This piece of music is called “Sailing By” composed by Ronald Binge in 1963, and performed by the Alan Perry/William Gardner Orchestra, and is the version used by the BBC for its late-night early-morning shipping forecasts,

It signals the beginning of the Shipping Forecast, an important part of living on an island and it dates back over 150 years. The Shipping Forecast was established by Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy the first professional weather forecaster, and captain of the HMS Beagle, on which Charles Darwin sailed to South America. ⁽¹⁾

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy.

Born 5 July 1805, Suffolk, England

Died 30 April 1865 Norwood, England.

In October 1859, the steam clipper Royal Charter was wrecked in a strong storm off Anglesey, Wales 450 people lost their lives. In response to this loss, FitzRoy introduced a warning service for shipping in February 1861, using telegraph communications.

Sadly, FitzRoy didn’t live to see his ideas become a permanent fixture of British life; he killed himself in 1865, in part because of his frustration at failing to set up a regular service. ⁽²⁾

The shipping service was only discontinued during and following WW1 between 1914 and June 1921. During WW2, it was discontinued between 1939 and 1945.

The shipping forecast is heard by local fishermen all over the British Iles, Scotland Wales and further afield and Its tune is repetitive, assisting in its role of serving as a signal for sailors tuning in to be able to easily identify the radio station.

This delightful music above brings back happy memories for me, listening to the radio as a child in Plymouth Devon England, where I was born. “Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, North Utsire and South Utsire” – coastal regions near Norway – although I had no idea where these exotic names were, it was wonderful to imagine. 

Just look at some of the unusual names on the map, it was always a thrill to hear ‘Plymouth’ mentioned.

The sea areas match the forecast areas used by other North Sea countries, though some names differ. The Dutch KNMI and Norwegian counterpart, names the Forties “Fladen Ground”, while Météo-France uses “Pas-de-Calais” for Dover, “Antifer” for Wight “Casquests” for Portland and “Ouessant” or ‘Ushant” for my home town, Plymouth. Because of the unusual name for Plymouth, I also learned a fascinating piece of French history.

The Ouessant (or Ushant) is a breed of domestic sheep (Could that be a French insult?) from the island of Ouessant off the coast of Brittany but also the name of a French Submarine). Ushant is a French island at the southwestern end of the English Channel which marks the westernmost point of metropolitan France.  

It belongs to Brittany and in medieval times, Léon. In lower tiers of government, it is a commune in the Finistère department. It is the only place in Brittany, save for Brittany itself, with a separate name in English.

Even today, if I cannot sleep, I still listen to BBC Radio 4 in the early hours of the day and catch the Shipping Forecast as it lulls me to sleep.

Unfortunately, from this year, 2024, it is expected that the Shipping Forecast will no longer be broadcast on long wave (LW) due to the closure of the LW platform. This announcement was updated on the 4th of April 2023 due to the BBC amending their original announcement on the future of the LW Shipping Forecast. The LW broadcasts are expected to end in 2024, but a final decision has not yet been made. ⁽⁴⁾

Listeners are reassured by the thought that, somewhere out at sea, British fishers are patiently waiting by their radios to find out whether there is a gale warning in Rockall or Cromarty. However, the slightly less romantic reality, according to Mike Cohen of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, is that his members have not needed Radio 4 for decades.

Modern fishers have far more accurate devices to warn them about the wind and rain: “Even the small 15-metre boats in Bridlington have satellite internet these days. I’ve had video calls from people in the middle of the sea.” ⁽⁵⁾

Some interesting quotes below about the shipping forecast: 

“The Shipping Forecast is immensely popular with the British public; it attracts listeners in the hundreds of thousands daily – far more than actually require it.[18]

In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by 12 minutes triggered angry newspaper editorials and debates in the UK Parliament and was ultimately scrapped.[19]

Similar outcry greeted the Met Office’s decision to rename Finisterre to FitzRoy, but in that case, the decision was carried through.[20]

Peter Jefferson, who read the Forecast for 40 years until 2009, says that he received letters from listeners across the UK saying that the 0048 broadcast helped them get to sleep after a long day.[4]

The Controller of BBC Radio 4, Mark Damazer, attempted to explain its popularity: 

“It scans poetically. It’s got a rhythm of its own. It’s eccentric, it’s unique, it’s English. It’s slightly mysterious because nobody really knows where these places are. It takes you into a faraway place that you can’t really comprehend unless you’re one of these people bobbing up and down in the Channel.[18]“

Zeb Soanes, a regular Shipping Forecast reader, described it thus:

“To the non-nautical, it is a nightly litany of the sea. It reinforces a sense of being islanders with a proud seafaring past. Whilst the listener is safely tucked-up in their bed, they can imagine small fishing-boats bobbing about at Plymouth or 170ft waves crashing against Rockall.[21]“

….and many more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_Forecast

SOURCES

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Shipping_Forecast#Coastal_weather_stations_and_inshore_waters

(2) https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/10-things-about-the-shipping-forecast-164341

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushant

(4) https://www.pbo.co.uk/news/no-more-shipping-forecast-on-lw-from-2024-75844

(5) https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/03/shipping-forecast-radio-4-long-wave-broadcast