Not only is Richard right about shanties not being an exclusively English song-form, but from what I know they were an excellent vehicle for cross-cultural transfer, what with many of the commercial crews being a mix of nationalities etc. Indeed, 20 years ago when we lived in the Netherlands and my son was going to primary school, I was most surprised one evening when he came out with a couple of shanties I could have sworn were English - in Dutch.

I agree that they missed a trick if they made no mention of Stan Hugill. I have seen some great videos of him both singing and explaining the background of songs & shanties.

I missed the BBC4 programme thanks to a recent addiction/affliction to Ashes to Ashes but will catch up as soon as they put it up on iPlayer.