Audio: National Public Radio; The Shipping Forecast

shipping forecast

The British Isles are an archipelago measuring about 900 miles from top to toe, with a history tied inextricably to the waters that surround them.

This image from circa 1887 shows the Battleship HMS Victoria sailing past the Swing Bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne, where it was built. The area, on England’s northeast coast, was once a major shipping and shipbuilding hub.

December 16, 2013; by Philip Reeves for National Public Radio

It is a bizarre nightly ritual that is deeply embedded in the British way of life. You switch off the TV, lock up the house, slip into bed, turn on your radio, and begin to listen to a mantra, delivered by a soothing, soporific voice.

“Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger…” says the voice.

You are aware — vaguely — that these delicious words are names, and that those names refer to big blocks of sea around your island nation, stretching all the way up to Iceland and down to North Africa.

Somewhere, deep in your memory, stir echoes of British history — of invasions from across the sea by Vikings, Romans and Normans; of battles with Napoleon’s galleons and Hitler’s U-boats.

Finally, as the BBC’s Shipping Forecast bulletin draws to a close, you nod off, complacent in the knowledge that whatever storms are blasting away on the oceans out there, you’re in your pajamas, sensibly tucked up at home…

Why does the Shipping Forecast mean so much to so many in the U.K.?