WESTERN MORNING VIEW
Gillian Molesworth talks to a Padstow fisherman about the challenges of lockdowns and the Brexit deal
“THIS past year has been hard; we’ve all had to switch off and keep holding. It will all come right in a minute. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. Hang on.”
The phone crackles, and I hear the baritone blast of a boat horn. I’ve called Padstow fisherman Reggie Bate to ask what life has been like over the past year for him. A few minutes later he calls me back on WhatsApp.
“You can see what’s going on if you like,” he says, and takes me on a virtual tour.
On deck, young men in waterproofs haul up domed lobster pots with the skill of repetition, fling off the creatures that cling to the outside, and open them to collect what’s inside.
“Here’s what we’re after,” says Reggie. Reaching into a tub, he pulls out a speckled bronze lobster with flashes of blue, perhaps a pound and a half in weight, rearing wide to display its rubber-banded claws.
At 26, Reggie is the youngest skipper currently operating from Padstow harbour, and has been for some years – instructed all his life by his father Ivan, he took the helm at just 19.
He is now skipper of two boats: the 21ft Autumn Rose, and the 40ft Ichthus, his pride and joy, which for much of the past year has sat idle.
It’s an expensive boat to run. “It costs me around £3,000 just to go to sea,” he says. “There’s staff costs, I take a thousand litres of fuel, and £120 worth of shopping – the boys get fed well when they’re out with me, we have roast dinner every night. There’s a big tank on my boat in which I can store 25 tonnes of shellfish. But it’s a little boat now, compared to the size of the boats that are in the quay.
“When we can sell our catch, it’s a good living, like. But a lot of our market is in Europe. They’re the only market for some things, like spider crab. People in England just don’t eat ‘em. Seems like all people want here is fish and chips.”
There have already been virusrelated problems accessing the European market – recently, this has been compounded by Brexit-related bureaucracy. Fishermen countrywide have been stuck with a perishable product that they can’t shift.
Reggie first had this problem himself in the lockdown last March, when he came home with a boat full of valuable crustaceans, to find that a door had slammed shut on his main customers.
Social media became a resource for Reggie, now desperate for a local market to replace his export sales and recover his costs. “I was the first person to go on Facebook when I was still out to sea,” he said. “I was able to tell people what I would be landing and that they could place an order. I was afraid I was going to have to chuck everything overboard.”
More relief came unexpectedly from a local volunteer. Angeselle Haslam-Hopwood from St Wenn near Wadebridge is an occupational therapist and founder of Walk You Wild - Kernow, a local guided walking business. “I heard about what the fishermen were facing, and it felt right to support their livelihoods in Padstow,” she said.
After organising an order circuit (again on social media), the mother of three took it on herself to collect and deliver Reggie’s catch, driving all around North Cornwall to provide a socially distanced, door-to-door service in the rural community. She even cooked the lobsters for people who didn’t know how to, or who didn’t have big enough pots.
“I was selling lobster and crab, and also white fish when Reg or his dad Ivan were fishing locally,” she said. “This was appreciated by the local community, who then supported with return orders. It was all very local at prices that were affordable: fresh, local, healthy food from source to plate.”
For Reggie, this was a welcome boost at a difficult time. “This is a hard life,” says Reggie. “It’s hard physical work, and you might be out five or six days at a time. The weather can be rough. I’ve lost friends and family that have gone to sea - just recently three boys died that I knew, the boat turned over and they lost their lives. When the weather’s bad, it plays on your mind.
“Not everybody can do our job. You see people come into the industry, and they don’t seem to have what it takes. And it’s harder to find crew as well. There’s no youngsters that want to be fishing any more. When I was growing up, there would be queues of boys in Padstow wanting to go out on the boats. But it seems like no one wants to do it now.”
Increased paperwork and everchanging regulations are one of the latest manifestations of the postBrexit period, which recently has seen lorry-loads of British seafood export stuck at the borders while their sell-by hour marched ever closer.
“I voted for Brexit because we got promised our fishing waters back. They made a lot of promises, but there are still foreign boats sitting six miles off our shores, and they haven’t sorted out our export market. They say we’ll have our waters back in five years, well in five years the English boats may not have a livelihood,” says Reggie.
He added: “The problem is that everything recently has gone bigger – bigger boats and bigger catches, but they’ll also have bigger overheads. I think the future is probably smaller, and that may not be a bad thing. Sometimes it seems like the rich just keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer in this business. It’s frustrating.”
Currently, Reggie has found a market for his catch with Buck Beckett in Newquay, a fellow fishing family business. He hopes circumstances will improve for the livelihood he loves.
“How long till it all gets better, it’s anyone’s guess. We’ve just got to weather the storm - and see if the Government keep any of their promises,” he says.
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II want to have a catalogue of stuff to look back on. And the smaller number of calendar pages available to me only focuses my attention
WAS watching that Ben Fogle TV show the other day. We quite enjoy gentle Ben and his experiences with people who end up living in the wilds – it’s apparent that the story is what’s in the people’s heads as much as the wild places they go and live in. And we note it’s pretty much central to Ben’s formula that they’ve left a more recognisable urban life… he’s seldom much interested in the gnarly natives who’ve lived all their lives beyond the reach of street lights. Funnily enough, I’d find such stories the more interesting, finding the commonality in humankind, which then shines a light on why most of us apparently want to live in cities. Those who’ve left tell a different tale, which begs different questions.
Anyhoo, this time, Ben was meeting some Irishman who had moved to a shack in the country, grew his own veggies, eschewed money and no longer wore a watch.
Time didn’t matter to him anymore, or somesuch. He clearly had issues in his life – as many of the subjects do – and could’ve kept a shrink occupied for quite a while, unravelling all the things going on twixt his ears, prompting his move to the sticks. I clocked the fact he’d formerly been a vegan for years, and rather suspect that must’ve addled his noggin somewhat – there does seem to be quite a correlation with that fixated mindset. However, it was the time element that got me thinking. This fella no longer kept much heed of time – although the rose tinted spectacles rather slipped when we learnt that he occasionally helped out the farmer down the road, and Ben asked how he went to help at the right time... hmm. Anyway, we’re led to believe that this gentle chap was living a blissful life, not being a slave to modern trappings, and bumbling along with none of the manic pace many of us recognise.
So, why do we rush at life? Certainly I do. I’ve got no issue with the question at all. We’re hard wired to propagate our genes, and provision of support for our families is fundamental to the survival of these genes. Bingo, there it is, can I go now? Oh, you want further explanation? OK. Half of us – the better looking half – are absolutely tied to time in regard to this drive, and on the show Ben soon discovers that his Irishman has firstly had the snip, and secondly, lately acquired a lovely young Irish bird. And there can’t be many viewers who didn’t detect a potential for a problem right there, for whether there’s a clock in the house or not, time counts in such matters. Even if we’re not really meant to talk about it, being so personal, or potentially uncomfortable for some.
As for the other half of humanity, I’ll try and see it through my own drives. As a younger man, I didn’t know why I was driven, merely that I wanted to get on. I soon learned that smelling the metaphoric roses along the way made the journey all the more enjoyable. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions how this manifested itself. As time went on, I’d falteringly made steps forward, both in the outward journey and the inner. Milestones went past, but the drive remained. I had a clutch of small people dependant on my efforts, which made going at life all the simpler. I have to provide for them, to give them the best leg-up I can. Learning that it’s more than just fiscal or material is part of the journey, and whether I’ve acquitted myself on either count is still up for debate. But I couldn’t have sat around and let it flow past me, or had no care for such matters, any more than I could’ve jumped over the moon.
As they’ve started finding their way as adults – where my obligation to them is the same, but they obviously each have their own central role to play now – I’ve found that I’m still driven. I still have to fight, as a dear departed pal used to say – the old enemy... time. I still want to have a catalogue of stuff to look back on, when I can’t kick it any more. And the smaller number of calendar pages available to me only focuses my attention. I’d like to say it’s made me work smarter, or possibly have more empathy for those who don’t share the same simple drives... but I’m not sure either would be really true.
Hey ho. Better call that shrink who’s deliberating over Ben’s Irishman. There’s a far richer seam to be tapped with that balding twerp on Dartmoor, if only he’d stop long enough to lie on the couch! Better get on, daylight’s wasting.