Poetry - Shipping Forecast at 100

Subject: Shipping Forecast at 100
From: GUEST,Charles Macfarlane
Date: 04 Jan 25 - 05:01 AM

The most recent edition of Poetry Please celebrated 100 years of the Shipping Forecast with a suitable selection of poetry connected with it in some way.

I was put in mind of a song about it, I think by Dave Pasket or Paskett, who IIRC also wrote "I Could Not Take My Eyes Off Her" and "Pegging Out The Linen (on the washing line)". From what very little I recall, I think it was a comic song.

Can anyone fill in the huge gaps in my memory about this? Even better, are the lyrics around anywhere?

Subject: RE: Shipping Forecast at 100
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 04 Jan 25 - 06:32 AM

Did Poetry Please have this version, I wonder?
Les Barker - Shipping Forecast

LFF

Subject: RE: Shipping Forecast at 100
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 04 Jan 25 - 10:18 AM

Two songs linked to the Shipping Forecast;

Bound by the Fishing by Lester Simpson Sung by Coope Boyes and Simpson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er_O_Rj3Qt0

Falling Slowly by Lester Simpson Sung by Coope Boyes and Simpson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNYhXmx0To

Subject: RE: Poetry - Shipping Forecast at 100
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 04 Jan 25 - 08:04 PM

The history of the forecast goes back to 1861, when Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy developed a telegraphic messaging system to issue weather warnings to ships, following the loss of the steam clipper Royal Charter. The vessel founded (sank) in a violent storm off the coast of Anglesey on 26 October 1859, with the loss of more than 450 lives. The Royal Charter was the most prominent among about 200 ships wrecked by the Royal Charter Storm, prompting FitzRoy’s desire to prevent it happening again.

Subject: Tom Russell's Wales Song From: fsharpdim7 Date: 29 Jul 03 - 04:52 PM I just got Tom's Modern Art and was really surprised to hear "Isaac Lewis." Here is his explanation: "I'm not a sea-going man, but I heard the seed of this story in a bar in Northern Wales. Isaac Lewis sails around the world and drowns aboard a clipper ship, then washes up on shore right outside his father's door. I doubted the old drunk who told me the story, then the next day he gave me a book called "The Golden Wreck." It was all true. It's in the book. This may be one of the only songs I've written with a "message." The moral is: "Tell your loved ones what they mean to you before it's too late." Eliza Gilkyson sings harmony and Elana Fremerman plays string parts. This song goes well with a Guinness. And two shots of Tullamore Dew."

Subject: RE: Poetry - Shipping Forecast at 100
From: GUEST,Charles Macfarlane
Date: 06 Jan 25 - 08:16 AM

"Did Poetry Please have this version, I wonder?
Les Barker - Shipping Forecast"

Sadly, no, but they should have!

They did include an excerpt from Murray Lachlan-Young's "The People's Shipping Forecast", based on excerpts submitted by the public, which was quite amusing:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGdblCGjfMw
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcoSPO_qjaQ

Subject: RE: Poetry - Shipping Forecast at 100
From: GUEST,Charles Macfarlane
Date: 07 Jan 25 - 08:47 AM

Apparently Dave Paskett's song was "The Sipping Forecast" which is all about drinking. This was mentioned in another Mudcat thread, here:

Dave Paskett & 'Raglan'

In that thread, as recently as 2010, Phil Beer also mentions that Paul Downes regularly includes Dave Paskett's more famous "I Could Not Take My Eyes Off Her" in his sets, and the next poster says it is on Paul's first or second album. As it happens, I had Paul's album "Life Goes On", which I think was his first, on vinyl, and still have the digitisation I made of it before giving it to a charity shop, and the song is not on that, so I reckon it must have been on Paul's second album.

Notwithstanding Dave very successful principal career as an artist, I find it a little sad that there is absolutely nothing on his website, that I could find, about his musical career ... it's not as though his songs were anything to be ashamed off, quite the contrary IMO:

Dave Paskett - Artist