AT 4.30am, in darkness, skipper Darren Passmore fires up the engine on Resolute and sails out of Brixham Harbour in Devon. The vessel is a small trawler, a minnow’s width under 32ft 9in from bow to stern, with a crew of two. An hour later, it’s being pitched on the sea like a toy, thick with the smell of grease and diesel, ankle-deep water sloshing around the deck. Mr Passmore and his crewmate, Dan Ready, release the net for the first of two five-hour trawls. Chains clank, shackles rattle, ropes are swallowed into the deep. Daylight arrives, bringing grey sky and a choppy sea. The waves eventually abate— mercifully—but it will be 5.30pm before we chug back into port, damp and dogged, bearing three red boxes of squid and lemon sole.
Small-scale fishing is not for the faint of constitution. The seafood being hoisted by Resolute’s trawl is premium produce, perhaps bound for arty restaurants where the Sauvignon Blanc is perfectly chilled and piano music tinkles in the background. As a profession, however, fishing on a small boat can be isolating, exhausting, unpredictable and dangerous—both physically and financially. It’s also a way of life that tends to exist in the margins. ‘Unless you live in a coastal port, you don’t really think about how your fish gets to the supermarket,’ points out Tina Barnes of The Seafarers’ Charity, which aims to improve the lives and livelihoods of those who work at sea.
Denne historien er fra June 08, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 08, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.