A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
A Sea Shanty about a great storm along the east coast. Added by Mark Vesey
Me thinks I see a host of craft spreading their sails to lea,
as down the Humber they do glide all bound for the northern sea,
me thinks I see on each small craft a crew with hearts so brave,
going out to earn their daily bread upon the restless waves,
Chorus:
And its three score and ten boys and men were lost from Grimsby town
From Yarmouth down to Scarborough many hundreds more were drowned
Our herring crafts, our trawlers, our fishing smacks as well
They long defied that bitter night and battled with the swell
Me thinks I see them yet again as they leave the land behind
Casting their nets into the sea the fishing shoals to find
Me thinks I see them yet again and all on boards alright
with the sails close reefed and the decks cleared up and the sidelights burning bright
October's night left such a sight was never seen before there were spars and shafts and broken yards come floating to the shore, there was many a heart of sorrow, there was many a heart so brave, there was many a hearty fisherlad did find a watery grave
Me thinks I hear the skipper say come lads come shorten sail, for the sky to all appearances looks like an approaching gale. Me thinks I see them yet again and the midnight hour is past, their tiny crafts a battling their against the lay blast.
OTHER ARTICLES
• The history of the Scarborough fishing industry
• The Beam trawl and the Otter trawl
• Trawling During WW2 around scarborough and the North - East coast
• The Allen and Truman Scarborough fishing families
• The history of the herring fishing in the North Sea
• Tunny fishing in Scarborough in the 1930's
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• The new way of catching caller herrin
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• Filey fishermen in 1862 - yawls and cobles
• The Harwood and Bullamore fishing family history in Scarborough
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• Tommy Rowley - stories about loss of life at sea
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• The U-Boat campaign in the First World War
• The early trawlers - Yarmouth and Barking and Brixham
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• A great storm in 1874 along the coasts of England
• A great storm off Filey Bridge and a famous rescue in 1799
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