Kiama now has its own Sea Shanty Club, meeting each week at the Kiama Inn. The group is dedicated to singing songs of the sea, acapella (no instruments).

After hearing shanties at the Kiama Folk by the Sea Festival and Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival sung by sea shanty groups from Redfern and Canberra, some of Kiama’s ‘wanna-be-pirates’ decided to start their own group to have some rollicking fun singing old favourites which were often first learned decades ago in primary school.

 “It’s clearly good for our collective mental health, particularly after such a long period of isolation during the covid pandemic,” says Ian (Long John) Backhouse, one of the club organisers.

“Fun is the keystone to our enterprise. There is a little bit of Pirate in us all, Aaaaarggh!”

Ian and Alan Forde visited the Redfern Sea Shanty Club in October and were given lots of advice and encouragement.

Jane Littrich, who knows the Kiama Inn publican, asked if the group could hold their singalongs there and now 25 and more people come along each week.

Everyone is encouraged to bring along a favourite shanty, ones such as ‘Blow The Man Down’, ‘Haul on the Bowline’, ‘What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor’, ‘South Australia’, ‘Sloop John B’ (probably more popularly known as the Beach Boys ‘I want to go home’).

A night The Bugle went along, Jane led the group with ‘Being a Pirate’, the lyrics to which include “It’s all part of being a pirate, You can’t be a pirate with all of your parts,” then continues with each verse suggesting which parts you can’t do without.

“Everyone is encouraged to join in, making up verses and contributing song suggestions,” says John Littrich, who also led a song.

Dr Sarah Bestwick, 27, who has been in the Navy for three years led ‘The Last Shanty’ to celebrate her partner’s discharge that day from the Navy.

Dave Vidler led ‘A Drop of Nelson’s Blood’ to which some members added their own verses.

After about an hour - a few drinks, some merriment, jokes and group singing - everyone retires until the following Wednesday.

The history of the sea shanty dates back to the mid-1440s when they were sung to help sailors do their work and get through difficult times.

In 2019 a Cornish film, Fisherman’s Friends, retold the true story of a group of fishermen, signed by Universal Records, who achieved a top 10 hit with their debut album of traditional sea shanties. This film sparked a sea shanty revival.

Then at the beginning of the pandemic, the Sea Shanty was picked up by a new generation. The rendition of ‘The Wellerman’ by Scotsman Nathan Evans, 26, on tiktok nearly broke the internet, with millions of views. The irony of people in a pandemic identifying with songs that were created to get sailors through tough times is not lost.

Catchy rhythms, call and response, plus easy-to-sing-along lyrics (available on Google) make joining in easy.

“Getting together to enjoy singing is a great community activity,” says Ian.

There are no restrictions on membership and the inclusive group welcomes everyone as long as they are kind and respectful - especially younger people, he says. The Redfern Group is predominantly made up of people aged between 20 and 35.

“Our mission is to celebrate and sing the songs of the sea and keep them and their history alive for the next generation,” he says.

The group acknowledges that while many of these songs hail from the era of colonization and are for the most part Euro-centric, that in no way is the group celebrating the colonization of these lands, nor the effects that colonization has had on First Nations peoples anywhere in the world.

“We recognize the importance of understanding that often the language used in previous eras such as references to enslaved peoples and patriarchal references to women are deemed offensive in present times. For these reasons some shanty lyrics will be modified to avoid offence,” the group’s mission statement says.

The Kiama Sea Shanty group meets each Wednesday night 7.45pm at the Kiama Inn on Terralong Street. For more details check out the Facebook Group