MARK POWER

The Shipping Forecast

September, 2024

Mark Power

“Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the Shipping Forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4, and on many other public networks across western Europe. First aired in 1924, this year marks its centenary.

For those at sea, or about to put to sea, the Shipping Forecast may mean the difference between life and death. But for the vast majority of us (in Britain at least) its enigmatic language has entered public consciousness and has come to represent something quite different. Unashamedly romantic and oddly reassuring, it creates a landscape of the imagination, confirming Britain’s island status as a place perpetually buffeted by crashing waves, and it’s often said that the best place to listen is tucked up in bed with wind howling and rain lashing down outside. It’s poetic, mantra-like cadence has become a much-loved cultural institution, yet it does all this while remaining virtually incomprehensible: The general synopsis at 0 1 00. Low, southeast Iceland 995 moving slowly southwest, filling 1 00 7 by 0 1 00 tomorrow. Low, Biscay 958, expected Wales 1 00 5 by the same time. Low, Trafalgar 1 00 3 moving slowly east, losing its identity.

In 1990, at a Royal National Lifeboat shop on England’s east coast, I bought a tea towel bearing a map of the Shipping Forecast’s 31 sea areas, something I’d never seen before. Two years later I set out to visit them all, to find out if the reality of what I found bore any resemblance to my own imaginary landscapes, which had been forming in my mind since childhood.”

Mark Power, The Shipping Forecast

The Shipping Forecast, FRAKT, 2024

The Shipping Forecast, Slide show, FRAKT, 2024