Distant Grounds,Trawlermen from Grimsby and Hull 1960

Excellent Old Footage of a Bygone Era when Cod was Cod, Now we are expected to eat Farmed Cod ,No comparison to the real thing.

It really was very typical slave labour, where crews really counted for nothing. If they had a good Skipper then that was a great bonus, but all too often the Skippers were 'company men' who's first allegiance was to their Company bosses.  Many Skippers were less than decent to their crews...and looked down on them. I saw a 1968 Hull trawlerman's wage slip and after deductions he was paid £19 pound after a 20 day trip to Iceland!!!!  The crews had to buy their own clothing, and crew safety and well being were almost non existant. The Trawler owners made millions of pounds off the backs of the brave and resilient fishermen who did all the work.  There was 'something particularly British' about this type of operation...where the workforce were poorly paid and looked after...and the management well catered for.  The Northern Mill owners had a very similar operation which worked excellently well.......for them.  God Bless these great fishermen...one and all.

The Aberdeen men also fished these distant waters in much smaller trawlers, along with Fleetwood and Granton.  All forgotten now.

I was on sidewinders,brings back memories(good and bad).

hardest job in the world.Much respect for all those who did the job and the ones that never came home

A levy should have been introduced,to finance restocking of the fishing grounds. Each cod roe,has the potential,to create hundreds of thousands of new cod. Were the trawlermen employed to run hatchery's,a beneficial cycle of sustained fishing could have been created,instead of the EU dictating policy. A levy was proposed in the early 1960's,but the Tories scuppered it in their usual short-sighted fashion of self-interest. The result,a decimated industry.

You knew when it was cold,when gutting,the fish guts didn't fall out,because they were were solid,like timber. The flaps around the cod end,were cow hides,to prevent chaffing & losing fish from breaching the net. The doors(boards)weighed the same as a car(1 ton),the trawl mouth was some 130 feet wide,multiply that by 150 trawlers in one area & you see why it became fished out.

In the winter months,I used to dread getting large tears in the trawl,used to get a lot of pain in the hands from extreme cold,from having to remove gloves. Used to wear double-skinned oilskins,with 'salt 'n pepper' jumper underneath,along with a tanned smock,the cold wind penetrates right through,like a knife through butter. If you took a 'leak' on deck,it froze into ice,before hitting the deck,we had 'pneumatic' tubing around the mast,when iced up,compressed air was pumped into them.to clear.

my dad served his time at beverley shipyard makeing these beutifull ships.

i spoke to men who when to bear island and they said it was hard work and would wish what they had to do on their worst enimey the man was 78 and was a trawler men from been 16 so hes had the good and the bad and the amount of men over board them days was high too

hiwinster sidewinders best side fishing trawlers in the world as for grimsby we had the biggest fleat of trawlermen in the world the biggest company was ross trawlers the had 32 twalers all build at selby boad works from 1856-1971

This brought back some memories,the old sidewinders were a vessel that I would sail in any sea on the planet,in any weather that it could throw at me,they are fine vessels,I had complete faith in them & I have been in 98 foot waves,in the middle of winter,pitch black,at 60 degrees below freezing point. Returned to Grimsby in mid June,still with thick ice on mast & rigging. Those days will never return,sad,but overfished,often counted 150 trawlers in one area,each with 130 feet mouth to trawl.

great film but very sad when you think of all the men lost out of hull and grimsby the complete loss of an industry and way of life and the goverment should be ashamed of how these men have been robbed ...and deadliest catch,trawlermen,etc have it easy compared to what these guys did!