Maritime Archive and Library
Sailing Proud is an initiative looking at the history of gay seafarers and the homosexual experience at sea. It has developed out of the book 'Hello Sailor!' by Dr Jo Stanley and Dr Paul Baker, and our subsequent touring exhibition of the same name. Sailing Proud aims to promote further research of this subject.
The Maritime Archives and Library are setting up the Sailing Proud archive. This will include oral histories by ex-seafarers and related material produced during the development of the exhibition. The ultimate aim is to make this material available to the public.
Through the initiative we continue to organise events and activities. To coincide with this year's Homotopia Festival, 1-30 November 2009, we hosted a lecture about the history of Polari:
Saturday 7 November 2009, 2pm in the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum
Polari was a secret spoken language developed from a wide range of sources, and used by British gay men (and other social groups) across the 20th century, as a way of expressing gay identities in a climate of repression and hostility. It was popularised by the 1960s Radio series Round the Horne, which featured two camp characters who sprinkled their talk with Polari words and phrases, and was also used by entertainers and men who worked on cruise ships.
In this free lecture Dr Paul Baker traced Polari's historical origins, the ways that it was used, the reasons why it eventually died out, and considerd whether it will ever come back.
Dr Paul Baker is senior lecturer in linguistics and English language at Lancaster University.
Our Hello Sailor! exhibition is currently on tour at the Tall Ship in Glasgow. It will be back on display in the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum from 12 December 2009.