Celebrating Southampton’s deep connection with the sea

Stephen Muldowney-Mizen

I am a poet, show-maker and charity worker. I first discovered my love for Southampton while studying creative writing at the University of Winchester. Southampton was the vibrant city to visit for a night out if you wanted music, liveliness and culture. I was drawn to this spark and would visit hundreds of times before eventually moving in with my now wife in 2020.

At that point I was organising gigs and festivals but when that was abruptly halted I started working for a charity that aimed to get more art in schools. For the next three years I split my time between freelance writing projects and children’s charities. More recently I have been working on larger creative projects with Southampton Forward while also working for the charity Communicare. I have always loved this city, its community and diversity, its celebratory nature and I’m motivated by that spark of life I still feel everywhere.

Communicare provides services that enrich the lives of vulnerable, isolated, often older people in and around Southampton. We currently support about 750 individuals and families by befriending, providing transport for appointments and social outings, and assisting with shopping.

I was drawn to Southampton Forward’s City Reflections: Illuminating Southampton’s Stories project because it seemed like a perfect coming together of ideas, celebrating the city’s heritage through the people who have seen it change.

Together with Communicare’s CEO Annie, I put together a successful bid to become a community curator. Our community for the project is older, isolated people and our topic is ships and shipping.

Being a community curator has been an important learning curve for me. It has been joyful exploring archives and vaults, finding documents and images, but the most important thing is that people feel like their story is being heard and that they still have a positive influence over the future of this city. I have been using my skills as a freelance writer to help people tell their stories for a few years now and it has been exciting to work on a project that will tell the living history of Southampton. After all, who knows more about Southampton, and the real community at its heart, than the people who have lived here for 60, 80 or in some cases 100 years?

The crucial first step was to make sure we understood what ships and shipping meant to our community. In our phone surveys, the two outstanding topics that came up were cruise ships and global travel. In fact, everyone I spoke to from our community had at least one connection with the sea.

From boat makers to sailors, cabin crew and waiters, so many people had worked on the ships or at the docks, built boats, or just played in the docks as kids. The connection was amazing. And people really wanted to talk about it, to share stories that kept their dreams of the seas alive.

There were so many stories, but one of my favourites was from a man who, as a child, used to sneak past the gate and into the ‘American Docks’ looking for any candy or soda left behind by cruise passengers. This was the 1950s, when rationing was still in force in the UK. He said it was like hunting for gold dust. This was just one of many gorgeous little tales that brought to life the story of Southampton as a city that lived in harmony with the sea.

I have loved everything that being a curator has taught me. I also really enjoyed working with the other community creators and I think we have formed a dynamic team. It is amazing to have started at the same place as these five talented individuals and see the work they are now producing.

For the projection, I was looking for objects that were aesthetically pleasing and celebrated Southampton as a gateway for people who wanted to travel the world in style. Thanks to the genius of Maria from the archives team, I was able to sort through a myriad of marvellous artefacts relating to Southampton’s nautical history.

Visitors to next February’s City Reflections can expect a fabulous experience. They’ll be taking a journey across the sea, travelling in style, and they might bring the whole world back with them.

City Reflections: Illuminating Southampton’s Stories is a physical light projection trail across four consecutive evenings from 6pm to 8pm on Wednesday 18^th to Saturday 21^st February 2026.

To find out more about Communicare, visit www.communicareinsouthampton.org.uk.