The Sailing Ship

This image is a real house in Antwerp, Belgium. It is actually a complex of four houses designed for a well-heeled shipbuilder named P. Roeis.

Could I remove the ship from its new home and put it back to sea again?

My first version of the ship being back at sea was this one based on Khatchaturian’s Adagio from Spartacus or, for people of a certtain age, ‘The Onedin Line’ theme from the BBC tv series:-

Then I felt the need for a more lighthearted version. For those of you not familiar with Captain Pugwash, you have missed out on a quite delightful cartoon strip which evolved into a series of children’s books and an animated series on the BBC, first airing in 1957.

The character and his shipmates was created by John Ryan, a cartoonist, animator and writer. Ryan first created Captain Pugwash as a comic strip for ‘The Eagle’ in 1950. Pugwash was a kindly but bumbling pirate who sailed the seas in his ship ‘The Black Pig’ and whose arch nemesis was Cut-Throat Jake.

Tom, the cabin boy, was the most intelligent member of the crew and together with Barnabas, a fairly dim pirate, often saved the day and upsetting an irate Jake in the process.

The cartoons themselves were produced using painted cardboard bodies, arms and legs which were filmed in stop-motion to produce a very distinctive style.

The theme for the series was the ‘Trumpet Hornpipe’ which is immediately recognisable to any British child of the 40s and 50s.