Sailmaker: Themes (SQA National 5 English): Revision Note

Any exploration of Alan Spence’s play Sailmaker should be led by an interpretation of ideas. You’ll explore how the writer delivers ideas or themes to convey messages or raise issues. Remember, characters and settings often represent these ideas, and themes often overlap.

Below are some themes that could be explored in the play Sailmaker. Here you will find sections on:

• Grief and loss 

• Social class

• Religion 

• Family relationships

Grief and loss

Alan Spence’s play depicts a family dealing with grief. The sympathetic portrayal of Davie and his son Alec managing loss shows two contrasting responses to the death of a loved one. The play also explores Davie’s lost dreams as a sailmaker.

Knowledge and evidence

• Davie’s blunt delivery of news about Alec’s mother’s death (“Yer mammy’s dead”) shows him as less than communicative:

  • He cannot process his feelings — “As long as ye keep movin it doesnae hit ye” 

  • His need for action rather than discussion stems from a traditional working-class stoicism

  • Yet he sinks deeper into gambling, drinking, and isolation

• In contrast, Alec tries to articulate his grief and is able to discern his emotions: 

  • “I cried and a numbness came on me, shielding me from the real pain”

• Unable to receive solace from his father, Alec seeks comfort in religion (at the “Mission”)

• The play ends with a sense of unresolved grief as the father and son burn sentimental objects, such as a chair Davie purchased when he and his wife married

• Davie’s lost dreams are poignantly portrayed through the burning of the broken yacht

What is Spence’s intention?

• Spence illustrates how divisions are created between a father and son who are unable to communicate their grief

• Spence highlights how traditional ideals of masculinity hinder the management of grief

• The play explores the loss of livelihood and self-pride resulting from decreasing industry in mid-20th-century Glasgow

Social class

Spence illustrates how the struggles of working-class families in 1960s Scotland were closely linked to the decline in industry and tradesmanship. Stereotypical attitudes regarding social class cause divisions within the family when Alec attempts to break the cycle of poverty via education.   

Knowledge and evidence

• The play depicts a working-class family struggling to adapt to limited opportunities for manual labour in Glasgow in the 1960s:

  • Billy and his son Ian are proud of their trades, while Davie is disillusioned

  • Davie suffers constant job insecurity — after he loses his job as a sailmaker he loses his job as a debt-collector

  • Billy, too, loses his job at the factory and has to move to find work

• Spence depicts Davie as an optimistic yet dejected working-class man who seeks comfort in drinking, gambling, and football:

  • As a result, Alec’s home-life is unstable

  • Their electricity is turned off when Davie fails to pay the bill

• Spence explores class divisions through Ian and Alec

• Ian is proud of his working-class roots:

  • He mocks education by calling the boys at Alec’s new school “toffeenosed”

  • He says rugby and cricket (stereotypically upper-class sports) are for “snobs”

• While Billy encourages his son to work in a trade and follow in his footsteps, Davie, in contrast, believes that a secure office job gained through education offers his son the best chance to escape poverty

What is Spence’s intention?

• Spence depicts the impact of job insecurity on working-class fathers and their sons

• He presents education as a key route to social mobility in 1960s Glasgow

• Spence hints at divisions between the working class and higher classes 

Religion 

Themes of grief overlap with religion when Alec seeks answers from God after the death of his mother. Alan Spence illustrates, too, the religious tensions present in Glasgow in the 1960s. Largely, this is portrayed via discussion about opposing Scottish football teams, Rangers and Celtic. The play shows the rivalry between Irish Catholics who traditionally supported the Celtic football team and Scottish Protestants supporting Rangers.

Knowledge and evidence

• Eleven-year-old Alec looks to religion when his mother dies:

  • He hopes his mother is in heaven and is comforted to see the clouds part to reveal a “patch of clear blue”

• However, his search for peace at the “Mission” is not fully realised:

  • At first, he feels a “glow” when he is there

  • But when he is questioned about Jesus, he becomes uncertain and leaves

  • Alec remains faithful — stage directions have him leaving a difficult conversation “whistling ‘Give Me Oil in My Lamp’”, a popular hymn

• Davie looks for solace in faith, too: 

  • “Ye have tae believe in somethin”

• Religious sectarianism is portrayed through Billy and Ian who regularly criticise Catholicism, highlighting deep religious tensions:

  • Billy’s attitudes are manifested in talks with Davie about football team colours

  • Davie comments on a football song, “Christsake Billy, ye’ll get us hung!”

  • Billy replies, “It’s a protestant country isn’t it?”

• Billy’s religious bigotry is passed down to his son:

  • In response to a holy medal Alec calls “Our Lady” (referencing Mary), Ian says sarcastically, “Next thing ye’ll be carryin a rosary and crossin yerself!”

What is Spence’s intention?

• Spence illustrates how religious divisions manifest in football rivalry:

  • These divisions exist even in everyday pursuits such as watching football

• The play portrays a young boy seeking comfort in religion as a result of grief:

  • It could be argued that he seeks support from religion because his father is unable to provide him any comfort

Family relationships 

Sailmaker presents family relationships primarily through the central bond between the father, Davie, and his son, Alec. This relationship often contrasts the play’s other father-son relationship between Davie’s brother Billy and his son Ian. Spence explores how grief and social class impacts family relationships and dynamics. 

Knowledge and evidence

• The relationship between Davie and Alec is presented as complex and poignant, defined by the loss of Alec’s mother (Davie’s wife) and Davie’s disillusionment:

  • Davie struggles to cope, acknowledging that the house is always messy and that it is hard to decide on what to cook every night

  • Alec, lacking a depth of communication with Davie, seeks spiritual comfort at the “Mission” and, eventually, leaves his father and his home behind him

• Billy and Ian contrast Davie and Alec in that their connection remains: 

  • When Billy leaves to find work in Aberdeen Ian goes with him

  • Billy, unlike Davie, is not disillusioned in working-class life and is happy to seek out work wherever he can find it

• It is made clear that Billy is not as intellectual as his brother Davie:

  • Similarly, Alec is more imaginative and academic than his cousin Ian

What is Spence’s intention?

• Spence intended to be "absolutely, directly autobiographical" regarding the central father-son relationship between Davie and Alec

• Spence highlights the opposing directions of Davie's and Alec's lives to explore the impact of grief on a family

• The play has many features of a bildungsroman, enabling Spence to explore Alec’s unresolved grief, and his coming to terms with his desire to leave his father behind

Sources

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