What is it about pirates that we see as attractive? Despite them being models of male violence and lawlessness, we encourage our children to dress up in pirate costume.  Our association with pirates is used to attract visitors and even to define our local identity. 

The North Devon and Torridge Place Story, recently published to uphold the distinctiveness of our area in relation to local government reorganisation and possible funding opportunities, claims that:

 ‘We are shaped by a legacy of piracy and enterprise, where bold acts of survival and ambition were not just tolerated, but celebrated. Northern Devon is a place of mavericks, of people who do not follow the paths laid by others but forge their own instead.’

Certainly, we can recognise in ourselves some of the attributes traditionally associated with pirates: an independence of spirit, self-reliance, non-conformity and a healthy mistrust of authority imposed from afar. We see that in some of our most successful and innovative independent businesses. But piracy? Why do we fixate on romanticised (male) figures of maritime criminality to explain our identity? 

Rather than a history of piracy, perhaps it was the distance and remoteness from the centres of political power that engendered the freethinking entrepreneurial spirit that historically made our area rich. We might argue that that resourcefulness comes from the land as much as the sea, from generations of farmers and farming communities surviving on what they could produce, making do with the resources around them to build and thatch their houses, to provide food and protect them from the weather. 

And let’s not forget the role of women either. In coastal areas, the wives and mothers of seafarers stepped up to provide and organise for their communities with as much strength and bravery as the men on the sea. In rural areas, women harvested the crops, fed the animals and churned the butter. Their ingenuity and labour contributed as much to the north Devonian character as the men’s.

Perhaps the pirate figure is so appealing because it stands for an escape from the humdrum monotony of daily life and social conventions that tie us down. That must be why it is so useful in the visitor economy and why the Pirates of the Caribbean films are so popular. We may love our pirates, but as an escape from reality. They tell us more about who we are, not where we came from.