Coastal Stories

As the shipping forecast reaches its broadcast centenary on January 1st 2024, here's a look back to its beginnings and a tribute to the place it has found in our cultural affections. Find tour dates and ticket details for Charlie's 'Attention All Shipping' theatre show here: https://www.facebook.com/charlieconnellyauthor/ https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/podcastcoasta...

The Christmas Day dip is a growing tradition around our coasts. This episode celebrates those hardy swimmers and tells the remarkable story of the greatest Christmas Day swimmer of them all - Herbert Wray of Grimsby. https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories Coastal Stories is researched, written, presented and produced by Charli...

Coastal Stories is back for a fifth series! At last! I know! Exciting. We kick off with the secrets and mysteries of Spurn Point, a spindly finger of land off the coast of East Yorkshire.  https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories Coastal Stories is researched, written, presented and produced by Charlie Connelly.

A quick update from Charlie on the immiment arrival of the fifth series of Coastal Stories and news of his new one-man show about the shipping forecast. More info and ticket details here: https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/charlie-connelly-the-shipping-forecast

In April 1921 a tiny fishing village on the east coast of Scotland found its timeless rhythms and routines disrupted by the arrival of film stars and a film crew. A bumper episode to finish series four as we learn what happened when the movies came to Auchmithie.  https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories Coastal Stories is resea...

A terrific storm blew suddenly out of the north-east at the end of November 1774, wrecking many ships and claiming many lives up and down the east coast. The crew and passengers of the Ann, sailing from London to Dunbar, were lucky - they made it ashore and the vessel remained in one piece. The storm, however, wasn't quite finished them.  Pre-order Miles Hunt's spiffing new solo album here: https:...

As well as a curious pliable hinterland between land and sea, the beach has always been a place where the boundaries of conventional morality blur. Not least with the innovation and introduction to piers and promenades at the end of the 19th century of the Mutoscope. Lower yourself to the level of What The Butler Saw in this week's Coastal Stories.  Buy Coastal Stories a pint here: https://ko-fi.c...

For 52 years Horatio Mole rowed people back and forth the short distance between Mersea Island and the Essex mainland.  Coastal Stories is researched, written, presented and produced by Charlie Connelly. https://twitter.com/PodcastCoastal https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod/ https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories

Mary Russell, the Duchess of Bedford, was some woman. Pioneering ornithologist, nurse, radiographer, jujitsu expert and, well, duchess, when she discovered the magic of flight at the age of 60 it changed everything. Having flown to Cape Town, India and points in between, a quick jaunt to check the extent of flooding in the fens one spring  afternoon in 1937 was the kind of flight she could almost...

Sandend, a tiny fishing village on the coast of the Moray Firth, has seen its fair share of the joys, hardships, successes and tragedies that go with being a place for sea people. When a storm put the crew of a German cargo ship in mortal danger there in 1903 it brought together people who spoke not a word of each other's languages but who knew. Because sea people just know.  With special thanks t...

A delve into the ancestry for Charlie this week as he reads an account of a Spanish attack on Cornwall in 1595 in the words of his 11x great-grandfather Richard Carew, author of one of the first travel books written in English.  Coastal Stories is written, presented and produced by Charlie Connelly. https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://ko-fi.com/coa...

Beach huts today go for ridiculous amounts of money but they've always been desirable things, ever since their popularity skyrocketed after the First World War. For a penniless couple in 1935, however, an unlocked beach hut was just a welcome place of refuge. Until PC Hunt arrived with his lamp.  https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://ko-fi.com/coasta...

One foggy afternoon in April 1940 the crew of an armed trawler escorting a convoy off Fraserburgh in the North Sea spotted something remarkable - two men in a rowing boat who'd come a very long way indeed.  Vanishing Postcards from Miami, Oklahoma: https://www.vanishingpostcards.com/episodes/postcard-from-miami-ok-a-foreign-field-that-is-for-ever-england https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories https://tw...

Britain is in political turmoil, there's a lame duck prime minister and the solution is only to be found by looking to Europe. It's 1834, the king has sacked the government, Robert Peel's on holiday, the captain of a Channel packet is looking hard at his pocket watch and the people of Dover are about to miss everything. https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod...

On a quiet Thursday night in February 1866, Harriet Harton was thinking of closing the Jolly Fisherman in Brighton early. Then the door opened and in walked a horribly familiar face - holding a revolver.  Vanishing Postcards: https://www.vanishingpostcards.com/ Centre for Women's Justice: https://www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/ Women's Aid: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/ Buy Coastal Stories a pi...

In January 1917 the submarine K13 was in Gare Loch undergoing its very last trials before going into service. One brief, 15 minute dive just to check one last thing and K13 would be ready to go. Shortly after the sub slipped beneath the surface 17-year-old Annie MacIntyre was walking along the shore of the loch when she noticed something unusual in the water... Remembering Toby Carr on 25th June:...

Nobody swam farther than the man mountain Jabez Wolffe when attempting to conquer the English Channel. More than 600 miles, in fact. But despite 22 attempts over 15 years he never once made it to the other side, defeated by circumstances ranging from 'biliousness' to war breaking out when he was halfway across.  Hear Jabez's story and his, ah, unorthodox opinions on what kind of woman is best equi...

By 1926 only five people had ever succeeded in swimming the English Channel. Then a 19 year old ukulele-toting gal from New York showed up in France with a swimsuit, a gramophone and a whole bunch of world swimming records. This week's episode is an extract from Charlie's book 'The Channel', the paperback edition of which is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on June 23rd. https://twitter.com/...

In 1747 a new recruit joined the British naval sloop Swallow at Portsmouth. James Gray distinguished himself on the voyage to India and in fighting the French when he got there. When the fleet returned to Portsmouth, however, James Gray dropped quite the bombshell.  https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories

On October 3rd 1957 three elderly men were driven slowly through the village of Quilty, County Clare, sitting in a rowing boat on the back of a lorry. Exactly 50 years earlier they had braved a fearsome storm to effect a remarkable rescue. And they had the church to prove it. https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories https://twitter.com/podcastcoastal https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod

When two middle aged men who ran a care home for aged clerics and a string of church organ shops went missing in 1975 it opened up a wild tale of fraud that drew in bishops, blackmail, a TV quiz show accompanist, racing cars, a psychic from Orpington, some non-existent church organs, the occult, Julie Andrews and 232 nights camped out on a tiny, remote Scottish island in the depths of winter.  htt...

Rhyl, 1880. A young man stands on the shore about to resume a voyage he hopes will change his life and the world of seafaring forever. The sea might have other ideas.  https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/PodcastCoastal https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories Come and see Charlie interviewing Bobby Gillespie: https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/bobby-gillespie-tenement-kid

110 years ago today, on 22nd April 1912, a week after the Titanic sank, Denys Corbett Wilson became the first person to fly between Britain and Ireland. https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod https://twitter.com/PodcastCoastal

He'd once roamed the Pacific but for a finback whale called Eric his final journey would be in a glass case, towed by a lorry from Southend to Morecambe.  https://twitter.com/PodcastCoastal https://ko-fi.com/coastalstories

Coastal Stories is back bigger*, better** and brinier*** than ever.  * the same ** the same *** the same