You wouldn’t know it from his surname, but Mat McCall is part of the Jones family – on his father’s side. This is a little bit complicated, his father having been born a Jones but with an unusual longing to stand out from that massive island clan he took his wife’s name upon marriage.
Legend has it that the Jones clan originally came to Hopeless when their pirate ship wrecked here many years ago. They were Welsh pirates, which is why they all had Jones as a surname, or so the story goes. For various reasons, there are some islanders who have their doubts about the details of this tale, but that’s a thing to ponder on another day.
Mat McCall is one of the few islanders to have maintained the Jones tradition of piracy. It’s a challenging career to follow given how short a distance boats leaving the island are able to travel. Add to that the probability that any boat not occupied by fisher folk is probably sinking by the time anyone sees it, and piracy becomes a tricky consideration.
However, as Mat likes to point out, there’s more to piracy than just stealing stuff from other boats. There’s the rum, the setting fire to your beard, aggressive use of the piano accordion, the aesthetic, the rum, the preposterous stories and the digging on beaches in search of treasure. Mostly the rum, though.
Jones family pirate art by Tom Brown, with an uncanny depiction of Mat McCall (bottom right) drawn before he’d met any of the Hopeless crew in person.