Nothing like Pilchards for saving the soul!
Sardines have a long history in the fortunes of Cornwall – back in the day when they were known as pilchards every port and cove fished for them – the buildings the fish were cured in salt were even known as palaces, such was the importance of the shiny silver fsh to the wealth and prosperity of the Duchy.
By the middle of the 20th Century, fishing for them commercially in a targeted way had died out. By the late 1999s there were no canneries and in 2008 the last of the curing factories, British Cured Pilchards packed its final consignment of cured fish to Italy, largely owing to a big drop in the demand by Italians no longer eating such fish on a Friday!
Back in 2020, the country was fully occupied in dealing with the national lockdown as a result of the Corona virus epidemic. During lockdown, many people took full advantage of the time to make the most of their creative talents to share or collaborate online. One such group, headed up by choirmaster Craig Mcleish, was the Choir Community created a few years before in 2018. Out of what seemed desperate times for many a new shanty was born and, what better subject to choose for a new song to rival any traditional shanty than the almighty Pilchard!
Here, Craig picks up the story on the Choir Community’s website
Despite the latest boom in Sea Shanty interest they have been a regular feature of the folk session that our resident soprano, Laura Featherstone has taken part in for many years. The annual Sea Shanty festival in Falmouth is also a very popular event every year, so they have always been big business down in Cornwall. However it’s fair to say that the same favourites are sung often, so Laura thought she would try and create something new!
Laura writes:-
I started researching old Cornish poems to see if I could find inspiration relating to the saying “Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry”. While looking for that the subject of fishing came up and I came across the saying: “It’s always declared betwixt the two poles, there’s nothing like pilchards for saving of souls”. This intrigued me and I knew immediately that was going to be my hook. It relates to the fact that during lent, meat was not eaten by Italian Catholic communities so they relied on the salted pilchards being shipped from Cornwall to Europe. However as prosperity increased the demand for the fish declined. The industry which had lasted centuries and which supported thousands of families in the South West came to an end when the last factory shutdown in 2005 and the salting and pressing traditions was lost forever, only being kept alive by an exhibit in a museum. It’s believed that the best year was 1871 when 16,000 tons were exported because although salted pilchards were not a favourite dish for locals they were popular in Italy with pasta and polenta for many years. These days the only pilchards you can buy are the ones in a tin with tomato sauce or the re-branded fresh ‘Cornish Sardines’, but they are not quite the same!
Craig writes:-
Laura always brings a tune with the words she writes and they are usually perfect. This one was good but needed a little lifting here and there so we collaborated
on a new tune, working on each note until it sounded just right. We wanted to make it sound a bit like an old shanty that had been around a while – maybe you can let us know if we succeeded! The first version I wrote was for TTBB but we don’t believe Shanty singing should be confined to men only so we immediately recorded an SATB version too. We are indebted to Stephen Lawry and the Mousehole Male Voice Choir who checked the veracity of the lyrics for us – they even have members who used to fish out of Newlyn so they know their stuff!
Once we had written the song we thought why not join everyone on the merry video bandwagon and give one a go? We have as one of our co-directors the amazing Gitika Partington whose lockdown videos have become almost legendary. So she agreed to edit together our efforts to see what it looked like. None of us live anywhere near the sea so we had to resort to some light (fairly obvious) subterfuge. See what you think. Maybe we should have a Choir Community virtual Shanty Festival??
So there we have it! Not only do sardines have huge health benefits with the abundance of essential vitamins and vital Omega-3 oils but these humble fish can also do wonders for your mental health!
Enjoy the best sardine shanty going and there’s a good chance the boys will maybe learn the words and sing it at this year’s Sardine Festival!
