Shanties, Sea Songs, and all that kind of stuff.
Our Story
How it all began
It all started in another pub in 2009, a Pirate Day after party with some shanty singing. The Stag isn't a big pub, but it, and the garden were rammed full of pirates getting a little grumpy as there's no shanty man. There's this tall bloke sitting on a bench, with his wife, neither dressed as pirates, and neither had any idea what was going on. Jeanette, the lady wife, piped up that her husband, the tall bloke, knew some shanty's and would they mind if he sung? The answer was a resounding yes. He started singing, and what a voice, it also turned out he knew an awful lot of shanty's and had once sung them on a semi professional basis. Now in, what he thought was going to be, retirement Tom Kelly was rediscovered and put to task.
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A hasty discussion ensued and we asked Tom if he would be interested in leading a shanty session at the pub? He said yes and thus the Hastings Shanty Sessions first came into being. The first session saw about 40 people in attendance and this settled down to a hardcore of regulars. Under Tom's guidance we all learnt some songs, then learnt how to sing them and eventually we all found songs we knew, and which mainly suited our voices.
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We formed the Hastings Shanty Singers group, 11 strong at the beginning, practiced every Friday, as well as singing on Thursday nights. We sang at many events and were good, considering that Tom was the only one with any experience.
Tom Kelly, Jon Tigwell, Mick Bovey and Scot Reid left HSS to form RX Shanty and went on to become a successful group.
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HSS slowly dwindled, and then folded. Out of the ashes arose an adhoc group called 'Completely Scuppered, mainly consisting of Pete Welch, Alan Griffiths, Jaquie and other exmembers of HSS and RX.
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In 2015 the Stag changed landlords, and the incoming bloke didn't want shanty nights. Fortunately the Jenny Lind did.
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The Thursday Night shanty sessions at the Jenny were hosted by RX Shanty, with them leading the singing and giving others a chance as well. They became very popular.
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And then the band split up.
Tom left to pursue other musical interests, Mick moved to Arran and Jon and Scott didn't want to carry on by themselves. They'd changed their name to XRX in the meantime.
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The sessions were going to become bi monthly, until Norman Jacobs and Alan Griffiths stepped forward and offered to host the nights XRX couldn't do. The sessions were going great guns until March 2020 when the pubs were closed due to Covid-19.
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We returned to the Jenny at the end of September 2021 and have held the weekly sessions since then.
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The new sessions are hosted by, the now non adhoc group, Completely Scuppered who consist of Alan Griffiths, Norman Jacobs, Pete Welch, Scott Reid and our newest member Mark Duncan.
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Completely Scuppered are available for bookings, contact us here
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