Memories Of An Old Sea Dog – Part 2

Picture 1: Characters in the West Pennine Sea Angling Club

Technicolour yawn
Someone suggested hanging their own false teeth on their hook just after Dave had been throwing a technicolour yawn over the side, suggesting that the teeth, with a mind of their own, must have taken the other chaps bait as they were sinking down. The idea was dismissed in case Dave popped them in his own mouth to try them, only to find they were the wrong size and throw them back in again.

Bridlington was always a popular destination mainly for the cod. The second person (in the middle of the pic) was also a Dave (Halliday), but we always used to refer to him by his nickname “Fishy”. He was a coarse angler really and it was on his first trip with us as sea anglers that he came unstuck. He’d been joking with all the others on the coach going up there about who would be the first to be sea sick (always a lot of banter in clubs about that) – “Put them at the front of the boat so they can groundbait for the rest of us. Hah, hah!” Yes, just wait Dave.

We used to draw numbers on the coach to get our boat positions so there could be no favouritism in getting the best spots. Anyway, Fishy Dave ended up close to the back of the boat near me and we set off from the harbour on a beautifully bright morning. Once we were out of the harbour motoring on to our fishing grounds he mentioned about the mountains on the horizon. He was convinced they were the mountains of Norway since it was “Just over there.” and nothing we said about a couple of hundred miles of sea between could dissuade him.

The mountains of Norway
Still motoring out there those mountains got closer and closer and the look on Fishy Dave’s face changed to one of apprehension. He asked again if we were sure they weren’t the mountains of Norway and the skipper told him that’s where we were heading. The were, of course, the big swells you experience past Flamborough head, 30 foot plus rollers where the fishing boats play “Now you see me, now you don’t.” After a long 5 minutes for Fishy hanging over the side groundbaiting whilst two of us hung on to his trouser belt, he spent the rest of the day huddled up at the front asleep. Who was the butt of all the jokes going home, then?

Picture 2: More characters in the West Pennine Sea Angling Club

Far right of picture 1 and far left picture 2 is my mate Ken Clifford, looking cool in the 70s shades. He was the guy that gave Paul (see first part) the sea sickness pill, but Ken was good mate and sadly he died in the 90s far too early. His wife went back to Germany and has since remarried, we still exchange Christmas cards. Ken always used to joke about me handing around cigarettes, “Oh look. This one has ‘Merry Christmas 1948’ on the side of it.” implying that I rarely handed around my cigarettes. I wish I had a pound for every time he cracked that one, but in every respect he’d do anything for you.

Good stuff that braid…….
Just one time when Ken and I were drawn next to each other on a trawler (like the one pictured) from Hartlepool. I always fished with a 20lb IGFA rod that I’d made up myself with a turned ash handle as well. On this occasion I was trying out the then new braided line rated at 20lb, I think from Garcia Mitchell. We were drifting and fishing perks (made from old chrome carpet display stands, pressed and filled with lead and an eye) and inevitably you’d get the occasional one caught up on rocks the size of houses down there.

It was one such snag that sent the reel screaming against its drag as the boat drifted away. Quickly I tried for a break, but this new braid wasn’t having it. I then gave the rod to Ken, released the spool lever and stripped off a few yards of line from the end ring and wrapped it around a bollard on the gunwale. It held, but instead of breaking immediately, the 60 ton trawler we were drifting on started to turn around. What had been land that some of the lads had been looking at turned to open sea and vice versa.

A trawler like this one was anchored by a very thin 20lb braided line

This entire ship was anchored by a very thin 20lb breaking test length of braid and the ensuing tangles of the others still fishing earned me a few new names, many of which cannot be repeated to your delicate ears dear reader. Eventually the line did break and I lost the perk, but not before we saw the tide rushing past the trawler. Gives you a fair bit of confidence in 20lb braid, that does.

Arkwright had nothing on Tommy
In the middle of picture 2 is Tommy Reynolds, an unfortunate stutterer. He was a smashing chap and generally tried to come along with us, but the one abiding memory I have of Tommy was when he started telling us a joke once. He started it as we were passing through Stockport and just about finished it on the outskirts of Chester (this was pre-M56 as well), but to be fair it was a longish joke not helped by Tommy’s stammering. Arkwright had nothing on this man.

Jigsaw peg board
Jack Williamson is the last in the pictures (far right Pic 2) and for years was the Chairman of the club. Jack was one of life’s couldn’t-care-much-either-way sort of people, but always up for a joke. Such as the time when one member, also a workmate of Jack’s, had a piece of black plastic all marked out with holes for a peg board for scoring Cribbage. He asked Jack, an engineer in Maintenance, to cut it off as indicated by a mark, which Jack did, but not exactly straight. He cut it with a fine band saw and made the cut look like a piece of a jigsaw, just for a laugh.

Nothing seemed to trouble Jack at all, if we didn’t catch anything it was all part of the game and we’d had a day out in good company anyway. However, there was one occasion when the lads wanted a change and decided that Grimsby might be a good place to try from as there was the Humber estuary and Spurn Head. Being winter as well we needed a bit of protection in case of gales and so forth. So, a quick reference to Angling Times (loads of adverts then) and I found these boats. Quick chat to the skippers who said they were experienced and had all the gear on board, so I booked them.

On the day I didn’t go as the wife was close to dropping our second chavvie and I thought it would gain me a few Brownie points to miss just one. I got the full story of the disaster afterwards though. The boats had no warning sirens, horns or bells. There was no radar reflector fitted to the mast nor could anyone see any lifesavers on board and although the skippers were asked about flares, none were produced. The reason for this concern was – they sailed in a dense fog!

Out at sea and then we heard a dog barking…….
Concerns started immediately when one boat collected all 20 anglers before transferring 10 to the other boat and their BoT licences (if they’d had any) don’t cover that. One time they were fishing mid channel in the Humber when one boat almost got mowed down by a huge container ship which remained unseen until it was right on top of them. But the final straw came when Jack Williamson heard a dog barking a little distance off.

He’d noticed how the depth of water was getting less and less and the barking dog, unseen in the fog, got closer and closer. By the time they saw the dog it was all too late. The boat was beached and the dog had been standing on the sand at Cleethorpes all of the time. The skipper apologised for the error and explained that it would be another three hours before they could re-launch the boat in the tide. Everyone to a man got off the boat, walked up the beach and spent the rest of the trip in the pub playing Cribbage.

Needless to say the balance of the payment was NOT handed over and the skippers were told to sue us if they wanted it. They wouldn’t argue against 20 stroppy anglers, but I did take it further with our MP, Tom Pendry. He kindly raised it with the Board of Trade who then carried out a full investigation into charter boats operating from the Grimsby area. Several weeks later, Grimsby Council published an advert in Angling Times advising all sea angling clubs to check with the Council as to whether the boats they had booked were in fact properly licensed. It turned out that very few were as they hadn’t been fully equipped with all the safety gear that charter boats should carry.

That winds it up, I just wanted to share with you a past time with old friends never forgotten. I’m sorry I couldn’t show the picture of the member who’d stripped a dogfish of it’s skin then posed for the photograph with it’s enormous tail dangling in front of his trousers. One thing angling does is bond you all together for life and even afterwards. I don’t know how many of these guys are still alive now apart from Kenny who I know died. I would guarantee though, that if these salty old sea dogs could meet up tomorrow there would be hundreds of tales of “Do you remember that time at …..”