"The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand"
The National Maritime Museum Cornwall and Mission for Seafarers have teamed up to send some festive cheer to those away at sea for Christmas.
From Saturday November 17, anyone visiting the Falmouth museum will be able to design and make cards for those working at sea over Christmas. The Mission to Seafarers will then be shipping their messages and artwork to the sailors and mariners in time for Christmas.
The initiative has apparently been inspired by the classic poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Christmas at Sea (see below), and will be running from 17 November until 16 December, with the cards being displayed in the museum before being sent.
Children can also enter their cards into an age-categorised competition, closing on 9 December, to win free annual passes to the museum and tickets for its new family film programme.
Judged by Penny Phillips from the Mission to Seafarers and Father John Savage, the winners will be announced on 15 December. The overall winning artwork will also be exhibited on the museum’s website.
Debs Rogers, education assistant at the museum, said: “I would like the children who take part in this activity to think about mariners who are far from their families this Christmas and to draw and write whatever comes to mind. I’m sure there will be some very endearing messages!”
Wikipedia on Robert Louis Stevenson
CHRISTMAS AT SEA
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:
So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘long-shore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
“All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.
“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first mate Jackson, cried.
…”It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.
As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94).
