Let’s put the record straight on whaling
In 1956, Prince Philip, on board the Royal Yacht Britannia, visited Leith Harbour Whaling Station on South Georgia Island. In his book Birds From Britannia, he wrote: ‘In most cases the whale is killed almost at once.’ As engineer on a whale catching vessel from 1947 to 1949, I can add to this that for the safety of the ship the whale was carefully stalked, often for 20 minutes or so before a kill. And the kill was as professional as in any abattoir. In 1945, Great Britain was bankrupt and sterling wasn’t accepted abroad to buy meat. Meat rationing persisted for eight years after the war and our kids didn’t see a banana for as many years. During that time, I brought a stalk of bananas home to give to local children. Calling at Dutch Aruba in September 1949, I took ten English pound notes to a bank to exchange for guilders to buy some nylons for my wife. Britain couldn’t afford to import nylons. I was told in an American drawl what I could do with them — and this was in a Dutch territory, for whom we fought in the war! A local shop agreed to change them for £3 worth of guilders — just enough to buy my darling Dorothy a pair of nylon stockings. Anticipating bankruptcy, the British government decided in 1944 to invest in a fleet of whaling vessels to feed a devastated Europe. Twenty years ago, I donated two of my paintings as a memorial to the brave men, mostly Scots and norwegians, who worked long hours in often foul conditions for months. I’m 93 in a few weeks and at Easter remember the men who lie in little graveyards on a remote, snow-covered island 8,000 miles from home and those who died in freezing seas. Remember their families. Let people who worship wildlife think of this and imagine.
ARTHUR DINSDALE, Middlesbrough.