Shanty Kids: calling all song-loving 5 to 10 year olds!

A community collaboration between the EHC and Shanty Shout

This year, leading up to November’s Shanty Shout Festival, we’re collaborating with the festival team on a new initiative: Shanty Kids. The aim is to provide local children aged 5–10 with the opportunity to learn and perform traditional Cornish sea shanties as part of the festival programme.

A series of workshops and rehearsals starting in late August will culminate in a performance in St Ia’s Church during the festival weekend.

We would love to have at least 15 children signed up. Each child taking part will also be given a special festival t-shirt to wear for performances and keep afterwards as a lasting memento of the experience. So if you have children or grandchildren of this age who love to sing – read on! This fun project could be tailor-made for them…

All Aboard! Who’s involved?

The workshops will be led by an experienced singer/workshop leader who also happens to be something of a Shanty expert. His name is Jason Wilkinson, otherwise known as Pilchard the Pirate.

Also closely involved will be our Shanty Kids mascot: Pirate Teddy. Ever since May’s Food & Drink festival, when he helped out in his pirate hat, he won’t go anywhere without it…

For schools and/or parents: if you’d like a PDF of our Shanty Kids A4 flyer to print out and share, please scroll down to the bottom of this post. You’ll see black button beneath the PDF saying ‘Download.’

Project timeline: UPDATE

Our Shanty Kids group is now complete, and rehearsals have been underway since September.

The next item on the Shanty Kids’ 2026 calendar is their Dress Rehearsal on Wednesday, 18th November at Trewartha Care Home, St Ives, at 4PM.

Then, just days later on Saturday, 21st November – the big event! Shanty Kids will perform in a concert at a special Shanty Shout TIN ANNIVERSARY CONCERT at St Ia Church, starting at 12:30PM. The concert will also feature Kimber’s Men, Severn Whalers, Stuns’ls, SIJS, St Ia’s Boys – and, with the Kids, Pilchard the Pirate.

Community Impact

We are very excited about the community aspect of this project. Whether it’s from helping children develop a stronger understanding and appreciation of their Cornish heritage and traditions, a sense of connecting over generations, or simply that working together as part of a group is a wonderful way to make new friends, we feel it offers a terrific benefit to our younger community members.

There’s also nothing quite like the sense of achievement that comes from performing in front of a live audience as part of a respected community festival, and the wider sense of belonging that can give.