Here's a song I wrote about Nelson from the point of view of a volunteer in the Royal Navy. I had the idea when I asked our first lieutenant (who was very upper class, but a nice bloke despite that) why the wardroom celebrated Trafalgar Night, but for the lower deck it was just another day in the navy. "That's because I'm descended from a line of gentlemen whilst you, Sugden, come from a shower of pressed men!" He was joking, I think, but being a keen naval historian, I knew his assertion to be wrong.

The Volunteer's Testimony

Here I sit, I cannot stand
Born to the sea, beached on the land
A veteran of the wars against the French
When First I went to sea
Bold Nelson commanded me
The finest man who ever sailed the waves

Ch.
I wasn't pressed, I volunteered
And I sailed with 'Our Nel'
From St Vincent to Trafalgar
And through many part of hell
We fought the French, the Dons, the Danes
We were masters of the seas
Then a chain-shot at Trafalgar
Cut me short below the knees

Against the Spanish on Valentine's Day
Admiral Jarvis led the way
His orders came to tack about in line
Nelson saw there wasn't time
So without orders, broke the line
His actions, Jarvis said, saved the day

Against the shore at Aboukir
Brueys thought his fleet secure
But Foley found a way around
From both sides our guns did pound
And Napoleon's dreams of the orient
Went up in a ball of flames

Against those 'Brothers of Englishmen'
And their fleet at Copenhagen
Broadside we fought it out
Through wreaths of smoke
When Hyde-Parker saw the pall
He flew the signal for recall
A signal Nelson said he did not see

And Nelson's final throw
Saw the combined fleet's over throw
The French and Spanish fleets put to rout
But with victory in his grasp
Bold Nelson breathed his last
Even the pressed men cried into their grog

So now you see me here
But I pray, don't shed a tear
For I volunteered for country
And for king
But now the wars are o'er
We're left to rot upon the shore
Nelson would have grieved to see us here