn’t seen in years, decades even, some of whom had travelled a long way to be there. I was quite undone, let me tell you. Quite undone.

Thanks to everyone who came to any of the shows during 2024. It was a whole new thing for me, this kicking my legs up on a stage business, and was a pretty daunting prospect as a result. Thankfully audiences up and down the land, from Penzance to Lerwick, went easy on me, often even clapping at the end rather than storming the stage and running me out of town in my stockinged feet as I’d anticipated.

I was blown away by how many people were turning out, too: half the shows sold out in advance and nearly all the rest were at least two-thirds full, which is startling.

I’ve not lost the run of myself enough – yet - to think they were turning up to see me, but it definitely shows just what a cultural phenomenon the shipping forecast has become during its first 100 years.

You’ll be glad/alarmed/seeking legal advice to know that I now have getting on for thirty Attention All Shipping shows lined up for 2025, starting in the Western Isles in February. I am planning to add as many shows as I can so keep an eye on the website and the Facebook page. If I’ve not landed in your vicinity yet, rest assured I’m doing my best to change that. Whether you like it or not.

A SUITABLE CASE

I’ve just taken delivery of a new stage prop that handily doubles up as my old ham’s touring valise. I’m telling you, the cloak, fedora and silver tipped cane are not far away and I am already starting to talk like Withnail.

WITHNAIL AND HIM

Talking of Withnail, I learned my favourite fact of 2024 the other week. Darragh O’Malley plays the Irish fella in the pub who calls Marwood a ‘perfumed ponce’.

He was also in Sharpe and had a long run in Crossroads, but my favourite thing about Darragh O’Malley is that his mother Hilda Moriarty was the inspiration for Patrick Kavanagh to write one of the most beautiful love poems ever committed to paper Raglan Road. You can read the poem here, and this is Hilda:

Darragh’s father Donogh O’Malley, incidentally, introduced free secondary school education to Ireland as Minister of Education in 1968. That’s quite impressive. But not as impressive as Raglan Road being written about your mum.

EVANS TO BETSY

The One Show saga finally reached its denouement at the start of the month when the shipping forecast film that’s been coming down the pipe since February finally went out. It was a fun thing to do, even if it did involve driving from Scotland to Exeter and back. Owain Wyn Evans is an absolutely smashing fella to boot; here’s a pic of us meeting purely by chance at a picnic bench outside a café and falling easily into conversation about the shipping forecast just when some lads happened to be standing there filming.

GHOST WRITING

As I mentioned in the last NAD, recently I unearthed a ghost story I’d written a few years ago. It being Christmas I’ll send it out in the next day or so as a Brucie bonus. Lucky you, eh? Eh..? Oh.

SIX THINGS I HAVE ENJOYED RECENTLY

1. Earlier this month I rounded up my books of the year for The New European - by which I mean ‘chose’ rather than ‘felled with a lasso’ – as part of which I had to select my very favourite fiction and non-fiction titles. My fiction pick of 2024 was We Are Together Because by Kerry Andrew, a brilliant family saga playing out at the end of the world, and for non-fiction my favourite book of the year was Jeff Young’s deep dive into his youthful escapades spent aimless and penniless in 1970s Europe Wild Twin. Both are incredible and you should read them and give them as Christmas presents to people you really like.

2. It’s not often I’m in on something at the start, but for once I was an early adopter of Bridget Everett’s perfect small town sitcom Somebody Somewhere, the third series of which landed the other day. My friend Aoife summed up what makes the show special far better than I could, but essentially Somebody Somewhere is about friendship, grief, love, hope and how life is an endless series of challenges and missteps for all us beautifully flawed humans and how our friends still love us despite ourselves. It’s as near to perfect as television gets, so of course it’s now been cancelled.

3. Christmas music can be a bit hit or miss. Mostly miss, to be honest. For a Christmas album with a difference, however, put Christmas Sessions by the Gjermund Larsen Trio in your lugholes. It’s smashing.

4. When I was very little I had a Blue Peter annual that contained a big spread on the 1930 R101 airship disaster, because back then a load of people burning to death in a French field is exactly the kind of uplifting light reading us kids demanded from our TV magazine show spin-off publications. Being a weird child, I retained a macabre interest in the disaster and recently battered through S.C. Gwynne’s masterful His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine, a jawdropping story of ego, hubris, adventure, ambition, imperialism and tragedy. A cracking book.

5. The recent death of Nikki Giovanni sent me scurrying to her collected Poems 1968-2020, which is a terrific insight into the life, work and philosophy of a remarkable trailblazing woman with a rare gift for words. Like this:

6. My pal Jennifer Crothers runs a radio station out of the Boogaloo pub in Highgate, north London, and it’s a wonderful thing. She founded Boogaloo Radio in an old bin shed and now some eight years later the station is thriving and Jenn’s still the beating heart of it with a rare passion for radio and its endless possibilities. If you’ve read my Last Train to Hilversum book this is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I went searching for the magic of radio.

YULE BE ALL RIGHT

That about wraps it up for 2024. Much of the world might be a raging bin fire but I’ve had a cracking year and for once I’ve allowed myself to enjoy it. On to 2025 which I am starting by moving house, so Christmas here is being spent in an echoey flat with no pictures on the wall or books on the shelves because everything’s packed. We don’t even have a tree up but it’ll be fun nonetheless and I hope yours will be too.

May your dongs ding merrily on high.