THE FISH THAT HAS MADE HISTORY

Evening Star, Issue 23869, 26 April 1941, Page 5

THE FISH THAT HAS MADE HISTORY

Herrings have played a big part in British history. Herring fishing is first mentioned in a document of a.d. 709 but it is probable that it started as early as a.d. 495 at Yarmouth, after the landing of Cedric the Saxon. In 1108 Great Yarmouth was made a burgh, in return for which “ ten milliards of herrings ” had to be delivered yearly to Henry I. In a charter of the same burgh dated 1286 it was stipulated that 24 herring pasties, containing 100 herrings apiece, had to he supplied annually for the King’s table. Again, Edward lll.’s exchequer accounts show a considerable amount spent on herrings. The struggle between England and Holland lasting throughout the reigns of the Stuarts and the years of the Commonwealth was really one for control of the North Sea herring fisheries. From this conflict was born our mercantile marine, and later, through Cromwell’s navigation laws, the British Navy itself! ' _ For numerous years the King’s bounty, distributed on Maundy Thursday, included the gift to each participant of 12 red and 12 white herrings. Our forefathers, unless they lived near the sea, had to eat their herrings pickled or salted. We, thanks to modern transport, 4 can get them quite fresh wherever we are. Let us enjoy this advantage to the full. Herrings can be served for any meal from breakfast to supper. And in eating them wo have the added satisfaction of knowing that we are helping some of the finest, bravest, and hardest working of men, “ the first to offer service to their country and the last to seek its aid ” —-the herring fisherman of the British Isles.