Apologies for lateness - law and order

John Tams

It has taken a while to put together the report for last week's session. For that I apologise. I hope it's better late than never.

Mike kicked off with Outward bound. He challenged us to say why this shanty was not a shanty. The answer is that a shanty is either an outward bounder or a homeward bounder. A shantyman would not sing an outward bounder while homeward bound or vice versa but this song includes verses for both outward and homeward bound. In fact it would be sung for hauling while in port but a shanty was by definition a song to accompany work at sea. Hence, it is not really a shanty.