Dance
ti' thy daddy, sing ti' thy mammy,
Dance ti' thy daddy, ti' thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in.
For some, a favourite meal is
a plate of delicious, golden-battered haddock accompanied by a pile of hot,
crispy chips. For others it’s a
mouth-watering prawn cocktail, artistically presented. It might even be a sophisticated sea bass
with saffron sauce. Whatever your
seafood preference – Harry Ramsden or Rick Stein – there would be no choice at
all if it was not for the hardy individuals who battle the elements and risk life and limb to catch and bring back to
shore the harvest of the ocean.
Through war
and peace, good times and bad, fishermen have put to sea and braved the elements
to earn their living. For countless
generations fishing has been a way of life with sons following in the footsteps
of fathers and grandfathers. But, due to diminishing fish stocks, government
and EU regulation, and the increasingly high cost of fuel, it is becoming more
and more difficult for fishermen to make a living from a way of life that has been
handed down through the generations.
Before a way of life
disappears completely and the memories are lost forever, four of our authors took the time to visit their local fishing communities and talk to the fishermen who struggle,
day-in day-out, to keep their heritage alive.
Using first-hand accounts and
a fascinating collection of old and contemporary photographs Sheila Bird, Ian
Robb, Ron Freethy and Bernard Bale tell the stories of four fishing
communities: Cornwall, East Anglia, Lancashire and Lincolnshire, recording the
memories of local fishermen and their families; the conditions, the work, the
people and their humour.
I've put together some short extracts from each of the books. They make fascinating reading and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
I have certainly learned a great deal about the fishermen of Britain and my admiration for the work they do under the most extreme circumstances is boundless.
Let’s hear it for the folk
past and present who are the very life of the fishing industry. To each and every one of them from skipper to
lumper and from owner to apprentice and their families – Thank You.
Happy reading,
Deb
MEMORIES OF THE CORNISH FISHING INDUSTRY by Sheila Bird
Brian
Bowdler, a fisherman and member of the lifeboat crew at Looe says ‘There’s no
two days the same when we go to sea. If
anything goes wrong, we tend to have a laugh about it. There’s humour in any hard job, else it would
be un-doable’. His father, Lionel
remembered ‘We had a wartime mine that we towed up, which we had to bring in to
shallow waters for the Navy to blow up.
That was quite interesting! Brian
had to sit on it all the way in, to stop it from rolling around.’
Alan
Dingle of West Looe recalled ‘The men I trained with were very
experienced. They knew everything about
the area – the weather, the conditions of the sea, and you were told not to do
this, and not to do that. We were out
there one night when I was a youngster, and I was whistling. The skipper, he said to me, “We got enough
wind without you whistling”, and he wouldn’t let me have no dinner! So I learned my lesson there, quick!’
During the Second
World War local fishermen were enlisted by the Royal Navy. Claudie Richards of Polruan has vivid
memories of his wartime service in his requisitioned boat, Rosemary. Sent to rendezvous
with a submarine, he recalled, ‘It was dark, with patches of drizzly rain. I slowed the engine down, then it come calm
and I could smell cigarette smoke. Then
suddenly this great thing loomed up in front of me – it was the conning tower
of a submarine! I went alongside and
this officer called out “I say, how did you find me?” ‘It’s your cigarette smoke!’ He says, “Well, I’m damned!”
MEMORIES
OF THE EAST ANGLIAN FISHING INDUSTRY by Ian Robb
Ernie Childs of Great Yarmouth
recalls the hundreds of boats moored in the harbour during the height of the
herring season in the 1950s. On a Sunday
morning when all the crews had gone to church, locals could climb across from
one boat to the other to get from Great Yarmouth to Gorleston, rather than walk
the half mile around and over the Haven Bridge!
One
of the greatest losses to the East Anglian fishing industry has been the Scots
fishergirls. They moved south following
the fishing, travelling from port to port, gutting, pickling and packing
herring by the million as they went. In
East Anglia vast number of these Scots lassies could be found in Great
Yarmouth, Gorleston and Lowestoft throughout the herring season.
Ernie
Childs of Great Yarmouth recalled his early life on the Fish Wharf in the 1950s
and retains his affection for the lassies ‘I’ve grown up with these old girls,
y’see. They were “girls” no matter how
old they were. When you’re down with them,
it’s lovely. You used to be among them
and they were singing away. It was a
wonderful atmosphere.’
MEMORIES OF THE
LANCASHIRE FISHING INDUSTRY by Ron Freethy
Mick
Rodgers has been a deckhand all his life.
‘I began as a galley boy and I’ve never been so ill in my life. There’s nowt worse than sea sickness. Imagine a high sea running and I’m sat there
peeling spuds and putting them into ice cold water. Suddenly the metal bucket lurched across the
deck and I waited for the next roll to bring it back because I were too ill to
move. It was then I realised how a good
crew worked together. A deckhand looked
at me and told me to go and lie down and he continued with my work.’
Retired
deckhand Mick Rodgers recalls ‘I was shipwrecked twice. The first time was in the Boston Lightning. It was blowing a gale when we were struck
amidships by the Grimsby trawler Lord
Howe. Her bow embedded in our vessel
but the Grimsby skipper kept his head.
We were losing water but the Lord Howe partly sealed the gap. We were able to launch a boat and then board
the Lord Howe. The Grimsby lads then went astern and took us
to a safe billet on the west coast of Iceland.
The luckiest man alive that day was Jimmy Crisp who was our wireless
operator. He had just left his radio
room when the collision occurred and a Grimsby anchor demolished his radio room
completely.’
Those who fished off the coast of Lancashire faced, and still
face, potential danger every time they put to sea. Joyce Openshaw, former director of the Iago
Company remembers the wrecking of the ST Red Falcon off Skerrymore in 1959 when
19 men were lost. ‘This was the worst
day in the history of the Iago Company and we were all devastated. What can you say to a grieving woman with
children at her skirts? We lost a ship
but the families lost loved ones which is much more important.’
MEMORIES OF THE LINCOLNSHIRE FISHING INDUSTRY by Bernard Bale
http://www.countrysidebooks.co.uk/book-catalogue-book-details.php?book=1830
John
Vincent, the resident guide for the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre, recalls ‘I
was eight when my father first took me on a trip. It is a fishing family tradition that boys go
out for a maiden trip at around that age. You are old enough to take in what is
happening but there is little you can do to help. It is a kind of baptism thing
with everything going on around you. It
was a great experience though and by the time I came back I knew where my future
was going to be. I don't know what it was that was the greatest appeal. Perhaps
it was a successful voyage, bringing home food for the nation and a pay packet
for the family, maybe it was simply being out on the sea which is a world of
its own, the camaraderie on board or just the fact that I wanted to be like my
Dad. I don't know. I just knew that I was hooked from the start and I have
never regretted it.’
Former deep
sea fisherman Michael Sparkes of Grimsby recalls ‘Sailing home in bad weather
our steel bobbins broke loose one morning and the mate sent me and another
deckie, Norman, to secure them. We saw a
tremendous sea coming at us on the starboard side. I managed to duck beneath
the ship's rail which meant it went over me with its full force. Poor Norman
was washed over the winch by the wave, badly injuring his back. He later spent
quite a while in hospital recovering after we arrived home and decided not to
do deep water fishing off Iceland any more’.
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