The Norse - Many of the Hull deep-sea freezer fleet fished for mackerel off Cornwall in the late 1970s and early '80s. |
Hull and Newlyn:
Newlyn could only look over the big stern and freezer trawlers that descended on Mount's Bay in the 70s mackerel boom - they were too big to come alongside the harbour's quays. With their ability to fish in Icelandic waters severely curtailed, the fleets of big black, blue and yellow company boats donned their mid-water gear and entered a whole new world chasing gigantic shoals of mackerel that spread themselves over the Western Approaches. Fishing in these warmer climes must have been a doddle compared to dealing with life above 60º North - the main problems stemming from having to fish within the close confines of dozens of other like-minded trawlers, Scottish mackerel pursers, local fishing boats and, not least, the busy shipping traffic off the Lizard and Land's End. These boats fished at night, when mackerel shoals lifted off the bottom and rose to the surface - the skippers would talk to one another on '69', one of the VHF working channels; two names come to mind, "Fookin' 'ell 'oward" and "Fookin' 'ell Trevor".
One of the 'old school' aboard these boats may well have been Jack Nelson, as featured in this carefully crafted cameo of life as a deep-sea fisherman by Hull writer, Russ Litten - you can almost taste the salty spray as Jack recalls his first day at sea as a 'deckie learner'!
"He’d only intended to go for a piss. But now Jack Nelson was spread-eagled on the deck of the St Arcadius, smashed under the steering quadrant by a heavy wave of water that had crashed over the side, his barely shaved fifteen year old face inches away from being chewed off by grinding gears.
He weighed up his rather limited options. Shouting for help was no good; the rain was battering the ship like machine gun fire, the wind was shrieking like a demented banshee and besides, every time he opened his mouth to scream it was flooded with salt water. His freezing fists wrapped themselves grimly around the first solid thing to hand as Jack lay there, buffeted around like a rag doll, every last ounce of decreasing strength in his body straining to avoid certain mutilation. Jack wasn’t a religious man, but praying for dear life seemed like the best idea by default. God, or Neptune, must have been listening on that squalid November night somewhere in the Northern Arctic Waters. Eventually, after what seemed several life-times, another mallet blow of water knocked his hands open and the trawler reared up in the booming waves, sending Jack sliding back down the deck towards the aft and the galley entrance, where he’d gingerly emerged, clutching his bladder, some forty minutes previously.
The cook looked up from his pan of stew as the trembling young lad collapsed through the door and started spewing up bellyfuls of salt and bile. “Jesus bloody Christ!” he yelled. “Yer little bastard! Not on my clean floor!” And, to his utter horror, Jack found himself booted back out onto the deck, the galley door slammed firmly shut behind him, the cook’s curses ringing in his already pounding eardrums.