The Shipping Forecast: Celebrating 100 Years

by Meg Clothier

There’s a sea lover in every Brit.

The Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 has been keeping people in tune with the gloriously fickle British weather for a century, and capturing our hearts and imaginations along the way.

Celebrating a hundred years since the first broadcast, this book takes you to the heart of what the Shipping Forecast means to us as a nation. Each of the ten chapters brings you on a fascinating exploration of a different area of our British maritime history, from stormy weather up above to the seabed far below, and from fishing boats and battleships to the songs and poems inspired by the forecast.

This joyous book invites you to sail away into the enchanting world of the forecast, and is the perfect companion for anyone curious about our great British skies and seas.

Genres: Nonfiction

182 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2024

Reviews

[Lucy Breuning · Rating 2 out of 5]

First things first, I love the shipping forecast. It is clear that the author of this book does, too.

I think there is something inherently intimate about the Shipping Forecast, this is in part due to its unsociable broadcasting hours. Floating across the airwaves (sailing by??) at 0048 and 0520 it catches you in your more vulnerable moments.

The heavy lidded insomniac, the drunk crawling into bed, and tired parent of a crying newborn can all be united by the cryptic but comforting utterances of the ‘Shipping forecast’.

The book clearly captures the intense fondness many people have for the Shipping forecast - when it does in fact manage to stay on the topic of the shipping forecast. So that was good.

On a structural level, I found the book incredibly frustrating, as it flitted, with no chronology from discussing roman history, wooly mammoths, to the ending of the planet of the apes. The chapters were meandering and seemed to be a complete stream of consciousness, tangentially going over various facts mostly about the sea.

The tone of the book failed to land with me also, and I found the flippant / jokey tone overly self aware and very grating.

On the whole it felt like the confused love child of uni students last minute essay, and a slightly self indulgent diary. The cover is pretty, but I am tired and grumpy and might throw it in the Thames.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shipping Forecast is a British broadcasting institution, loved in equal measure by mariners and landlubbers for its precision and economy of language and its accidental poetry. This BBC Radio 4 book celebrates the centenary of the bulletin by looking at its origins and impact over the years. If Meg Clothier’s narrative occasionally wanders substantially off the bearing she has set for herself, there’s ample compensation in the stories she has to tell.

[Andy Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you buy a book about The Shipping Forecast, you're always taking a bit of a punt and there's a risk of disappointment.
But not in this case.
It's a strange book, though.
Part history book (history of the Shipping Forecast, and history of Britain!), part poetry book, part autobiography...and I guess that's a bit of the charm of it, the fact that it uses the Shipping Forecast as a backdrop (once it's explained how the Forecast originated).
There's some excellent snippets of information (like the fact that areas of the Rockall plateau are named after places in Middle-Earth!) and the writing style is easy and engaging.
Overall, it's well worth a read.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favourite memories of caravan holidays was lying listening to the rain battering on the roof & the soporific lilt of 'Sailing By' & the comforting regular way the shipping forecast was given. So when saw this book I thought this was one for me. The beginning of it was very good, dealing with the history of the Forecast & historical details of events that were brought about by the weather . However, it did seem to drift away a bit & the last third seemed to be a matter of filling up the space.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book. I wasn't the most riveting book to end the year but it was a reasonable read

[Lucy Hooft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this - whimsical, poetic, rambling at times (in a good way), filled with anecdotes, snippets and the salty scent of adventures and voyages of discovery. If the shipping forecast conjurs up for you soporific mysteries or poetic fantasies then this is the book for you.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must read for anyone living in the UK! Loved it

[Steve Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much more than just the Radio 4 shipping forecast. A great read.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I love the coast so thought this would interest me but …..

[Richard Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic read!

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. Meg Clothier understands completely that the shipping forecast is scientific poetry, as well as the delight of a well-timed footnote.

[Haxxunne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diverting miscellany in the Shipping Forecast canon (and there is a canon)…

Joining the shelf-ful of other books on the Shipping Forecast, Clothier’s commonplace book of personal memoir, cultural history and long asides circles the Shipping Forecast rather than simply placing it at the centre. Never attempting to explain the whole of the system itself, neither its esoteric naming conventions nor its actual use, this is an entertaining personal connection to one of our national weathervanes, which seems antiquated on paper but provides an intangible backbone to our recognised obsession with the weather, an incontrovertible truth in a world full of half-truths and shaky opinions.

Three and a half stars, rounded up to four.

[Laura Macdonald · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded up. I've read a few other books about the Shipping Forecast and probably wasn't a good audience for this one. It's low on information (oh for footnotes or endnotes and proper referencing instead of simply a list of sources at the end), and the writing style was flippant with random capitalisation of words, WHICH was really annoying. DOGGER, TYNE, FORTH. I recommend Nic Compton's The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany or Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast by Charlie Connelly instead.

[Ginny Burt · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those curious Waterstone finds, that you just have to buy? A random collection of information based around the Shipping Forecast, but fun and interesting. I have happy memories of listening as a child with my granddad....and not long ago, cuddling my granddaughter to sleep as a baby in the middle of the night...the 0.48 broadcast....which is then followed by the National Anthem ( or it was!)....doesn't get more patriotic than that!💕

[Saskia Egeland-Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly quick and easy read, but quite rambling and random, and not as consistently related to the Shipping Forecast as you might expect. It’s mostly a look at some history, both sailing/ships/sea related and not, with vague links to areas or themes of the Shipping Forecast. I felt it could have done with more editing and tidying up.

[Jamie Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great celebration of the wonderful Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4. Insight into it's creation, naming convention and other stories of it's key points. It is not exactly a linear history of the forecast, so be mindful of that when you read it.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Randomly fabulous

[Gretel · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many tangents, not all of them interesting. At times it seemed to be about anything but the shipping forecast.