Part of Off the Shelf Festival of Words 2025
Forties, Dogger, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight… These words speak to us like a spell, cast like a safety net, enchanting in their delivery. Since its first BBC broadcast 100 years ago, the Shipping Forecast has captured the nation’s heart. Its thirty-one areas take us on a virtual voyage from the Shetlands and Norway, down the North Sea, along the English Channel to the nearest shard of Iceland. Join Kathy Clugston and Rob Stepney for a love letter in poetry and prose from Britain’s literary landscape to this iconic radio broadcast.
Kathy Clugston was a continuity announcer and read the Shipping Forecast hundreds of times. She now chairs Gardeners’ Question Time on BBC Radio 4. Writer Rob Stepney has contributed to Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and has co-written two books of poetry.
