The Mariner's Mirror Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This episode presents an astonishing and tragic story from the American Civil War with great relevance to the present day.

It’s the story of a black teenager called David Henry White who comes from Delaware and has done all in his power to create a life for himself – he has signed onto a merchant ship for work with the prospects of pay and promotion. Life has different plans for him however. When war breaks out he finds himself crossing paths with the USS Alabama, a confederate commerce raider of immense power blazing a path of success. White’s ship is taken and he also is taken and forced to work on the confederate warship, captained by Raphael Semmes.

White works on board until his fate is sealed in battle and the Alabama sunk. Semmes survives but White does not. He drowns. After the war Semmes writes his memoirs which paint the world in which White lived and died a very different way to how it appeared in reality.

It's a story of the life and tragic death of a disempowered black boy, of an entitled racist naval officer, and of the profound and lasting power of written propaganda. After listening to this podcast you will burn with the light of the true historian, and never believe anything you read again without checking who wrote it, and more importantly WHY.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Andrew Sillen, author of the new book that unpicks this remarkable tale in the finest detail: Kidnapped at Sea.

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We may think of globalism as a recent development but its origins date back to the fifteenth century and beyond, when seafarers pioneered routes across the oceans with the objectives of exploration, trade and proft. And what did they seek? Exotic spices: cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ginger. These spices brought together the European ports of Lisbon, London, Amsterdam and Venice, with Goa, Bombay, Malacca and Jakarta - and through those ports the Arab world and China.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Nicholas Nugent. Nicholas spent his career as a journalist with the BBC World Service and his spare time collecting a valuable archive of original maps, developing a passion for how the growth of the spice ports helped spread the exchange of global culture between east and west. His magnificent book, The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of the Global Sea Trade published by the British Library is out now.

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This is the first of two episodes dedicated to that magical piece of prose so beloved by all with an interest in the sea – Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first published in 1798. Many know of it, some have read it but few people have actually heard it in full, and listening to this masterpiece is the best way of appreciating its full maritime and supernatural glory.

This episode therefore presents The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in full. It is also a traditionally masculine poem, written by a man and usually read or performed by a man, usually an English man – so to help appreciate this story through a different lens, the story is read today by the wonderfully talented Elaine Kingston – who you are soon to discover, is a Scottish Woman. To bring the story to life we have also commissioned the multi-talented composer Jamie Whyte to create an original work that combines music and sound effects. The combination of Elaine's reading and Jamie's soundscape creates a dramatic new interpretation of this poem.

Coleridge’s story begins at a wedding party where a man is accosted by a grizzly old sailor, beady of eye, who begins to unravel his own history. We hear how he sailed from his home harbour south, and is trapped in ice at the South Pole. They manage to break free and the sailors credit their salvation to an albatross; but the mariner then shoots the bird with a crossbow. Although, initially, it seems like a good move for these superstitious folk, things start to go horribly wrong and the murderer of the albatross is blamed. The sailor is forced to hang the carcass round his neck and over time becomes more appreciative of the natural world - which redeems him.

The text is dramatic and haunting and Coleridge explores numerous themes and sub-themes. It defies any single interpretation but you will certainly hear themes of retribution, punishment, guilt, curse and fear.

Part 2 of this episode features an interview with Professor John Spicer, Professor of Marine Zoology at the School of Biological & Marine Sciences at the University of Plymouth, who believes that the poem could teach us a lesson or two about the way we treat our environment today.

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Scholars debate the period when pirates actually ruled the waves - and the answer certainly depends on the location in question - but by general consensus it was all over by 1730 and it had begun some 80 years earlier, around 1650. The Golden Age of Piracy had been born in this crucial period when European maritime powers were flexing their muscles and starting to project naval power beyond the horizon. As empires grew so did the quantity and quality of trade and the seas became littered with merchantmen carrying indescribable wealth across the oceans. And yet this was a time when the maritime geographies of the new empires was imperfectly known, and when navigation was still as much guesswork as it was a science - this was the period immediately before the means to calculate longitude accurately had been discovered. The result was that ships carried this trade at predictable times of year, on predictable routes, in locations that were impossible to police adequately. Although European naval powers did create naval bases in the tropics, it was a slow process and one with many pitfalls. At the same time thousands of young men were learning how to sail and how to fight in a near endless series of maritime wars. The result? A period of piracy so intense and colourful that it still lives on today in myth, legend, and increasingly detailed and accurate histories. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with pirate historian Dr Jamie Goodall.

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Our Maritime Disasters mini series continues with the shocking, and scarcely believable tale, of HMS Guardian. In 1789 this 44-gun 2-decked ship of the Royal Navy was sent to the British colony in Australia under the guidance of the brilliant Captain Edward Riou. She was chock-full of convicts, livestock and provisions for the colony when she left England, and then re-stocked with provisions when the half-way point was safely reached at the Cape of Good Hope. Water was always a problem on such long journeys and any captain took advantage of a source of fresh water whenever it was discovered. Icebergs were such a source of fresh water, but approaching them was always fraught with danger, especially in the Atlantic hundreds of miles off the coast of South Africa when the weather could suddenly change....what happened next has been described as 'almost without parallel' in all of maritime history.

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Dr Margaret Schotte, professor of Early Modern History in York's Department of History whose book Sailing School: Navigating Science and Skill, 1550-1800 investigates how early modern sailors developed mathematical and technical expertise in the age of exploration and the print revolution - expertise that helped people like Edward Riou cope if it just so happened that their ship was horrendously damaged by an iceberg miles from home....

This episode includes a rendition of the song "The Forecastle Sailor, Or The Guardian Frigate" by the historian Seb Falk, most likely the first ever recording of the song.

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Our maritime disasters series continues with the anniversary of the first successful underwater trials in 1863 of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley.

Shortly after the Hunley’s first trials in late July 1863 she sank during another test run, killing five of her eight crew. She was raised but then sank again in October killing all eight of her crew including Horace Hunley, the vessel’s designer, before sinking for the last time in 1864, again killing all of her crew.

The story of the Hunley is remarkable - it’s one of those stories that you can return to time and again. The early submarine pioneers were exploring an environment as dangerous as the early space pioneers and did so willingly.

Why did these people willingly get inside an iron tube that was built to operate underwater at a time when the science of operating vessels underwater was not properly understood? Why did they continue to do so when the vessel repeatedly demonstrated it was dangerous?

To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Michael Scafuri, senior archaeologist at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston South Carolina, today the home of the Hunley, as she was raised from the depths in 2000 with all of her secrets perfectly preserved.

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We continue our mini series on maritime disasters with the third part of our episode on the wreck of the magnificent Italian passenger liner the Andrea Doria. Launched in 1953 as a means to rebuild Italy's reputation and status on the world stage after the Second World War she enjoyed a splendid career for just three years before she sank in 1956 after a horrific collision off the coast of Massachusetts.To find out more about the wreck of the vessel itself Dr Sam Willis spoke with the underwater explorer John Moyer who has has dived over 120 times on the Andrea Doria wreck, one of the most dangerous wrecks in the world.

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This episode continues our mini series on maritime disasters and our investigation into the wreck, in the summer of 1956, of the Italian passenger liner, Andrea Doria. This episode includes eyewitness accounts from Linda Hardberger and Mike Stoller. Linda is now 80 and lives in San Antonio Texas – she has been a teacher, librarian, museum curator and is a mother and in spite of her terrible experience on the Andrea Doria has been boating for 40 years. Mike Stoller is now 89, lives in California and is one half of the songwriting team Lieber and Stoller – who wrote, among many other hits, Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock and Stand by Me. The Andrea Doria was built in the 1950s, born from Italy’s bruised pride after the Second World War, and seen as a way to put Italy back on the map as a major player in the world of transatlantic travel. She became a hugely important ship for the Italian nation, a true icon of Italian culture and history. Launched in 1953 to great fanfare and fitted with the most exquisite Italian art, she enjoyed a successful career – though cut far too short by the events of July 1956.

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