The real Deal
“THEY went down to the sea in ships” is the first line of English poet Harriet Monroe’s classic poem The Ocean Liner, which speaks of the perils of long sea journeys. The first verse sets the scene: “In ships they went down to the sea. In barks hewn of oak-tree strips, In galleys with skin-sewn sails, In triremes, caravels, brigs Frail flimsily rolling rigs— They went down where the huge wave rips, Where the black storm lashes and hales. They went down to the sea in ships To the sounding sorrowing sea.”
My great-grandfather Samuel was born very near the sea in Deal, Kent. He and his brother William departed in their mid 20s across such seas on the Chalmers in 1852 to gold-rush Victoria, like so many of their contemporaries.
The brothers were not overly successful in their Ballarat goldfields endeavours but then combined their respective carpentry and clerical skills into an ironmongery business in 1854. The rest is history.
The attractive waterfront town of Deal is not far as the seagull flies from its far more well-known neighbouring port city of Dover, famous for Vera Lynn, white cliffs and ferries to Calais in that order.
Deal, on the other hand, could not have a port as its coastline was stymied somewhat by a labyrinth of sand-bars that prevented anything other than small fishing boats landing on its wide, stony beach. So, rather than becoming stevedores, Deal instead took to the sea and many locals became expert fishers and boatsmen.
Such skills then morphed for some of Deal’s enterprising folk into a whole new side activity — smuggling across the Channel.
Such nefarious activity became so prevalent in the mid-1700s (well before my forebears’ time I need to add!) that one website describes Deal at the time as “. . . a notorious haunt for smugglers”.
The smugglers were well organised and ever alert to raids by the authorities. Among other ways of avoiding detection, they established a series of tunnels and networks of narrow lanes across the surrounding country, many of which now form part of England’s extensive public path network — a legacy they no doubt never had in mind but a delight for present-day ramblers.
Interestingly, the Deal community now wears its rather dodgy heritage somewhat as a badge of honour — a tad like Australia and our bushranger history — with extensive coverage in the local museum. Deal even names its annual rock music festival after these engaging if criminal characters!
To see the stony beach where my great-grandfather and his brother swam as boys, to walk on the streets where they lived and worked as young men, and to gaze at the often treacherous waters of the English Channel gives one some small sense of familial connection and also of wonder.
Wonder in the sense of what prompted their and others’ desire to undertake such a long, risky sea journey — trusting in the rickety vessels Monroe’s poem so aptly described — in a journey of many weeks peppered with risks, not the least of which was navigating Victoria’s treacherous west coast which claimed so many ships on their final stretch into Port Philip Bay, the eager passengers’ destination so tantalisingly close.
Fundamentally, the goldrushers were after a better life; “economic migrants” they may well be termed today. One can only admire such tenacity and risk-taking to attempt such a voyage, in those days and now.
What prompts people to set out on risky boat journeys across the English Channel, Mediterranean or any sea has changed little at its core, particularly where interlaced with political, sectarian or religious persecution and repression.
My words are not intended as a treatise on immigration policy or border protection. There are far greater minds than mine who wrestle with this complex and fraught issue every day, although compassion needs to be a more-present value in their decision-making.
But there is something to be deeply admired and respected about any who leave all behind and take to the “sounding sorrowing sea” in search of a better life — then and now.