On 3 September, the Red Ensign will fly above town halls, quaysides and civic buildings across the country for Merchant Navy Day.
On 3 September, the Red Ensign will fly above town halls, quaysides and civic buildings across the country for Merchant Navy Day. The date marks the anniversary of the sinking of the SS Athenia in 1939; this was the first British merchant vessel lost in the Second World War, torpedoed within hours of war being declared. More than 20,000 merchant seafarers would go on to lose their lives in that conflict, keeping an island nation supplied.
Nearly nine decades on, the work has not changed as much as you might think. Around 95% of what this country consumes still arrives by sea, and it still arrives because a crew brought it. At Portico’s quays in Portsmouth, that means the fruit that reaches supermarket shelves within days of landing, the steel for infrastructure projects, the containers, the project cargo. Every one of those arrivals began with people working far from home.
Merchant Navy Day is a day for remembering the seafarers who did not come home, and for recognising the ones still out there now.
