The Stuns’ls shanty group takes to the stage at the Mevagissey Shanty Festival in Cornwall
Narrow streets and colourful fisherman’s cottages roll down to the centre of Mevagissey, where a twin harbour, built off the back of the thriving pilchard industry of the 18th and 19th centuries, shelters a flotilla of working fishing boats and pleasure craft secured to land by rusty chains.
Seaweed-scarred buoys bobble and worn lobster pots await their next outing while the scent of pasties drifts across the madding tourist crowd. It’s a classic seaside image that couldn’t be more Kernow if it tried. But then it does try. Harder. And effortlessly, as a deep harmony of male voices interrupts the squawking of seagulls.
“Seaweed-scarred buoys bobble while the scent of pasties drifts across the madding tourist crowd”
“First thing in the morning, on Chapel Carn Brea. To gaze at the Scillies, in the blue far away. For this is my Cornwall, and I’ll tell you why. Because I was born here and here I shall die…”
It’s mid-October, I’m on the south coast of Cornwall for the sixth Mevagissey Shanty Festival and that was ‘Cornwall My Home’, a modern shanty popularised by the group Fisherman’s Friends. This is my maiden musical voyage and I’m here because of new and old: a blossoming love of shanty and a lifelong attraction