Sailmaker: Plot Summary (SQA National 5 English): Revision Note

An exploration of Alan Spence’s Sailmaker requires you to consider how themes, characters, or relationships develop throughout the play. It is this development that delivers messages and conveys themes. To understand this, you’ll need to know the plot thoroughly.  

Below you will find:

• An overview of the play

• A plot summary broken down into sections of the play

Overview of Sailmaker

Sailmaker, written by Scottish playwright Alan Spence, is set in 1960s Glasgow. The play was first performed at the Traverse Theatre Club, Edinburgh, in 1982.

Sailmaker follows two father-and-son relationships: that of Davie and his son Alec, and Davie’s brother Billy, father to Ian.

After his mother’s death, the protagonist, Alec, finds himself struggling, not least because of his poverty-stricken father, whose optimism masks deep frustration and inability to cope. Their relationship is symbolised by a broken yacht that relates to Davie’s previous occupation as a sailmaker. Here, Spence raises ideas about unrealised dreams and the challenges that result from a lack of opportunities for tradesmen in mid-20th-century Scotland. 

The play raises themes typical of a bildungsroman. Alec’s relationship with his cousin Ian highlights his growing independence and desire for a different life. Instead of playing football with Ian, Alec takes an interest in religion, reads books, and works hard on his education. This is his way to a better life, and his father encourages it until he spends Alec’s bursary money on a bet. 

Cousins Ian and Alec are close at first, illustrated through their conversations about football, music, and comics. However, Alec, encouraged by his father, begins to take a different direction in life, planning a future at university, while Ian wants to go into a trade. As well as this, Alec’s frustration with his father’s drinking and gambling, alongside a lack of hope, leads to his desire for escape. 

Spence provides a contrast between Davie and his brother, Billy. Billy works hard and helps Davie, offering advice, fixing his issues with a book-maker, and finding him a job. Eventually, though, Billy grows frustrated with his brother’s irresponsible nature.

Against the odds, dealing with grief and a lack of real support, Alec is on the verge of leaving home for university. The play’s poignant ending portrays Davie’s ruined dreams and the end of his relationship with his son. Together for a final time, in a freezing flat, they burn furniture for warmth and Alec finally throws the yacht on the fire.

Sailmaker: Act-by-act plot summary

Act One

• Act One opens with a spotlight on Alec, now an adult, remembering when he was 11 and his father told him his mother had died:

  • Alec vividly remembers a policeman knocking on the door and his father’s words afterwards

  • He remembers the funeral and how the world seems not to have changed

• The scene shifts; it is lighter now and Alec’s cousin Ian runs in:

  • Alec finds a yacht in a cupboard and shows it to Ian

  • Alec tells Ian his father is a sailmaker, but Ian says that he is a debt-collector 

  • They play with the yacht together, and discuss their cousin Jacky, football, religion, and songs

• Alec finds a bag containing a shell and some cellophane that belonged to his mother and proudly shows Ian his father’s sailmaking tools

• Davie arrives home

• Alec comments on the smell of alcohol:

  • Davie talks through the sailmaking tools and promises to fix the yacht

  • Davie asks Alec to go to the bookmaker (“bookie”) the next day

• Ian enters the scene with a football

• Alec tells Ian he is scared of the “bookie” because he misheard his father discussing it and thought she had said “boogie”:

  • They laugh about the “bogie man”

• They leave the stage and Davie and Billy enter:

  • Billy asks his brother if he spends his money on alcohol and gambling

  • Billy and Davie talk fondly about their father and their childhood

• When Alec reenters, Davie says he will fix the boat:

  • Alec doubts his father will do it and leaves to make bows and arrows with Ian

• Billy enters and tells Davie he has spoken to the bookie so he won’t bother him again

• But the next scene spotlights Davie:

  • He has been mugged and has lost his job

  • Billy says he might be able to get Davie a job in the factory

• Davie tells Alec the news and comments on their messy house, but, although he is optimistic, shares no plans to change anything 

Act Two

• Davie talks to Alec about his son’s academic strengths and religious curiosity:

  • Davie advises his son to get a good office job, and shares his own dreams of being a missionary in Africa

• Ian comes in with a football but Alec goes to the Christian “Mission” instead:

  • A woman asks him when Jesus came into his life, and Alec hurriedly leaves

  • Alone, he ponders his interest in religion, and whether it began when his mother died, but he finds he has no answer and queries if Jesus is in his life at all

• Back home, he and his father play fight as boxers

• Alec is now taking a maths exam:

  • He finds it tricky and makes silent jokes throughout

  • Alec does well at English, but not maths

• At home his father says he has passed and has a bursary for a private school

• Alec and Ian are moving in different directions:

  • Ian wants to get a trade job as soon as he can and reveals that he is moving away as his father cannot get work locally

• Davie tells Alec he and Billy have lost their jobs at the factory:

  • They listen to music and argue about dinner

  • The electricity goes off

• Billy and Ian return from painting a shop: 

  • They discuss Billy’s time in the army

  • Ian expresses an interest in enlisting but is discouraged

• Alec finds out there is no food in the house, that Davie has gambled his bursary money, and that the electricity bill remains unpaid

• Alec and his father discuss books, as well as previous girlfriends:

  • Their conversation becomes tense

• Later, Alec goes through the belongings he found in the cupboard:

  • They talk about Davie’s sailmaking glories

  • Alec tells his father he is going to university and leaving home

  • The house is cold and they throw things on the fire to keep warm

  • The play ends as Alec throws the yacht on the fire

Sources

Spence, A. (2008), Sailmaker, from Spence, A. and Cooper, J. (2012), Sailmaker Plus, Hodder Gibson