Memories Of An Old Sea Dog!

The Conway Star – fond memories for Jeff

The club grew out of a work’s fishing club so not surprisingly, many of the members had known each other for some years and worked with each other through the week. We had a registration fee at the beginning of the year and then after that you just chose which trips you wanted to go on. Meetings were always packed with up to 60 anglers wanting to book on trips and very rarely was there an empty seat, although I can remember a few trips that weren’t quite as popular as we imagined they would be.

There was always the old stalwarts who were first to book, in fact their names went on anyway and you just had to tell them they were going, it didn’t seem to matter where. There had to be a bereavement in the family before they would miss any trip, and even then they’d probably find an excuse to come. In fact, one chap broke into a two week holiday at Blackpool to come home and join us on a trip to Bridlington before rejoining his family back in Blackpool.

Amongst the happy stories there were some angry moments, particularly when boats were cancelled or skippers could get their backside out of bed. It did happen, but these people were never re-booked, they had the attitude “There’s always another set of mugs around the corner.” How wrong you can be as our first picture tells a story. ‘Conway Star’ and its sister boat ‘Wondering Star’ were bought by one skipper, but because he let down a few parties the ‘party’ was soon over for him. The boats were sold and ‘Conway Star’ came to one of our regular skippers, Roli Hughes.

In the end though, even Roli, who was staring retirement in the face, decided to sell the craft for – wait for it – £ 7,500. But that was in 1977. I had my eye on one of his other boats, a 45 footer of teak and mahogany called ‘Topaz’ which Roli was selling for a mere £ 4,500. Oh, did I miss a trick there? Although the boats belonged to Roli he didn’t sail them personally, instead ‘Topaz’ had a smashing skipper called Glyn. Whenever we went with him and the trawlers were out in the bay he would radio them and if they had been catching we always pulled alongside and got a couple of kits of fish on board first. Which was handy because they were plaice and you can’t catch them on rod and line, usually.

Get Yer Skates On!
Conway was a regular trip for us with up to four trips per year, but the best time was late August and September when the skate were in. On one trip I can recount, we had a nice day ahead of us with a very slight easterly breeze, barely a 1 on the Beaufort scale, and produces a hazy day. Our boat was Alice (a.k.a. ‘Slack Alice’) on this occasion skippered by my old friend Ken Hughes, Roli’s nephew. We stopped a while for bait, loads of fresh mackerel and a couple of larger ones for the pan.

We then motored off to the main mark and down went the rigs and traces for the main quarry. It wasn’t too long before the first skate came to the surface, a very small fish not worth keeping, but after that it was like a production line. After I had two reasonable ones that were worth taking home all the others went back, but this wasn’t the case with everyone. Ken, our skipper, had a friend who sold fish on the quayside and would welcome a few skate so as a treat or favour the others started filling boxes. They soon tired of that and were also throwing them back.

At the end of the day there must have been over 400lb of skate in the boxes after everyone had taken their choice. Even then, some of the lads just couldn’t bear to part with their catches, I suppose a kind of greed took over and some arguments broke out. I left one of my skate in place of a couple that were taken, but by the time we all got on the coach, peace had been restored and we all talked of a brilliant day.

A final calculation suggested that our boat alone had landed over 600lb of fish, not counting mackerel and a few others like bull huss that were returned. Some would say we shouldn’t have done it, we should have moved marks or changed tactics once everyone had caught a skate, but why do you go fishing? In the hope that the next one is going to be a real screamer, a rod bender to remember! Well in this case it was the total catch of the day and they all ended up being eaten, as far as I know, and even our young Paul caught his first double (11lbs 6ozs) that day too.

Young Paul Ashton

Paul Ashton had been coming on boat trips with us since he was 6 years old, he must have been 11 when this picture was taken. Together with his dad, Jack Ashton, they were two that you could always count on and though he was only small when he first started, I never knew Paul to be seasick at sea. There was an occasion at Bridlington when we’d all gone into a fish and chip restaurant for breakfast (old seasick prevention method – eat what you fancy). Paul had put away an enormous plateful of cod and chips and we were sitting around finishing cups of tea.

My mate, Ken Clifford, was also one of the stalwarts and I always thought of Kenny as a natural sailor. However, he let slip this time that he took seasickness tablets and slipped one down with his tea. Seeing this Paul asked him all about them and Kenny talked about them as if they were just a bit of insurance, to insure against him being sick, of course. Paul showed such interest that Kenny gave him one and, with Jack’s permission, he took it. We’d just left the restaurant when Paul suddenly ran over to the edge of the quayside and threw up violently into the harbour. After that we boarded the boat and that was the only time I had seen young Paul be sick.

Near Disaster
Jack Ashton, Paul’s father, was one of these people who talked in a quiet, unhurried, monotone. Nothing could excite him, but there was one occasion when we were fishing off Swansea that nearly cost us our lives. It was a foul day, blowing force 5 when we set off and threatening force 8. We had a bit of sport, but the boat was pitching heavily and after only a couple of hours we sought shelter from the westerly in the bay behind the Mumbles. It was still blowing like hell and howling through the boats rigging, that was how you can tell it was force 8 apparently.

The blessing was that we were so close to shore that the waves didn’t have chance to build up any size, but it was still pretty miserable. After an hour or so this coastal ship came into the bay seeking shelter and decided to drop anchor about half a mile up-wind of us. Our skipper was very experienced and when you see a worried look on a skipper that’s the time when you should start to worry too. He explained that it was soft sand in the bay and the ship wouldn’t hold anchor for some time and possibly until he was on top of us.

The ‘SILLOTH STAG’ – bearing down as the anchor fails to hold

How right he was. There didn’t seem to be anyone on board, but chain was spewing from the bow to give the anchor a low angle to grip with, but it just wasn’t working. Our boat’s radio was going frantic as our skipper tried to contact the coaster, who wasn’t answering, and the Coastguard service who were watching and talking to our skipper. In no time at all the huge 800 ton (estimated) vessel was on top of us and only just missed us, I made it perhaps two feet, but it was that close the Coastguard radioed back to check we were still afloat.

Jack Ashton was with young Paul at the front of the boat on that side closest to the coaster and I asked him how much there was between us and the coaster. His reply was “I don’t know. I had my eyes closed s*****g myself.” When we all calmed down again I asked him to reconfirm what he’d said and he quite literally had s**t himself, poor man.

I took this picture of the coaster afterwards, once the anchor was holding it. The guy in front of the photo was called Brian (sorry, I can’t remember his surname) and I asked him to look around to give some size to the ship, the ‘. I shall never forget it.

Postscript – Marvellous thing the Web, I just looked up the Silloth Stag, 798 gross tonnes so not far out with my early estimate. I am now trying to find who the idiot, sorry skipper, was on that day.

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