Forty years on and some things don't seem to have changed one bit...

Four tiers and more of local toshers up to 15 deep made up the huge winter mackerel handline fleet

A veritable sea of boats filled the harbour in 1978 during the winter mackerel season - the local fleet of 'toshers' was joined by boats from as far away as Milford Haven to the north and Weymouth to the east...

to the right of the presenter is a Teignmouth registered tosher on the hard (this was before the concrete apron in front of the harbour offices was extended during the market rebuild some years later) - to the left, just over his shoulder is Stevenson's smallest fishing boat, the Cathryn, wind the clock forwards 38 years...

and there is the Cathryn occupying the same berth this morning!... 

the little morris van belonged to a certain Bill Tonkin, skipper of the Kimbill, but who is that leather-clad figure with his hands held behind his back stood on the parapet talking to the guy in the boiler suit - names anyone?

Mid-week market and there's another new boat in town!

With just four day boats landing to the market this morning...

the auction floor was cleared well before 7am...

outside dark, heavy skies...

kept the market lights glowing...

the old post office will soon be home to the CFPO and the Newlyn Archive, hence the change of colour scheme on the entrance...

more work on the mission as the conversion nears completion...

a bird in the bush is worth two on the bow...

Don at the gear...

all set for some serious shipwrighting high up on the bow...

one of the port's girls heads out to sea...

while another waits to take bait on board, these crabbers get through over a ton of bait a day - they make good use of fish like gurnards and lesser spotted dogfish in the process...

one man and his catch, Barry made an early start this morning well before first light...

looks like the MMO is moving to Hayle, do they know something we don't?...

four a side, scalloping inshore style...

the Three Jays is in her new home of Newlyn...

she represents a step up for skipper James...

with a much bigger working deck, specifically rigged to shoot pots away easily...

and what else when you buy a boat from Newquay, it comes complete with its very own surfboard, hang-ten James...

one of the last of the summer season yachts leaves the port...

on an almost flat calm morning...

its been a while since there were no boats in these berths - winter must be on its way.

The most severe storm of the 1970s - a Westward TV report from the archives.

Westward TV reporter, John Doyle filed this report the day after the worst storm for 20 years battered the port when a bulletin was put out just before the 9 o'clock (as it was then) news that night asking skippers and owners of fishing boats in Newlyn to tend to their boats...

George Lawry - a big man with an even bigger heart - he and his wife Daphne were founding members and the driving force behind the CFPO and the now, long defunct, Newlyn Fishermen's Association.

many of the bigger boats had already been manned for several hours and by putting the boats in and out of gear they managed to hold the long tiers together...

 - in those days the tiers were up to 14 deep!  Although five smaller boats sank that night (Robbie Wilks' Quo Vadis at 11m was the biggest) a total disaster was averted by the bigger trawlers and beam trawlers who used their trawl warps fore and aft as mooring ropes. By midnight there wasn't a single fender between any of the boats as they were worn or torn away by the constant chaffing of the boats caused by the huge 'run' in the harbour....

here skipper Derek Soulsby of the Pathfinder recounts how he and his crew rescued a young woman who (don't ask) was attempting to get down the quay at the time when she was washed off her feet and was one wave away from being washed into the harbour. As George Lawry said earlier, the waves topped the lamp posts on the quay (then they were higher than today's lamp posts too) that night and the decks of the quay boats were constantly being filled. George's boat, the Sea or Tea Eagle as she was known spent that night moored alongside the fish market - whereas skipper Bobby Cairns, skipper of the Girl Freda was unable to get aboard so he spent the night in the Star INN fearing the worst - Bobby now lives in Thailand. 

In addition to the many handline fishermen from Cornwall, Scottish purser fishermen of that era will probably have memories of George in action in some of Falmouth's more notorious hostelries, namely the Chain Locker, Shades and then after-hours in the Arwennack Hotel or 'Fawlty Towers' or as it was more commonly referred to by visiting fishermen!

In quieter, more considered moments, George and Daphne took a certain Michael Grandage under their wing and allowed him to blossom in Penzance with such creative tours-de-force as the embryonic Shiva and Kneehigh theatre groups.

Monday morning's market

Net, trawl, inshore and beam trawl fish for this morning's market...

where there seems to be a dearth of harbour (red) boxes...

nice shot of John Dory for Tom...

while the WSS made one of the biggest landings of plaice seen for a while...

bass this big don't often get caught...

not by line anyway...

whereas cod just get big and ugly...

the fridge was full of mackerel...

and hake form the Ajax...

while outside the scalloper Sapphire landed in the mizzle...

St Georges, the biggest in the fleet...

just arrived over the weekend, the latest crabber for Rowse Fishing...

with her huge working deck...

and prominent bow...

which owes its rather brutal lines thanks to the MMO introducing fishing regulations with little thought for those building a boat just over the crucial 15m overall length...

lock up your milk, there's a night-time prowler doing the rounds on some of the boats...

first light cracking the sky...

finds the netting fleet in port...

and news of the MMO moving office to relocate at Hayle...

heading for the boat Dreckly...

with a couple of tubs of fresh salted bait for the lobster pots...

a stitch in time, mending gear at the ready on the trawler...

two of the visiting scallopers wait to sail...

the new Rowse crabber hull, beam on, looks like plenty of ballast will be needed to put her down in the water......

astern of the port's biggest trawler, the Crystal Sea...

fishing irony - an 'escape panel', well that's what trawlermen call a hole these days...

an early start for some...

as they don their PSD...

and head for the gaps Dreckly...

clouds scud over the Mount.