In memory of my Grandfather
I’ve a lot to thank my Grandfather for. He instilled in me both the art of enjoying my own company and a love and respect of the sea.
When I was young, probably about 6 or 7, I would look forward to weekends spent with my grandparents from my mother’s side. Mum would wait with me for the bus and the driver would make sure I was fine and got off at the right stop. It was no more than 5 country miles, but I was going on holiday.
The first glimpse of the village from the bus, was seaside. I knew granddad would be there. He always sat on the bridge, blue trilby on, and I would wave to him as the bus drew in.
They lived in a large, cobstone, slipway cottage in a small rural village, on the edge of Exmoor. My grandfather was a fisherman and tripper in the summer, and would then pick up council work in the winter. My grandmother would help make ends meet taking in guests.
I loved going out tripping with my granddad, as I was needed to help him with all the important jobs. He had a 24ft wooden, clinker-built boat called ‘Skylark’, which had summer mooring in the harbour by the cottage.
Occasionally we would go out together, just the two of us, taking no visitors. On one occasion we sat on a mill pond sea, unfruitful fishing lines in hand. We had no fish and so no usual accompaniment of seagulls either. Just the sound of gentle swell on the rocks. We were left to imagine the summer bustle of the village in the distance as we sat in the sun. Dead calm. Listen to that my granddad said "That’s the beautiful sound of peace and quiet"
More usually we would take visitors with us. Outward bound, my granddad would tell local tales of the Camel’s Eye rock, and show the deserted beaches only accessible by boat and those in the know. This made our new-found friends feel that they knew a little secret others didn’t. We would pass a rock where a local cormorant used to fish from. You could almost guarantee he would be around somewhere. As we approached my granddads tale turned to "’ere tw’eel see some burds in their nat’rul ‘abitat "
We would soon then stop, and fish for mackerel using hand held lines. I remember one day we went over a spawning ground, and the visitors whooped with excitement as we felt the boat lift up below us, and the vibrations of the fishes’ tails in the boats bottom. The trippers were amazed as we used buckets that day to fish with, trawling them in by the tenfold. As we came back into land some were all still jumping around our feet.
Back in those days fish were plentiful, in comparison to now. Then, any herring and mackerel we caught was only game for the visitors. They rarely wanted to take it back for tea. So we would haul it from ‘Skylark’, up the slip and into my Gran’s back kitchen, which smelled of warm rayburn coals. There she would gut it for sale. We would put a trestle table up outside the cottage gate and sell to passers by, wrapping it in newspaper. When granddad had been potting we would sell lobster and crab too.
Then when I was in my late teens he went out on his own for the first run of the season. He lost his outboard in a squall, and had to row two miles back into the harbour. At 82 he finally agreed that he probably ought not be going out on his own anymore, and he sold our beloved Skylark.