Jolly by name and jolly by nature

The Jolly Rogers are a Dorsetbased crew, with some members coming from further afield. Its members strive to keep the traditions of the Golden Age of Piracy alive by portraying pirates both real and fictional from this era, as well as their own buccaneering characters. The main purpose of the group is to have fun whilst making money for worthy causes, but its main charity is the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, whose slogan is ‘We help save lives, one day it could be you’. Two years ago, a Pirate Day was held in Swanage that raised £1,235.84 for the air ambulance, which was presented at the members’ favourite pub in town –The Red Lion. They are a democratic bunch, voting on big decisions, which include adding potential recruits to the crew! There is a core group of 12 members, who are collectively known as ‘the dirty dozen’. They comprise: Roger Relentless, Captain; Mr Cotton, First Mate; Mrs Cotton, Second Mate; Raven Red, Quartermaster; Betty, Bosun; Admiral Beech, Master at Arms; Windy Bellows, Sergeant at Arms; and Bob, Cabin Boy. The other four members are Kay Piper, Trish Read, Daemon (Magpie) Baker and Cap’n Jack (Azza) Sparrow.

Some members are learning re-enactment skills, including sword fighting so, in future, we can entertain the public more fully at the various events we attend, the most recent being the Brixham Pirate Festival.

If you’d like to get to know The Jolly Rogers, become a member of the crew or want them to add some piratical jollity to your event and/or collect for the charity of your choice, please contact: jollyrogersdorset@gmail. com

After our recent surfeit of excitement

– imprisonment, narrow escape from an execution and, of course, Davy writing something more challenging than a general stocktake; I decided we should moor up somewhere quiet so I could make a thorough examination of my stolen book called ‘Marlowes Myths and Legends, a guide to the spirits and dark corners of the Caribbean’.

The book wasn’t hard to find in the end, being a large, deep red leatherbound tome with the title emblazoned on the front in worn gold. After opening the four clasps holding it closed, I rifled through the pages to see if anything pertinent immediately became plain, discovering some rather fine woodcut illustrations scattered throughout. Sadly, while the bookbinder was clearly a professional, Marlowe appeared to have done little to transform his notes into the easy reference book I had hoped for. He’d neglected to provide an index and it had one of the broadest table of contents I’d ever come across, so with a heavy sigh I sat down to read.

Over the course of the next few hours,I read about the ‘loup garou’ which as near as I can tell is a male witch, who changes shape in order to kill, various different devil women and the trickster god Anansi; most of which according to the author owe their history to the dark continent of Africa. Some I was already familiar with thanks to Caribbean crewmen, past and present. Any mistakes Thomas used to make, for example, were blamed on spirits or duppys as he called them and, after we encountered the first abandoned vessel, he jumped ship at the first opportunity. Duppys or imps, ghosts or demons, everyone I’ve met has their own names and their own tales. We had a chippy from Araby, who told me in his country they were called djinn, and they were a spirit inimical to man. Having a certain amount of experience with gin, I was forced to agree. Nowhere could I seem to find anything remotely pertaining to the struggles we have suffered or to that cursed chamber that robbed Matthew of his reason. The sun was making its daily descent when I finally found a glimmer of the intelligence I sought.

Of the place the Spaniards call ‘the isle of devils’ curiosity abounds. The indigenous Mayoid shun it, as did the European for almost 100 years until the British arrived. It is a place of storms and secrets. A place of screams in the night and snarls in the day. While the island is small in area it’s rich in mystery and despite the reassuring presence of a modern settlement at its Eastmost point, there are areas within where civilised man still fears to tread. Established wisdom garnered from inhabitants of nearby islands is that this is a bad place and an abode of ‘Mendos’ (demons) and interestingly ‘a thin place between here and there’.

This was the only mention I could find and brings me no further forward. However, without wishing to tweak the nose of fate I’m minded to observe that we have gone weeks now without encountering an abandoned ship. Dare I hope that this is over and we’re going to be left alone? One can only hope.

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Sub-titled ‘Laws and Life Aboard Ship’, this 304-page hardback book by Rebecca Simon sets out a rollicking account of pirates’ codes, which gave the strict rules essential for survival at sea. Recently launched by independent publisher Reaktion Books, it contains 48 illustrations, 11 in colour.

Pirates have long captured the imagination with images of cutlasswielding swashbucklers, eye patches and buried treasure, but what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly, occupation and strict orders were essential for everyone’s survival. These ‘Laws’ were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments and even the entertainment allowed