Overview
Johnny Doughty (1903 – 1986)
There is a long-standing tradition in Rye Harbour of shanty singing, harking back to the days when the river was bustling with fishing and other vessels plying their trade. In the 60’s and 70’s local fisherman Johnny Doughty was often to be found on a Saturday night at the William the Conqueror pub in the village, singing both well-known and his own shanties (as long as the beer flowed) to an enthusiastic audience.
His songs may be heard performed currently by Martin Bruce and his groups, the Round Rye Bay Singers and Rye Harbour Herrings.
Johnny Doughty: was born in 1903 in Brighton, in a cottage now demolished in Wellington Place, then the centre of the town’s fishing industry and most of his youth was spent among the older fishermen who, when not at sea, would congregate in the net-arches.
He says, “when I wasn’t at home, or school I was on the beach … always on the beach. I almost lived there … first at the cockle and whelk stalls, then helping empty the boats of their catches. I used to go up to the net arch – St Margaret’s Net Arch they called it, by the Palace Pier – and listen to the old sailors … real sailors they were … I learnt The Golden Vanity, Herring’s Heads and The Wreck of the Northfleet when I was just a nipper in the Arch … and any number of scraps of songs … Dick Turpin… Let Her Go Back, things like that, they’d hum them as they were net-mending.”
Johnny left school when he was 13 years old and spent the next two years herring catching until he joined the Royal Navy as a boy sailor in 1919. Leaving the Navy at the height of the Depression, he was unable to make a living fishing. So he spent six years working in the gashouse at Portslade before returning to sea. Johnny finally ended up in Rye with his two boats, the Ocean Reaper and the Helen Mary. He was living in Camber Sands when we met. He took part in and can be seen singing on a television documentary about the town of Rye. His extrovert personality saw him invited to numerous folk clubs and festivals all over the country.
The transcript of a BBC interview with Johnny Doughty may be found here;