I have to tell you folks, one of the wonderful things that comes with being the Editor of Fremantle Shipping News is that, from time to time, unsolicited communications arrive in my inbox that bring joy to my heart.
Last Friday night at the Fremantle Workers Club I met Eileen Mahony, who hails from London and has been performing her Loft Clearance and Loft Luggage shows during the Perth Fringe Festival, having previously taken them to the Edinburgh Festival. So much fun. Such a thoughtful person.
Turns out Eileen’s a friend of Bernadette Brady whose poem The Order Of Things we posted recently as The Wednesday Poem on the Shipping News. Eileen, obviously taken with our name and knowing about a song her London friend Erica Steenkamp wrote and performs with her partner, Christopher Newland, mentioned us to Erica who then emailed the Shipping News to share with us her fab song … The Shipping Forecast.
Too much serendipity here to ignore. I had to know more, so asked Erica about herself and her song. This is what I then learned.
I am originally from Capetown SA. My dad was a church minister and my two brothers and I were very young children in the 60’s, growing up during the apartheid era. The politics of that time caused many of my extended family to emigrate to Australia, Canada and New Zealand. I ended up in England as a teenager and made my life in the UK.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, although I never pursued it as a career. I began writing songs aged fifteen, inspired by my older brother who played guitar. He wanted to be a cool guitarist, instead he had a pesky pubescent little sister nagging him to sing. We realised our voices harmonised well and eventually I came to write lyrics to the songs he composed. We became a songwriting duo, playing at community halls and social events.
Over time, I worked, raised 3 children and would spend many nights writing and composing new songs. My teenage children would at times become exasperated because I kept them awake at night with my playing and singing.
Eighteen years ago I opened up the Blue Belle Cafe serving breakfast and lunch. My partner is a professional musician, so we incorporated live music and poetry into our menu of events. We discovered there was a hunger for live music in our community and our soirées were always fully booked.
I closed my cafe 2 years ago and decided the time has come to devote myself wholeheartedly to writing and performing my songs. Christopher Newland (my partner) and I went on to establish ourselves as the duo Erica and the Wildebeest.
Now folks at this stage you will be wanting to hear Erica’s song The Shipping Forecast.
Here it is on this Bandcamp link.
And here’s the Bandcamp cover page and the song’s lyrics.
Just love the lyrics, especially the –
Never really close to understanding
Never sure I’ll ever settle down
Oh these winds of change surround me
Standing on the bow…
Erica explained to me that The Shipping Forecast took root during a period of her life when she worked late nights in a Mexican bar. She would come home in the wee hours, exhausted and tune into BBCRadio4. The Shipping Forecast – a real radio thing – came on air around 00.48 and 05.00 and had such a calming effect on her. (As we imagine the Fremantle Shipping News has on our readers too!) The narrator’s voice, Erica says, was reassuring and steady, the language of meteorology so mysterious and other worldly. She was captivated and inspired.
A friend of Erica’s, who shared a similar love of The Shipping Forecast, then challenged her to write a song about it but she shelved the idea ‘in the recesses of my mind for a long time’. Eventually, the tune came and soon after the words followed, ‘flowing out from nowhere’, Erica said. The song she says, ‘created itself in my subconscious and emerged during the winter nights of 2017. Writing experiences such as these lead me to believe that the artist is a conduit for some greater spiritual flow … Our creations a gift from the universe.’ I agree.
As you can see I just had to share Erica’s story and her wonderful song The Shipping Forecast with all Fremantle Shipping News readers near and far.
Thanks for your gift, Erica, and thanks for sharing.
We look forward to seeing Erica and the Wildebeest in Freo at some point. Perhaps teaming up with Eileen and Bernadette?
By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News
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