At the Tudor House & Garden in Southampton, sir Richard Bum the Even Younger will be giving a talk about life at sea. On leaving the venue, you will be convinced that life at sea is not just about storms and windstill when it comes to tall ship jorneys. It is in other poetical words, more than two ships passing in the night.

Two ships passing in the night

In many countries it is common to greet each other in the park, on the paseo, or at mountain treks. At sea it is no different. This sort of ship passing situation, at some point, began to be applied to people who meet for the first time, only to part ways shortly thereafter, disappearing into the vastness of the earth. Such people are like two ships passing at night. The idiom at least over 150 years old. It is written in Tales of a Wayside Inn, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1863, where it reads:

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”

Now the ocean is a big place, so what are the odds of two ships sailing directly past each other? I have no idea, but it’s probably not very high. If it does occur, though, and it happens to be at night, the ships may shine a light on the other in order to acknowledge the other’s presence. The shining of the light can be seen as a greeting, as if the ships are talking to one another, that is, until they pass and disappear into the darkness of the night, never to see the other again. Well, who knows, they might cross paths again at some point.

The venue

The talk will be held at Tudor House & Garden in Southampton the 3rd of July 2016 at three o'clock