Highbridge Podcast Episode 2 - Nornen Project & Seed Sedgemoor

The Highbridge Podcast

Podcast ident 0:10
You're listening to the Highbridge podcast celebrating the people, places, and history of the Highbridge area in Sedgemoor

Mell 0:27
This season is funded by seed which is a consortium of community organizations in Sedgemoor comprising of Bridgewater senior citizens forum Bridgewater Town Council, Community Council for Somerset homes in central Somerset film, and young Somerset, which is funded and supported by Arts Council England. Creative people in places lottery funding, and the Arts Council and a warm welcome for myself melt Herford host of the hybrid podcast in this our second edition we'll be hearing from Karen Curtis, all about the northern project, and we'll be hearing from Scott O'Hara about seeds schedule before we speak to Corinne Curtis about the dawn and project let's try and set the scene is Daniel Hawthorne.

Daniel Hawthorne 1:11
It all started during the first days of March 1897. When a howling southwesterly Gale swept up the Bristol Channel, bringing with it high seas driving snow and sleet. Many ships soon found themselves in distress. Among them the Norwegian bark Nornen, which had tried to ride out the storm in the lay of the land the roads, but had found her anchors dragging. She was being driven towards Berrow mudflats. The crew desperately tried to save her, but we're fighting a losing cause. When the mists cleared on the morning of March the third, the cripple ship was spotted just off Gore sands her sails blown to rags by the Gale. Down the ramp to her aid went the Burnham lifeboat, the John Godfrey Morris, which had been on station at the town for the last 10 years, launched down the rails on the jetty. The lifeboat with its crew with 10 oarsmen battled through high seas and winds to the northern. Despite the Gale, the lifeboat managed to get alongside the helpless ship, just as she was being driven onto the sands. The ship's crew of 10, together with their dog, were taken off by the lifeboat and landed safely at Burnham at three o'clock in the afternoon. The rescue is recorded on the honors board of rescues made by the three lifeboats at Burnham during the period from 1867 to 1930, and which today stands in the entrance to the Burnham RNLI Station.

Mell 2:39
So that sets the scene for the Nornen project. So I popped along to Apex Park where I met up with Corinne, Curtis, and asked her more about the project.

Corinne, Curtis 2:49
The Nornen project is essentially creating a brand new theatrical production based on the story of the Nornen which was wrecked off the coast of Barrow. And that happened in 1897. So next year will be the 125fth anniversary. And we're telling that story. And I'm a professional actor and puppeteer, but I'm developing as a producer to make sure that I can deliver this. So I won't be performing and I'll be producing, which is plenty, and I'll go back to the beginning. So I mentioned I lived away for a little while in London. And because I'm a massive geek, I was still keeping an eye on |Burnham on Sea.com. Because Burnham is my hometown, that's where I've grown up. I love it. And there was an article about a councilor who had proposed potentially using some of the Hinkley Point money to create an outdoor performance space at the apex. And I got very overexcited and thought must show that there's a you know, support for this. And this is how it could be used if they want to put that into funding applications and things and started thinking of it. Well, the shipwreck, I knew that there was a wreck. I didn't know how it happened or anything like that. But I thought big epic kind of story where you could have a mixture of professional performers and community class so you can have lots of community involvement. And I mentioned this to this counselor and I sort of went Oh, it was just an idea. And nothing more happened. And during the pandemic. I had a chat with Nick White at Wassail theatre company they are Somerset Theatre Company. And it's all kind of gone from there really started looking into the story and it's just fantastic. It was a horrendous storm. absolutely awful, awful conditions. It was snowing sleeting gale-force winds. A lot of ships were battered in the area and the Nornen and tried to take shelter in the lay of Lundy, which being a local girl I know the name of Lundy and go I know it's nearby but I'm geographically challenged 40 miles that they were pushed by the storm from Lundy to Berrow, and it is a genuine miracle that they weren't smashed to pieces on rocks and that they landed rough they land They got absolutely wedged. It wasn't until the next morning that they were discovered when the mist cleared. And the lifeboat burn and the John Godfrey Morris was launched and sent out and it took them hours because although the main storm had died down, the winds were still horrendous. But they reached them and all 10 crew and their dog were rescued. And I just loved that there was a dog. I have lots of questions about this dog, and also images of how on earth you've got it from the ship to the lifeboat. But not only were they rescued, they were then brought ashore and given refuge by lots of locals in Berrow, and the crew and the captain was so grateful they've given various artifacts to various families that sheltered them, including the figurehead, which then gave the name to figurehead cottage in Berrow. And the figurehead is still in Berrow village hall. We've also recently discovered through doing this project that someone has the ship's bell that their ancestors were given, which is just incredible, we're starting to get lots of sort of tangible links back to it now, which given it the 125 years ago, almost is just amazing. And that's one of the things that I'm really enjoying, and I wanted to get out of it was was reaching into the community,

I want us to have the opportunity to do a really high-quality theater production in our town, we deserve the opportunity to have something really high quality. But I also don't want to just rock up and be like I've made your show be grateful. And because it's such a local story, it's so important to have that local voice in there. Which is why I decided to set it up the way that I have where we held our local history talks with the brilliant John Strickland, which of course you can see, which is fantastic. And then we're having our making theatre workshops. And then as part of the development process in January, we'll have a professional cast and creative team creating the show. But again, community members, whoever wants to come along is invited in come in and take part in that, see what we're making, how we're making it and have your say in how our story has been told. I think that's so important. And then the actual production itself will have a mixed cast. So there'll be the professional cast supported by a community cast. So we can we put that real local link into it. But yeah, as I say that all those connections that are coming out just from the history talks, and just chatting about it to people, you're just people are going oh, actually my great grandfather, or, actually my cousin has, and things like that. And it's just amazing. It's so exciting. And a really nice that say for John Strickland, who runs the local history groups. And he's he's starting to get new information coming in, because people who haven't previously they did like the history. And now seeing this and going oh, I know something to do with that, which is just fantastic. So I feel like whatever happens with the production, there will still be some legacy with capturing more information that pretty soon will be lost. I love history, particularly like ancient history, and not very interested in modern history. In censuses, like the world wars, I did a lot of that at school, but it was always the ancient history that I enjoyed with...