200 years of RNLI honoured in a shanty

When the RNLI was thinking about different ways of celebrating the anniversary of 200 years since Sir William Hilary founded the amazing charity in London in 1824 there were so many ideas. Up and down the country, at the 238 lifeboat stations and inland fund-raising teams, people were being creative, innovative and many ideas bore fruit.

Martin Bruce, chairman and press officer at RNLI Rye Harbour, was approached about writing a shanty. He runs a local shanty group in the village and has written several songs for them. His dilemma was how to fit two hundred years of bravery, history, volunteering and advances  in technology into six verses.

The idea was to use a group of established RNLI volunteer singers and The Dockyard Dogs were an ideal fit as they work in the south-east region, raise funds for Tower lifeboat station and sing shanties to raise funds.

On Saturday, March 9 they travelled to Rye Harbour and spent the day creating the video which will now be sent all round the country. The logistics of recording the sound, videoing in six different locations, involving a drone pilot, the Atlantic 85 lifeboat and all the crew at RNLI Lifeboat station, organising the weather and involving the local ITV Meridian team were tricky but the day went very well.

The buzz of all this activity could not be quelled so after we had ‘a wrap’ we headed to the local pub and entertained the punters with more shanties and they lapped them up.

We are hoping that as many volunteers in RNLI stations, in shops, crew or fundraisers will be able to get together to record their own version of the shanty chorus: further information will appear on RNLI social media shortly.

Martin is showcasing the shanty later this year at the Port Isaac Shanty Festival, The International Falmouth Shanty Festival, Poole College, Chatham Dockyards and Port Talbot with the Cwmbach Male Voice Choir.

Image Credits: Kt bruce .