Shiver me timbers....and the like....

So "Pirates " is it you're after ? Let's think then....I liked Burt Lancaster as " The Crimson Pirate " ...."Believe all that you see, but only half of what you hear ! " ( or something like that ).He was a 'real'  pirate who did all his own stunts. The film opens with him swinging from rigging rope to rigging before finally using his dagger (I think) to plunge into the mainsail and with it's tearing, descend to the deck. Great stuff! Now the modern trend is towards Johnny Depp's rather effeminate rendition (a totally personal opinion) with lots of flaunting and tossing of the head.

I'm sure that a pirate's lot was not a happy one . It must have been lonely, smelly, hungry, unpredictable and of course dangerous. They had their own 'laws' and a sort of 'insurance '. So, say, the loss of a leg might get you a barrel of silver...that sort of thing.

I'm equally sure that they didn't all say "Ahrr, Jim lad", like Long John Silver. Mostly they are depicted as rather dark characters with either a parrot or an intelligent monkey as a companion. Here we may envisage Blackbeard as a fine example. In many movies they make good, win the hand of the governor's daughter, and rule a plantation. Not so Captain Hook. (How did  a crocodile get into the sea ?) Did they really make people 'walk the plank' ? (Well they couldn't keep prisoners.)

Pirates still abound in the seas ( and I'm not just talking of the old 'Radio Caroline' ). They are a real threat to today's sea transport especially in the China Seas and Malaysian Peninsula. Many a voyager on a  yacht mysteriously disappears and the seas have to be patrolled constantly against the threat.

My photo today is taken of me in fancy dress...yes , a lady pirate. For you see- every year on my husband's birthday we had a get together with friends and we'd choose a theme for the following year. We'd started to get our bits together but he died about 10 months before the set date, but friends persuaded me to go ahead, the following year, as they wanted to use the occasion as an opportunity to remember him.

I wrote this poem following a workshop held at the North Euston Hotel, dated 31/05/2014.

THE LONELY PIRATE

I met a ghostly vision by the jetty

Don't you know ?

Who asked me when the sailors came ashore.

Did I know,

What tide they came in on and at what time of day?

Petrified I whispered, " Go away, go away ".

Walking to the lighthouse near the shore,

You should know,

I met up with this spectre once again -

I'll have you know.

He frightened me near to death this time,

By asking me once again - in rhyme-

"What time does the 'Falcon' berth,

Where does she dock ?"

Chortling in eerie mirth,

"You know she hit a rock !

Down she went, way down deep

Drowned beneath the sea,

All my mates they be asleep-

All that is 'cept me.

I walk this jetty and the light

Waiting for my sailor mates.

All the day and all the night,

Not aknowing of their fates "

I could not give him any answers

For I didn't know, I didn't know.

So if you spot a ghostly figure by the jetty,

You ought to know

That he'll ask you all these frightful things

Whilst to your sleeve he stubbornly clings.

So you set off and try to find what happened to his mates.

He needs to know, he needs to know !

Remember all the facts and dates,and

Let him know..PLEASE LET HIM KNOW !

Thanks for reading...Kath