Moderate Becoming Good Later: Katie Carr on Kayaking the Shipping Forecast at Stanfords

About

Join Stanfords for a multimedia adventure around the Shipping Forecast with writer and artist Katie Carr.

The Shipping Forecast has been described as the UK's national lullaby: a source of dependability and calm in our often chaotic world, it has charmed millions of listeners and aided generations of seafarers across the decades.

No stranger to weathering a storm, avid kayaker Toby Carr set out to explore the areas of the Shipping Forecast on a series of adventures, from Southeast Iceland to Trafalgar via North Utsire, Faeroes, German Bight, Fisher, Plymouth, FitzRoy and all the others in between.

On a journey that took him to stormiest and most tranquil stretches of our seas, he found stories behind the familiar names and imagined environments of the well-loved BBC broadcast. From the wildness and the peace of the sea, looking back at the land, Toby hoped to gain the strength and balance he knew nature could provide and to discover the things that anchor us to each other.

The expedition also gave him space and time that he desperately needed, to reflect on the death of his brother from the rare genetic condition that they were both born with, and to process the personal challenges that life had set him over the years.

Toby captured his adventure in recordings, videos, notes, photos and social media all of which made it possible for his sister Katie, to write "Moderate Becoming Good Later" after his death. This material also forms the basis of "Moderate Becoming Good Later: A multimedia adventure around the Shipping Forecast" which also includes readings from the book, details on its creation and a Q&A session with Katie.

Moderate Becoming Good Later is an epic adventure – sometimes choppy, constantly moving –and a personal voyage of discovery, with a cast list that includes old friends and new, plenty of wildlife, and the ever-present sea

-Katie Carr is a British author, artist, educator and coach who never imagined her first book having anything to do with sea kayaking. But when her adventurer brother Toby died in 2022 having sketched out a book, she decided to write it for him. On her year-long journey through loss, frustration, creation and storytelling, Katie was able to put into practice her training in expressive arts therapy and talked the talk on storytelling, as she had so often encouraged her graduate students to do.

Tickets
£5 (Ticket price includes a glass of wine or soft drink and is redeemable against the published price of Moderate Becoming Good Later)