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Home , History of fishing

Journey so far. Changing nature of and its communities.

Good afternoon. I guess I’m here to set the scene and give the history lesson to start the programme, before the serious stuff gets underway.

This is my second paper. After submitting my first one and highlighting all the problems faced by the industry, Laura said, “If you read that out we might as well all go home.” So, paper two.

I’m Fred Normandale from sunny Scarborough, in the ‘People’s Republic of Yorkshire’. I can recall, and have written about some wonderful, irreverent characters, gluts and famines of fish, bad , tragedies and some oh! so wonderful, memorable times.

My childhood was unique, growing up in a post war fishing community. To earn pocket money, my pals and I collected sea urchins from the rocks when the spring were on, selling them to visitors. We gathered winkles in summer for the stalls on the sea front and limpets for bait for the catching with long lines in winter. We sailed on boats, while still at school, learning a trade, catching crab and , cod and haddock with men who had survived the war and were back into the world they knew best.

These men had mostly served in the Royal Naval in that were converted arctic trawlers and had swept channels, estuaries, port entrances and shipping lanes all over the world, though were not worldly wise though.

Herby anecdote.

Eventually I became a deck-hand, then skipper, then bought an old and joined a wonderful world, being a part of a special group of people. Fishermen.

It is a pleasure to visit and go to Newlyn here in the SW and see vessels in the harhour and to go into vibrant pubs that are full of fishermen. It lifts the heart. We don’t have that any more. Don’t lose yours. If you’ve still got your characters and your fleet. Fight to keep what we’ve lost.

When we had pubs along the seafront fishermen would visit most of them in a sort of pub-crawl. One Xmas, Stanley and his mates all ordered turkeys from a local farmer, to be delivered to the pub on Xmas Eve lunchtime. The birds all arrived, dressed ready for the oven, except Stans. His mates thought it would be a great idea to get the farmer to bring Stan’s alive. It was brought into the pub on a bit of twine. He spent the afternoon going from pub to pub with his turkey on a lead and doesn’t remember going home. He wasn’t sure, but thinks he left the turkey on the bus. Stan had tongue and cold shoulder for Xmas dinner.

I have lived through the most radical changes in the history of fishing since gave way to steam, long before my time. The difference between then and now is that evolution played a very large part in the demise of the sailing fleet. Politicians have been the major players in the demise of the way of life I was born into.

It is a privilege few people get, to have an exciting, challenging way of life that pays only on results and provides top quality, unadulterated food for home consumption. There isn’t a better feeling in the world than coming home, ’belly to ground’ with a hold full of fish. Well maybe one!!

To be serious for a while, Where are we now? Sadly, my own port of Scarborough plus nearby Whitby and Bridlington have lost their fleets and men. The 100+ under 60’ trawlers that fished the Yorkshire now number fewer than six boats. The massive ports of and Lowestoft further south are no more. Families that have proudly fished for generations have been forced from the industry. The ancillary services that support the few remaining vessels are hardly viable.

If you look at the bigger picture, we’ve been hit year on year for more than 30 years by cuts. No matter how good the recovery news is, we still get reductions.

Well the reason is, that the European Union pay for the science. The ICES scientists deliver the advice to the parameters set by the EU. They are not giving independent advice. Until this changes things will never get better. He who pays the piper, calls the tune. Governments say “we must follow the science” but this isn’t true science to solve problems. It’s specified to the EU’s requirements.

In my opinion we are making way for the vast Southern fleets that still use small mesh, have no effort limitation and very little policing. This is being done with the tacit approval of the northern governments who are either powerless or reluctant to fight on our behalf.

We in the have been shafted with a ‘Cod Recovery Plan’. Ask yourselves which nations catch cod. In my opinion this is a deliberate plan to reduce the Northern Fleets. We are being starved of fish in a sea of plenty. The stocks are increasing but the quotas are not.

Quotas are hugely out of kilter with the stocks. Everyone is starved of fish. Not just the under 10s. We are part time fishermen with full time crews and full time mortgages. This isn’t for environmental reasons. It can’t be, because the remaining boats are no longer in a position to damage the spawning biomass, so the reason can only be political.

Unless the TACs are brought in line with the existing stocks, in a few years the ‘no discard ban’ will tie the fleets up.

We are surrounded by experts, with all the answers. They write books and make television programmes and they all know what’s best for us. It’s quite sad really that none of these experts have ever spent any serious time at sea. These people rely on the science, but if the science is flawed, and on cod it most certainly is, then everything they hang their hat on is flawed, because none of these NGOs do any research. They rely on ICES information.

The UK fleet is greatly reduced. The way of life that I, and many others have known has almost gone but we are still on the receiving end of this propaganda, because we are soft targets for the NGOs, bankrolled by American Foundations with millions to distribute. What the Greens fail to see is that if we are forced out of business, we will be replaced by other, less accountable and less considerate fishers from the over-capacity, under-regulated southern fleets. The grounds around our country will definitely suffer more, not less. There’s an old saying, ‘be careful what you wish for. You might get it’.

I’d like to end on a lighter note,

3 knots story

Thank you for listening.