A Sailor's Life: Songs from Nelson's Navy

Better late than never, here's a little something for Trafalgar Day. I've been meaning to write a post about this for ages but there's no sign of me getting round to it so you can have it anyway!

This programme was originally broadcast by the BBC Radio 4 Early Music Show as part of the Trafalgar Centenary celebrations in 2005. The programme is presented by Catherine Bott and Adam Sharp of HMS Victory and some it is recorded on the great ship herself. It's an amazing programme that covers a whole range of songs that would have been familiar to the men below decks.

My partner recorded this when it was first broadcast and after pestering him for months he finally managed to dig it out of his backup discs for me :) I've put it online so you can download it and the playlist is still available on the Early Music Show website. There are a couple of errors in the playlist though. Sadly The Sailor's Alphabet doesn't appear in the show but there are many more extraordinary songs to enjoy including The Seventeen Bright Stars, a ballad about the Spithead mutiny which I've never heard anywhere else.

Download A Sailor's Life

I've locked this post due to the dubious legality of sharing programmes like this :} Feel free to share this with anyone else who may be interested but please do so privately. Enjoy!

Cross posted to following_sea