The Herring is a lucky fish,
from all disease inured,
for as soon as it is caught at sea,
immediately it’s cured!
Anon
Up on watch at 06h00 Wednesday 2nd August, dawn is just breaking and the ship is entering a narrow channel at the Southern end of the Calf of Man. On the port bow jagged inky black cliffs rise out of a foaming sea and to the starboard a solitary rock boasting an ancient stone lighthouse ~ not one of those National Trust lime-washed structures with geraniums in window-boxes but a gloomy dark tower set in a cold sea emitting a hard white light. I rub my eyes feeling as if I am still in a dream, traveling through a mythic seascape but the cold spray soon grounds my reverie. We follow under looming cliffs and draw alongside the Isle of Man scanning the coast with binoculars for the entrance to St Mary’s. I spy a stout harbour mole with yacht masts protruding above it and we make through the breakers for the entrance. St Mary’s has a very congenial harbour master who lets up raft up alongside a large fishing trawler working the Scallop beds. The weather has been so bad that most of the fleet is tied up in port ~ but a few brave souls are still hauling in a catch and we visit the small processing shed next to our berth where “Queenie” Scallops are being shucked. Later that day we feast on pan fried Scallops bought directly from the quay at a ridiculously low price ~ best ones we have ever tasted everyone declares!
Many years before Hull Time Based Arts were kind enough to provide me with a trawler for “Drift” a massive 3D sound installation. The “Arctic Corsair” was the last sidewinder trawler to operate out of Hull after the Cod War and the collapse of the Cod Fishing industry. Whilst I was wiring up the speaker rig in the fish hold I came across a poem pinned to a bulkhead which stopped me in my tracks. My fathers family were said to hail from Northern Germany generations ago, migrating to the North East to establish a fishing fleet but all this is lost in the haze of time, the poem bought a surge of salt through my veins.
This is the old Hessle Road,
The home of Bear Island Cod,
Where the Hudsons speak only to the Helyers,
And the Helyers speak only to God.
Anon