FISHERMEN OF ENGLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23840, 16 December 1940, Page 6

FISHERMEN OF ENGLAND

The English Channel is swarming with herrings, writes a correspondent of ili6 Daily Telegraph, and along the, southeast coastline, where it is possible to push a small boat from the beaches, sturdy fishermen are struggling with all manner of difficulties and dangers to gather in the sea harvest. They are all that are left now that the Channel has become Britain's vital moat, as the young men who onco fished oil this coast are away in the Navy and mercantile marine and other sen craft. They are for the most part veterans. They were bred and brought up in these fishing grounds which made the Dover sole world famous. Jn their cockleshell boats in this season of autumn gales and high seas, and with deep-sea lines and small nets as their only equipment, these "old-timers" who keep the fishing alive in lace of perils from land, sea and air are carrying on. Shells from the. German land batteries, bombs and machine-gun bullets launched from the air by Nazi aeroplanes which have, been baulked of bigger prey, mines —these <lo not deter them. They stick grimly to the means of livelihood to which they were bred and do their bit in the national interest. And they do not talk to strangers. "We see things when we are out there," one old fellow said. "All sorts of queer things happen out at sea fishing these days. But if you want to know anything about them you had better ask the Admiralty. We are here to get fish —not to talk to strangers."