Black Tot Day--50 years later

Subject: RE: Black Tot Day--50 years later
From: GUEST,Bill Dunlap
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 01:29 PM

We never got that far in thinking about songs before everything got shut down. But I would recommend accompanying whatever songs you choose with Pusser's Rum, reportedly the same recipe that the RN used half a century ago.

Subject: RE: Black Tot Day--50 years later
From: cnd
Date: 30 Jul 20 - 09:23 AM

That would've been an interesting time, Bill.

Were there any songs in particular you wanted to sing?
Or better yet, any songs in reaction to Black Tot Day?

Subject: Black Tot Day--50 years later
From: GUEST,Bill Dunlap
Date: 29 Jul 20 - 11:33 PM

Tomorrow, July 31, is the fiftieth anniversary of Black Tot Day (July 31, 1970) when, at noon, the Royal Navy, at the insistence of Parliament, ended the daily rum ration for the sailors. I had planned for years to organize a song circle that evening to feature shanties and songs of rum and drunken sailors, but the pandemic put an end to that. Perhaps online sings tonight, tomorrow, and over the weekend might want to mark the occasion with a song and half a gill of rum (that’s two ounces) to which the ration had been reduced by the end.

Here are a couple of links to more details on the 315-year tradition.

https://blacktot.com/the-story/1407/the-day-the-rum-died
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Black_Tot_Day