Watch sea shanty crew's boozy sunset sing-along outside RNLI station

Blackpool Gazette

Meet the musical crew keeping old sea shanties alive - with the help of a stick made out lager bottle tops.  The Lytham St Annes Shanty Crew regularly entertain crowds with free open rehearsals, while also raising funds for the RNLI.  Here, the crew captain, Clive Marquis-Carr, explains why the events are so poignant in the seaside town, because of the historical Mexico Disaster where 27 volunteer lifeboatmen perished in a rescue attempt.  This short clip is taken from Episode 44 of Unconventional Brits. For the full video, including musical snippets watch https://www.shotstv.com/watch/vod/52925007

Transcript

00:00We sing sea shanties and people come and listen, they can bring the fish and chips and throw some

00:06money into the buckets to support the RNLI. We're by the sea, we just have one RNLI member,

00:14Tony Cox who is the mechanic and he's also the coxswain of the lifeboat crew and he's our one

00:22true RNLI crew member. We play this which is a traditional shanty instrument, it's a monkey stick

00:29or an ugly stick or a river rattler or a mendoza or a lager phone named after all the bottle tops

00:36that are on it. This is a traditional shanty instrument and the idea was that the shanty

00:40man, the shanties were all from the age of sail and when the shanty man was beating out the tune

00:44he needed something to beat the tune with. Here in Limson Sands is quite poignant because in 1886

00:51there was the greatest disaster that befell the RNLI when 27 lifeboat crewmen from Southport and

01:04St. Anne's crews, they lost their lives saving 12 of the crew of the Mexico. The Lytham crew saved

01:13them and it really sparked the public appeal for the RNLI.

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