Dear Readers, I was very sad to hear that, after a century, the Shipping Forecast would no longer be broadcast on longwave radio. It was originally programmed in this way because it could be listened to by sailors at sea, wherever they were around the British  Isles. But the transmission was turned off this Saturday (27th June 2026), although it’s still available on Radio 4, BBC Sounds and on the HM Coastguard NAVTEX network.  Nonetheless, such an ending deserves a memorial, I think, and here is Carol Ann Duffy’s sonnet ‘Prayer’, a favourite of mine. See what you think.

Prayer by Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.