On 28/1/07 11:32, in article , "Janet Tweedy"
wrote:

In article , "Keith (Dorset)"
writes


Wrecking is a time-old tradition whereby coastal dwellers have always
supplemented their often meagre earnings by salvaging items of value from
the shoreline at the time of a wreck.

Here in Dorset, often the whole community would venture out, often in
appalling weather to grab whatever was there for the taking.


Pardon me for my ignorance but I always thought that wreckers were the
murderous little swine who lured ships onto rocks thereby destroying
them and murdering the sailors on board.
It's one thing to salvage stuff from a beach another to deliberately
kill sailors!
Not that I'm condoning the looters but surely they aren't 'wreckers'?

janet

No, they're not wreckers. Your definition is the correct one. Sometimes,
if passengers and crew reached the shore in safety, the wreckers would kill
them to stop them either telling the tale of what happened, or to steal the
jewellery they were wearing.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)