Well I got into shanties because like the Vogon guard in Hitchhiker I really liked the shouting. Singing at volumes fit to burst eardrums and scare polar bears has always seemed to me to be a worthwhile use of the human voice.

My grandfather on my mother's side was a sea-cook and then chief steward in the merchant navy. He spent his whole life at sea, and was torpedoed in the second world war. He was an excellent musician, and a very humerous man, by all accounts. Sadly he died before I could know him, but maybe my love of sea songs, and the sea, is a sign that blood will out. Well, I hope so.

In order to further indulge this addiction to sea songs, my two friends Malc and Ian and I have created the bizarre but serviceable shanty group "Lime Scurvy"