DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY

In spite of the hardships of 2020, Guy Grieve has found that there is strength in numbers – no more so when your own offspring come to the rescue

The year has thrown up plenty of obstacles for Guy Grieve, but his offspring have come to the rescue

The alarm goes off at 4am. Outside it is silent apart from the sound of a few rowdy blackbacked gulls having an early morning argument over some scraps at the fishing pier in Tobermory.

I’m in my mother’s flat. I lie still for a bit, running through what needs to be done at Salen Pier, working my times back from the first ferry departure to Oban. It’s an old familiar routine that I remembered from the early days when we started The Ethical Shellfish Company. Combining both sides of the fishing coin is tough. Usually people either fish or they process and market. We have always done both. Business gurus call it a ‘vertically integrated business’. I simply call it bloody hard work.

I push snooze for five minutes and remember how it used to be. I’d drive up to the harbour and swim out to our fishing registered six-metre RIB and then dive for the day, completely exposed to all weathers all year round. A flask of tea and a good hat and jacket were the keys to survival. I’d store my catch in keep nets stowed in a good healthy tidal inlet at Ulva narrows.

On Sunday I’d man haul up to a tonne of scallops up with my dive partner Robert Graham and then catch the 7pm ferry for the mainland with the catch stowed in the chill van. Driving south at around 11pm I’d call Juliet and wish her goodnight.

By 4am I reached Birmingham fish market and made my first drop to two wonderful warm-hearted Brummies whose simple kindness, beautiful humour and strong coffee always gave me a little boost. Then on into London where I would deliver to all our chefs before 11am.

At around 8am Juliet would call to say good morning and I was still driving. Once London deliveries were completed I’d sleep in the service station car parks on the way up north. Two hours at a time. And then back on Mull I dived on from Tuesday.

For three years this was my routine on that open boat we named Invictus. It worked though – and we gradually built an incredible market. Then we employed a driver, a shore manager, labourer and driver in London.

And now, fast forward, here I am again. Another early morning on Mull with the prospect that I’d be in a sweat by 4.30am. Old times revisited. I rub my face and sit up and look across the little room towards an empty bed.

Then the door opens and in walks Oscar, my eldest son. ‘Finished in the bathroom dad and Luke is in the van waiting.’ He will never really understand how grateful I am for those words. The sense that, this time, I’m not alone. It’s one of those ancient feelings; for a father to find that the acorns have become strong as oak.

We are fighting hard to keep things going and have had, like so many of our beloved chefs, to turn to our families in order to find the resources to keep on at it. On the way down Luke mentions breakfast and I point to a bottle of water. They both laugh. I’ve discovered, to my joy, that they’re both as tough as old leather. Quick to laugh and slow to complain – if ever.

And the rewards they’ve asked for have made my heart squeeze such tender beats. At the end of a 36-hour stint in two days we were driving home.

It was sunny. And all they wanted to do was swim in the River Orchy.

I watched from an old stone bridge as their strong bodies shone like gold in the peaty water. With a skip of happiness I understood that despite all the fear and worry of these times we would never forget these long, hard, clean days together. Without my sons I don’t think I could have dragged myself through this reinvention again without some kind of damage.

What’s so unexpected is that I have seen up close as my boys have become men. Two souls that I’ve always loved, but never expected to depend upon.

“I’ve discovered, to my joy, that they’re both as tough as old leather