Irish Sea. Monday 6 September 1993. Southeast backing easterly 4 or 5, increasing 6 in south. Mainly fair. Moderate or good.

Intangible and mysterious, familiar yet obscure, the Shipping Forecast is broadcast four times daily on BBC Radio 4. For those at, or about to put to sea, the forecast may mean the difference between life and death.

But for millions of landlubbing radio listeners it is more than this; the enigmatic language of the forecast has entered public consciousness, creating a landscape of the imagination and confirming romantic notions of Britain’s island status. Captioned by the 0600hrs forecast on the day they were taken, these photographs attempt to challenge our assumptions of these far-flung places.

The Shipping Forecast was originally published to critical acclaim in 1996 and subsequently reprinted twice. Selling quickly, it soon became a cult classic, expensive on the secondhand market. But now, at long last, it’s available again in this newly edited and much-expanded edition, which includes over one hundred previously unpublished photographs along with the majority of those in the original book.