Insights of Nostalgia

Sunday, 28 February 2010

A painful reminder.

One day when we were fishing off the lighthouse that serves the south eastern corner of Arran, warning the many ships on passage to, or from the Clyde ports of the danger from the island "Pladda" which lies close to the shipping lane, we were contacted over the radio by the captain of a passing coaster who wondered if he could get some fish in return for some whisky.

These ships are called coasters because their routes mainly take them around the coast of Britain, sometimes travelling to European ports, but never venturing too far afield, across large oceans, although they are big enough to do so.

This particular ship towered above our small fishing vessel, but kept a safe distance from us even though the sea was calm, while he waited until our haul of fish was aboard.
The fish we were catching that day consisted mainly of whiting, with a few boxes of large cod and the odd plaice through them, which was all adding up to a good days work.

It would have been about mid-day when this event took place, giving us a welcome break from our routine of constantly shooting, hauling and clearing up one lot of fish just before the next lot came aboard, so when the exchange of whisky for some fish came, the offer was hard to refuse. Not that it would have been refused at any other time, as I am sure you know.

Once the net was safely aboard we edged as close as we could to the waiting vessel, keeping just enough distance between us to allow their crew to lower a rope down to us where we had a basket of mixed fish waiting for the rope to be tied to then hoisted up, emptied, and returned with the whisky.

Sure enough when the basket was lowered back down to us there was three bottles of a good malt whisky (Ballantine's) in payment for our fish.

Great whisky! We all adjourned to the galley where we all indulged in half a mug of this amber nectar before carrying on with the rest of the days fishing.

AH! It was a good dram, heating the cockles of our hearts, putting a glow on our cheeks and giving us an energy boost to continue. (I'll call it that anyway.)

As soon as I was back on deck I delved my hands in among the fish to pull out any large cod and put them into separate boxes from the smaller fish to give us a better idea of how much quality fish we had.

Just as I came across a big cod, I felt a sharp jag at the tip of my middle finger on my right hand, just under the nail, but thinking nothing of it I carried on, as quite often we would get jags from the barbs that grew on some of the species we caught, like the gurnard.

Our hand were always leaking blood from somewhere, between cuts from our knives, or scrapes and punctures from the defensive armour of fish like the gurnard who had spikes coming from various parts of it's body, and spikes that I had often experienced jagging into me.

When the working day came to an end and my hands began to dry out I could still feel the niggle from the jag I received, and on examination I could see a black dot under my skin which meant the spike had broken off, so I tried to squeeze it out but to no avail.

Usualy this does the trick, but as half a day had gone past the skin had started to cover over the wound, trapping the spike under my skin, so my next move was to cut around the spike and try to squeeze the, by now very sore and irritating intruder in my fingertip.

Nothing worked, the spike seemed to go deeper instead of coming to the surface, so I gave up and turned in for a good nights sleep, but that too was disturbed by the throbbing of my finger, and even after getting up during the night to take some pain killers I still could find no comfort from the pain.

I worked all the next day with it, and as the day went on the pain seemed to ease, probably due to the coldness of the water my hands were constantly in, then we were off ashore to land our catch, and as my hands dried out the pain returned with a vengeance.

After we landed and everything was ready for the next trip, I took myself up to the outpatients department at the local County Hospital where my finger was x-rayed only to be told that the x-ray showed nothing, and there was nothing they could do, but the throbbing in my finger told me otherwise.

It was a week later, at the end of the next trip, after getting little sleep through the pain from such a small spike, that I visited my own doctor, who on examining the source of my pain decided to freeze the whole finger and cut open the tip with a small scalpel.

By this stage I would have let him operate without freezing my finger, but he insisted, and after three injections he decided that my finger was numb enough to begin.

He started with small slices, working his way in, creating as neat a hole as I have ever seen, until I jumped, withdrawing my finger from his grasp as I felt the scalpel touch something.

The doctor poked away with a needle for a couple of seconds at the spot that had made me jump, then withdrawing it showed me the offending spike.
It was barely visible on the tip of the needle, but there it was, the smallest thing you could imagine, but none the less had caused me no amount of pain.

As it turned out, the small tip of the spike had lodged itself beside a nerve in my finger, which had caused the throbbing pain, and the relief was immediate as soon as the offending intruder was removed, even though my finger was still numb.

It was hard to imagine how such a small thing could cause so much pain and discomfort, and it brought to mind the story of the little boy who removed the thorn from a lion's foot, with the lion being so grateful he befriended and looked out for the little boy from then on in.

Well I can tell you,I now know how that lion felt, and that I felt the same way for the doctor who relieved me of my pain, although I did not go as far as looking out for him from then on in.
Someone who can carry out such a delicate operation with such skill and understanding of his patient needs no help from a lowly fisherman such as I, but he is still practising at the same surgery that I go to, and as long as I live I will always be grateful to him.

I carry a small scar on that finger, and it is a reminder that it does not need to be the big things in life that can give us the most problems, sometimes it's the smallest irritations that are the hardest to bear.

(The Wanderer was bigger than these punts seen in the top picture, as you all know, but I just thought I would show you a photo of a coaster.)
Any old excuse to show boats, now the whisky......just savour that too.

Monday, 15 February 2010

My fifteen minutes of fame.

Once the Wanderer was up and running with all the trials out of the way it wasn't long until we started breaking the port record time and time again, so much was her catching power. The experience of the crew, also contributed to the feat, because without a good crew, no matter how efficient the boat and skipper is you will not have success.
The local paper "Ayrshire Post" wanted to do a feature about the fishing fleet that worked out of Ayr, so who better to sail with for all the information they needed but the top earner of the port.

We were sailing at midnight during the summer hake fishing,so the Ayrshire Post editor sent a reporter and a photographer out with us for a two day trip to get enough information to fill the centre pages.

Sure enough right from the first haul coming aboard it was obvious that there were plenty fish to be had, and with just a gentle breeze blowing, the boat was only rolling about slightly, but not slightly enough for the photographer.

As soon as the breakfast was dished out and he entered the galley, he immediately turned around and was seasick over the side, which brought back memories of my first day on the Olive Tree, only I had been out in a force ten gale, this was just a breeze, but the motion affects people in different ways, so I did have some sympathy for him.

As the day went on he felt better and began taking photos of the crew, trying to relate the photos to the story the reporter was writing which helped to take his mind off the slight pitching of the boat.

We had a bit more fun with him when a Gannet hit the mast and landed on the deck when we took it over to him and told him to take a photo of it, and with the Gannet's beak snapping away he took off into the galley dropping his expensive camera among the fish he was about to photograph, giving us a good laugh at his antics.

The reporter, photographer, and camera survived managing to do a good job and two weeks later our stories and photographs were plastered across the middle pages as promised.

It surprised me somewhat just how many people who knew me had read the story, and approached me about the spread, the following weekend when I was ashore.

An old headmaster who I hadn't laid eyes on since my primary school days spied me and stopped to talk, asking all sorts of questions about the story and my job, telling me how proud he was of me, tackling such a tough job, and being so successful at it.
He had also come from a fishing background, but chose to teach, and never knew I had a similar background, and salt water flowing through my veins until he read the story.

That was just one example of what happens when you get your fifteen minutes of local fame, I seemed to bump into people who I had not seen for years, and of course a conversation would start about the newspaper article.

National fame beckoned,(or so we thought) during the winter when a TV station was making a serial which needed filming done at one of the main trawling ports, with a good catch being landed, one of their main priorities, to make it realistic.

Ayr not being a trawler port as such, made do, being closest to their studios, and with us landing that night they were guaranteed to get the large catch they needed to make it look as if it was filmed at a port like Aberdeen.

Word reached us over the radio, before we entered the harbour that they were there and wanting to film us coming in, our catch being landed while two actors walked past talking to each other.
Then the next scene was in the fish market where our fish lay spread out waiting to be sold, with us still running in adding more boxes.

All the filming of us consisted of the boat docking, "where the crew all posed" we weren't asked to but we did, weighing the fish and running into the market with the actors standing waiting to buy them, then even more filming of us when we were loading the empty boxes and ice aboard for our next trip.

We were at sea when the program reached the TV screens, so we made sure our partners recorded our acting debut for us to keep and show friends and relations in the years that were to come, something even more for my headmaster to be proud of, if he happened to watch it.

The first chance I got I put the tape in and settled down to watch, glass of Bacardi in one hand and my cigarettes at my side for the hour long program.

The scene where we entered the harbour came up quickly, but it wasn't the Wanderer that docked, it was another Ayr boat that was built of steel and looked more like the trawler they needed.

When the two actors walked past us it was filmed in a way that blocked us out, and even the market scenes showed no signs of our crew, only a few harbour workers and the salesmen.

The only fame I had from the filming was the large catch of hake waiting to be sold was all boxed and iced by me, and nobody but me and the crew would ever know.

Ach fame is not all it's cracked up to be, just think of the amount of times I would have got stopped in Ayr if they had shown us posing needlessly as we docked, and if the headmaster was content enough with the write up in the Ayrshire Post, then so was I.

(top photo) is a picture of me taken by the Ayrshire Post photographer after I had pushed about a dozen baskets out of the hold, then he asked me to pose with one. Hmmmmmmm.

(The next photo) is just to give you an idea of a fish market during sales.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

You can't keep a good man down.

So much for the threat from the skipper of the Girl Margaret, that he would see to it I would never work at the fishing again, his ego was bigger than his capabilities, as I was offered a job immediately, on a spanking new boat "Wanderer 11" that was due to be launched at the beginning of 1976. Meantime I filled in my time working on one of the top earners that fished out of Ayr "The Terra Nova" until after the launch, making more money at home than I was on the Girl Margaret, so much so that the skipper of the Wanderer kept coming down to make sure I was still wanting to sail with him.

This new boat "Wanderer 11" was more than I could have wished for when dreaming of improving catching capabilities, as it had every mod con a fisherman needed for the job, and was seventy feet in length, with every inch utilized to the full, plenty deck space, and plenty room in the fish room to hold all the large catches we secured in the years to come.

One of these large catches consisted of the "dogfish species" I wrote about in my last post, and in this case we caught over twelve hundred and fifty boxes in one, two hour haul at the seine net.

The dog rope I mentioned in my last post, is a rope that is attached to the cod end, and runs along the length of the net to the tip of the net wing, where we can reach it as soon as the net surfaces, allowing us to handle any such heavy weights like this haul of dogfish, or the bombs I wrote about in earlier posts.

This was our second haul of the day, having caught sixty boxes of dogfish the haul previous, but when this lot appeared we knew we had a different task on our hands getting them aboard than we had before, as they were crammed in tightly all the way down the bag.

Dogfish have very rough skin, and if you run your finger along it from the tail up, you are in danger of drawing blood, as it is capable of cutting into you, also they have two very sharp pointed spikes on their back behind each fin which can penetrate deep into whatever part of your body it happens to come into contact with if you are not careful, the only consolation being, if any, they have no teeth.

The fact that their skin is so rough makes it harder to run them down the bag into the cod end, and there being so much bulk of them this time, it was impossible to move them, so after hauling the first lift aboard with the help of the dog rope, the rest were stuck fast all the way up the bag, with no way of maneuvering them into the cod end for another lift.

We were fortunate that it was a beautiful, calm summers day, or the weight of the dogs would have burst through the net with the surge of the sea. We were also fortunate to have lifting derricks both forward and aft, the one aft used while seine netting, and the forward one placed there for use if we ever went to the herring fishing.

We were lying drifting with one end of the net in the power block, and the other on the deck where the empty cod end lay with no way of filling it, and in between, a mass of dogfish that if landed to the market would fetch enough money to cover our expenses and give us all a very good wage.

The only option we had was to lift the cod end high on the forward derrick, and secure the other end of the net to the stern of the boat as best as we could, then cut the net on the middle of the bag, just enough to let two crewmen stand on the mass of dogfish and throw them aboard manually.

The first two to try it was the youngest members of the crew, who were the lightest among us, also the most foolish, or gullible given their inexperience, did so willingly with a rope tied around their waist, and fastened to the boat..........just in case the net DID burst under the water, and there was a sudden evacuation of dogfish, and men from the net.

This trick worked fine, and as we emptied the bag, by this time taking turns inside the net now we knew it was safe, the catch was soon mounting up on the deck where they were washed, thrown down the fish room and boxed.

By the time we had about half of them aboard, we managed to strap the bag up along the side of the boat between the aft, and forward derrick, and bring the remaining catch to the surface, but still they wouldn't run down the bag, so we had to keep cutting the net, throw the fish onto the deck, temporary lace (repair) the hole we were cutting in the net as we went along, making sure we were safe enough standing on the solid mass of dogfish, and as the day was quickly passing we had begun to steam slowly towards Ayr, to try and catch the market before it closed.

It was quite amazing how well the task went, and we all survived without anyone of us plummeting to the bottom among a shoal of dogfish, but we all did bear the scars of the spikes as they frequently jabbed into us during the procedure.

Not one dogfish escaped, and by the time we reach Ayr most of them were boxed, with the remainder being boxed during landing, over thirteen hundred boxes in all, for just two hauls, but two hauls that took all day, and well into the evening before we were cleared up, ready to mend the net, and sail back to where we caught them.

When the first haul of that next day came up we were all glad to see that it was a pleasant haul of white fish that broke the surface, fish we could handle without standing on top of them while they were still in the bag.

As for the dogfish, we either caught them all that day or the rest scarpered, after seeing the fate of their chums, as we never saw that kind of bulk in one haul again.

The story in the last post happened a few years later, but it never proved to be as difficult as that day, there being less dogfish, and not so crammed into the bag, which allowed us to run them into the cod end after each lift.

The memory of my experience on the Wanderer did enter my head that night on the Boy Peter, and although I suffered with jabs from the spikes, the ordeal, even with the shortage of cigarettes, was nothing in comparison, but the stories are ones I thought I would share with you, letting you know the lengths fishermen go to, and the other dangers they put themselves in to land their catches.

Top photo (The Wanderer 11 in her first year. She was updated on a regular basis with a shelter deck added, and rope reels replacing the original rope bins. Had the shelter deck been added at that time, it would have made our task much more difficult.)

Second photo is of "dogfish" but not swimming in shoals of the amount we caught that day. ha ha.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Old habits die hard.

It's at the turn of year when folk try to alter their habits, by making resolutions to stop smoking, drinking, or lose weight, and even as early as now, in the last stages of January, most of them will have fallen back into their old ways, but it took me back to a time in my life when I was a heavy smoker.

I smoked anything from sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, took my chance to have a good drink when the opportunity arose, and ate heartily at each meal.

I never put on much weight as my calorie intake was burned off quite easily with the hard graft of my work, and the reason I smoked so much was down to the hours we worked, spending most of my time on deck, risking life and limb, with very few hours sleep, hence the excuse to have a good dram whenever we could.
"Well,if we really needed an excuse that could have been it." lol

Never, at any time did I ever think of giving up any of my vices, including some I haven't mentioned here, and as far as cigarettes were concerned I always made sure I had more than enough when we set off on a trip, which is more than can be said for some of the shipmates I sailed with.

The incident I am writing about happened when I was crewing on a boat called the "Boy Peter," and we were fishing in "The Minch," a stretch of water separating the Outer Hebrides from the mainland, of the west coast of Scotland.

It was only our third day at sea, and two of the other crew had already run out of cigarettes, so knowing what it was like to go without a smoke, I gave them a cigarette now and then to tide them over until we landed in Mallaig, the main problem was that the fishing had been poor so we did not know how long it would be before we caught enough fish to warrant a landing, and the skipper being a non-smoker, was only concerned about making it a profitable trip, and didn't care either way whether we ran out of cigarettes or not.

With me helping the boys out of their predicament, my normally plentiful supply was nearing its end too, and I was becoming very concerned, because it was a long time since I had run short of cigarettes, and it might be a long time before we could purchase any more.

As luck would have it, after a four hour tow during the night the net came up with a large haul of dogfish, (about a hundred boxes.) I say came up, but that is the wrong term to use when speaking about dogfish, as they are so heavy in the net that it sinks as soon as you stop towing the net to the surface, unlike white fish that float the cod end.

We were rigged up for such an event as it was prawns we were fishing for which also are heavy in the net, and with a dog rope attached to the cod end (no connection to dogfish we were working with) we began to bring the fish aboard. During this time the skipper was in touch with the office ashore, to try and find out what the market was like, and when the word came back that it was favourable, we knew our cigarette famine was only going to last for another six hours, because as soon as we emptied the net we would be heading for the market in Mallaig.

An order was relayed ashore to have a carton of cigarettes (two hundred in a carton) waiting for us on our arrival, so with a bit more piece of mind I shared the remaining cigarettes with the crew, but even then, they were finished an hour before we reach land.

It might not seem long an hour, but when you are used to smoking a cigarette every ten to fifteen minutes, the withdrawal symptoms are not long in kicking in especially when you know you have no choice but to wait.

It was a more than welcome sight when the harbour at Mallaig came into view, and being smart I jumped ashore first to moor up the boat, leaving the other two aboard to complete the job, but as soon as I hit the quay the skipper was told to head for the ice factory where we could fill up, before we landed our catch.

The cigarettes had been left on the seat of the oil lorry, and gasping for a smoke I grabbed them, opened the carton, ripped open a packet, and realized that the craving had already gone,
I turned round triumphant, lifting the precious tobacco in my hands above my head to show the boys, who were stranded at the other side of the quay, below the ice chute filling ice, and lit one up blowing smoke as if it was giving me great satisfaction, but the truth be told, I never enjoyed that first cigarette.
It was an anticlimax, the desperation,the expectation, then having two hundred cigarettes in my hand, and having a smoke as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Not so for the other two who were shaking their fists at me, joking, but all the time jealous of me standing there with the only thing they craved right at this minute.

I often think about that moment in my life, when cigarettes meant so much to me, and how my body seemed to turn against them years later.

It was one evening, sitting watching the TV at home, that I seemed to take an instant dislike to tobacco, with even the smell of it turning my stomach, and the ashtray that never left my side, looked filthy, and disgusting.

There was no other explanation, than my body telling me it was time to stop, as I never had any intention of doing so, even though I used to get up in the middle of the night gasping for breath, and had reduced my nicotine intake by trying weaker tipped cigarettes.

This was the man who would not leave the house with less than forty cigarettes in his pocket, and a full lighter, would never have ventured to sea without three hundred cigarettes in his kit bag, and now at this moment, the thought of one made me sick.

For the first time since I started smoking, at the age of fourteen, I was without a cigarette, as instead of what most folk do when stopping, keep some handy, just in case, I gave a packet and a half away, and never bought any more.

I did worry how I would cope when I went to my local bowling club, where I drank on a Saturday night, on how I would survive the evening drinking and not smoking, as the cigarette was never out of my mouth during these occasions, although on saying that, they were seldom out of my mouth at the best of times, but at the club I sat in a company who passed their cigarettes out constantly all night.

Strangely enough the night passed without me wanting a cigarette, and I enjoyed my evening every bit as much, but what is more to the point, I have never smoked since, and that was almost twenty years ago.

My lungs are in much better order, and I never need to go to the window to inhale fresh air into them, but there are the odd occasions when a cigarette would be very welcome, although I know I will never go back to my old ways, (Well smoking anyway) as I know how severe the consequences would be now, and I will never need to fear being stranded at sea without them, not counting the fact that I no longer go to sea either, the difference being, the sea is in my blood, and the yearning for that will never go away.

(Above is a picture of Mallaig harbour)

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

Freedom for a goldfish.

Image via Wikipedia

One of the benefits of being a fisherman was the fact that you knew how fresh the fish you were eating was.
Another benefit was that you could take home any type of fish you wanted, and any amount within reason.
So it was, when we had parties at the house I used to take home herring, prawns, and other white fish which made our parties very popular, with such good fresh fish dishes to be had. The other ingredients that make a party go with a swing were there too, but it was the prawn cocktails,(REAL FRESH PRAWNS, not the cardboard shrimps that supermarkets, and most eateries fob us off with now) pickled herring with new potatoes and butter, and the other dishes that I remember, not only because they made great eating, but also because I had to do all the cleaning of them before my wife cooked them. (fantastic fish suppers too if requested)

My wife at the time had a sister with two young daughters, one aged five, the other three.

One day at the fair they won a goldfish, which took pride of place in their home, sitting in a bowl at the centre of the table, where the girls would spend many a happy time watching it swim round and around.

The oldest girl Lorna, one day decided that it should have a bit more room to swim about in, so she emptied the bowl down the toilet, flushed the pan and ran to tell her mum of her generous deed, thinking the fish would end up in the sea.

She could not understand why her mum began to shout at her, when she was told of this deed, and even after it was explained to her that the fish was lost never to be retrieved, she was still unrepentant.

"It's all right mum" she said, patting her mum's back in a comforting way. "Uncle Donald will catch it and bring it back to us, he's a good fisherman."

Her mum could only smile, and I can only think it was seeing some of the fish I brought home that sparked the idea off in her mind.

I did for one minute think about buying a goldfish from a pet shop to replace it and confirm my nieces faith in my abilities as a fisherman, but then it crossed my mind that this might become a regular occurrence, and could cost me a pretty penny at the end of the day so I decided to spin her a yarn. (Me being a mean Scotsman ha ha.)

I told her that it had been cooped up in the goldfish bowl for so long, without seeing its mum and dad, that as soon as it entered the sea it swam away to find them, and one day while fishing I spied them swimming side by side happy to be together again.
"DID YOU Uncle Donald?" She asked, eyes agog.

Yes I replied, and your wee fish asked me to thank Lorna for sending it back to its mum and dad, then it wriggled its tail and swam away to join all the other goldfish in the sea.

Her reply left me quite stunned and speechless when she said, "Well we will have to rescue more fish from the fair,so they can join all the other goldfish in the sea."

Now how do you get out of that?

Monday, 11 January 2010

Are there still plenty of fish in the sea?

This is the time of year when the Scottish fishermen are told by the European Union how much fish they are allowed to catch for the coming year, and the amount of days that have been allocated to them to achieve their quotas.

It is another stupid ruling thrust upon us since we joined this dangerous combination of countries, with the Scottish fishing fleet suffering more than any other country.

It is disgusting that this body, who allow their own countries to flaunt the rules, are allowed to have any say in the catching capacity of our boats, telling us that we are over fishing our stocks when they have all but exhausted their stocks, and are now after ours.

The Scottish fishermen have a better knowledge of the stocks of fish in the waters they have covered over generations, and with their own livelihoods at stake, they need no telling of how to conserve stocks, from people who sit at a desk and receive a steady wage without the worry of some idiot cutting their earning capacity.

I often wondered if mother nature had her own method of conservation, as various species of fish can change their sex, which might be their way of multiplying their stocks when the shoals begin to dwindle.

As early as the seventies we used to catch the odd "saith" with both roe, (female) and milt, (male) in them, and I thought it was a freak of nature to begin with, but as more and more were appearing, it was obvious that these fish did change sex.
The scientists might have known this, but it was never common knowledge among the fishermen.

During the cod fishing I used to look out for the cod doing the same thing, but after years of fishing, and gutting thousands of cod it never happened, until one year I opened up a large cod that had one half of its organs milt, and the other half a perfectly formed half roe.

I do not know if it fertilized its own eggs, I only know both parts seemed to be working fine.
After all the years looking, one appeared, then more came along, not as many as the saith, but enough to let us know that this was no freak of nature, nature was looking out for its own.

We might have been cutting down the shoals of cod but nature was fighting back, and I am sure when the lean times come, the fish are off hiding from our nets, in some deep parts of the sea we cannot reach, reproducing in their own way until the stocks are replenished, when they will branch out again, and spread back into the waters that are fished.

Mother nature can look after her own, without the interference of humans who know very little of her resources, and the Scottish fishermen are more than capable of looking after THEIR interests without interference from the European Union.

I suppose we men should think ourselves lucky that the human race needs culling rather than replenishing, or mother nature might put our status in jeopardy. HA HA.

Top picture: (cooked cod roe)
Bottom picture: (cooked milt)

Thursday, 31 December 2009

Cold, hard winters.

This being the last day of 2009, and with Scotland going through one of the coldest spells of weather for some years, my mind started wandering back to the first winters of my working life as a commercial fisherman.

I had started work during the warm summer months, long days working almost round the clock with only a couple of hours of darkness in our part of the world, a couple of hours to grab some sleep before it all began again, the hard slog of catching fish for a living.

If I thought the long hours of summer was to be the worst part of the year, then I had another think coming when the harsh winter of 1964 set in.

It began with hard frost in early December, with no let up all that month, getting colder each day, with ice forming on the river during the night, being broken up every morning when the fleet set sail, but also getting thicker, and more difficult to break as each morning brought temperatures well below zero, with little thaw during the day.

This being my first winter, and my sixth month at sea, my hands were still in the process of hardening up, so each time I was out on deck gutting my hands became so numb that all feeling left them, but as we had to keep on working, every deed was almost automatic, and no thought was given to how cold we really were.

It was only when we stopped for a break, a cup of tea or a quick bite to eat did the feelings return to my hands, with very painful consequences.

Firstly, as the blood began to flow to my fingertips the pain was equivalent to placing your hand into a furnace, burning and tingling with the hot blood rushing back to my extremities, making me double up with pain, and wondering how I could stop this agony, but there was nothing I COULD do but grimace and bear it every time we had a chance to heat up.

Once the blood began to flow freely again it showed up all the places where I had cut myself during gutting, my hands being so cold that I never felt my knife slice into my thumbs, or the sand from the fish wear away the skin between my fingers.
(The sand coming from inside the stomachs of haddocks from the shells they ate)

All my years at sea I had permanent cuts on my thumbs where the knife had left its mark, but as the years went on my hands were like leather so I never felt any pain.

That first year, at the end of the day when my hands dried out, they became hard, with the salt water drying into them, but in the morning they were tight and very sore to the touch until they got soaked again, so when we were hauling in the mooring ropes I could barely touch them, using my arms from the wrist up instead.

I would stand with my hands in a basin of water on the way to the fishing grounds to try and soften them, thinking it was better than the method used by the old sea dogs, which was urinating on their hands every time they went to the toilet, the toilet being whatever sea we were on at the time.
If only we had the sense to be less manly, and use hand lotion that done the job properly, and was used by the younger generations years after, who thought nothing of it.

The drying out of the hands was just like tanning cow hides, and by the end of the winter I could stub a cigarette out on the palm of my hand without leaving a mark, and the cold having no effect on them whatsoever, but that didn't stop me slicing my thumb.

It was well into the new year before the ice began to thaw, with thick flows of ice coming down the river being our next problem, as it cut into the wooden hulls of our boats, so we had to take great care when we sailed down the river, with the crews standing around the deck with poles trying to shove the ice clear as we edged slowly out to sea.

Sometimes even the mooring ropes were so iced up we could not coil them until we ran sea water over them, and on some of the coldest days even the salt water froze on deck with the spray from the waves turning to ice as soon as it hit the deck.

The fjords in Norway used to freeze during these winters, so whether it's down to global warming or not, that we don't get so many harsh winters I don't really know, I only know that the modern world seems to find them harder to contend with than we did, even though they are not so harsh, regardless of all its new technology.
Then again perhaps it because they rely too much on the new technology that they can't cope.