A Lobster Fisherman Transcript

A Short video by Hugh Trevor

 0:04 [Music]

0:11 in North Berwick, the seaside town to the

0:15 east of Edinburgh, there is a fine old

0:17 harbour alongside of which is a building

0:20 called The Old Granary. At the far end of

0:23 The Old Granary is the Fisherman’s Hall,

0:25 where Benjy Pearson the lobster

0:28 fisherman has his workshop.

0:33 “Hi, I'm Ben Pearson, a local fisherman.

0:35 I’ve fished out in North Berwick for the last

0:37 50 years plus.

0:40 Here we are in the fishermen stores here

0:43 where we repair our gear and make new

0:45 gear.

0:47 Yeah, the families fished out of North

0:49 Berwick

0:50 for Generations. I think they can

0:53 trace the family back about 300 years

0:55 plus,

0:57 that’s worked here.

0:59 Most of the family were born in this

1:02 building.

1:04 My granny was the last person to leave

1:06 the building before when it was

1:08 condemned

1:10 and we are just carrying on the

1:13 tradition as usual. There’s not many

1:15 of us left now.

1:17 Well we normally work from April to

1:20 around about Christmas time and then we

1:23 just pack up

1:24 and that lets us get on with repairs and

1:28 making new gear you know.

1:30 Most of my life basically since I was,

1:34 well since I left the school, that was in

1:36 62, 63 I think yeah you start off making

1:40 the base and then you would put the

1:43 stones in them and then with bow them

1:45 and top stick them and then we would net

1:47 them and knit the eyes and ends and

1:50 basically your finished product you know

1:53 as a traditional East Coast Creel. My

1:55 brother unfortunately died a couple of

1:58 years ago.

2:00 Yeah he he was fishing

2:03 since, well since the both of us left

2:05 school.

2:06 The family had a a big boat, we used

2:09 to work prawns

2:10 you know,

2:13 39 to 40 feet. Well, my father and my

2:16 brother and I worked on the same boat

2:18 in the family boat way you know.

2:21 Yeah well it it we eventually just got

2:24 our own boats and I mean he’d been

2:26 working his own boat and I would work

2:27 mine. You get various things you know,

2:30 conger eels occasionally.

2:33 There is various different fish – coddling

2:37 which they normally keep for fish cakes.”

2:45 “I’d like to introduce myself, my name is

2:48 John Miller.

2:49 My family have been residents in

2:52 North Berwick. You have a creel Benjy in

2:54 front of you that you’re you’re you’re

2:56 making up the wooden – as far as I can

3:00 go back to my childhood I’ve always

3:01 remembered them, the wooden bases being

3:04 the way it is at the moment, is that

3:06 correct?”

3:07 “Yeah, basically the same, but nowadays I

3:10 mean we we get all the wood cut at sawmills

3:13 a way back we used to have to

3:15 source our own wood and cut it by hand

3:17 to the sizes but it’s a lot easier now.”

3:20 “Right now the the stone for weighing the

3:24 creel down, that’s a an obviously a fire

3:26 brick from an old navy storage heater.

3:29 What was used in in the olden days?”

3:32 “Well we used to go away along the coast,

3:34 we used to gather flat stones off the

3:36 beach.”

3:37 “All right, now you can remove the bows

3:40 as we would call them. It’s all very well

3:42 nice and handy this plastic water piping

3:45 nowadays with, what was used in days gone

3:47 by?”

3:48 “Well at the spring of the year we used

3:50 to go a way up the hills into the

3:52 woods and cut ash suckers you gathered

3:54 enough ash suckers at that time of the

3:56 year because the sap was in them you

3:59 could bend them easily, so once you got

4:01 them back to the harbour, you used to

4:03 bend them into shape.” “Can you tell me

4:05 about your time you work? Obviously

4:07 the times when you’re at sea depends on

4:10 the tide.” “Well it’s a tidal harbour and

4:12 you’ve got to work round that so I mean,

4:14 depending the time of the year, I mean

4:16 you could be away some mornings,

4:18 three o’clock in the morning

4:19 and work over the water and come back in

4:22 late morning or early afternoon.”

4:27 “And this is at the stage ready to put

4:29 the net on.

4:33 Right now, move to this, the net which is

4:36 obviously a man-made fibre and what was

4:39 used in olden days?” “Well it was marlin

4:42 twine I think we used to call it, but the

4:44 lifespan of that if you’ve got maybe

4:46 three four months in the water, it used

4:49 to just melt away.” “What’s the best months

4:51 for catching lobsters or months?” “Well the

4:55 best time of the year for us is

4:57 the middle of June, right through to October.

5:00 The end October will start to tail off

5:02 again and obvious prices start to creep

5:05 up.

5:06 Then to come like, say Christmas and New

5:09 Year’s time, that’s when the prices peak

5:12 and that’s where they may be paying

5:14 about

5:15 20 pound, 22 pound a kilo” “How much would

5:19 you say it would cost, including your

5:21 labour and parts for one creel?” “Well I

5:25 would think it would cost

5:27 40 pounds to maybe 40 to 50 you know.” “All

5:31 right, 40, 50 pounds and going by the

5:33 average price you’re looking at having

5:35 to catch six or seven lobsters per

5:37 creel just to break even.” “Yeah exactly I

5:41 mean, that’s sometimes you can take a wee

5:43 while we recover that, yeah and you could

5:45 put your creels in the water one day and

5:47 then get hit by a great storm. Yes it

5:49 must be kind of soul destroying sometimes.”

5:52 “Well put it this way, you never actually

5:54 get used to it, you think you would get

5:55 used to it but no no it breaks your heart.

6:01 “That's it.

6:03 Finished article.”

6:07 “During the season, Benjy takes his boat

6:10 out two or three times a week.

6:13 In preparation he has to fill the fuel

6:16 tanks

6:19 and also take bait

6:21 which he gets from Musselburgh or Port

6:23 Seton.

6:25 His boat is berthed just inside the

6:27 harbour,

6:28 which makes it easy to get in and out

6:30 even when the tide level is fairly low.

6:34 A friend of Benjy’s, Raymond, often goes

6:38 along to keep him company.

6:40 Just now they’re waiting for the tide to

6:43 rise a bit higher.

6:45 And now it’s time to go.

7:11 Lobster pots are attached to a line

7:15 and a line of lobster pots is called a

7:17 fleet.

7:19 Benjy has 13 pots in each fleet and he

7:22 generally has five fleets out at any one

7:25 time, making 65 pots to deal with each

7:29 outing.

7:31 At each end of his fleet, he has red and

7:34 white floats to distinguish his pots

7:37 from those of other fishermen.

7:40 He begins by hauling in the floats

7:42 and then the pots one by one. As each pot

7:46 comes up there is excitement.

7:49 Is there anything in it?

7:52 Often there is nothing there.

7:55 Even so the pot has to be cleaned out,

7:57 fresh bait fixed on a hook and the string

8:01 door tied up

8:04 and then the pot dropped at the back of the

8:08 boat. [Music]

8:11 Perhaps there is a lobster in the pot?

8:13 But it’s too small.

8:15 So that our legal rules about the size of

8:17 lobsters that can be kept.

8:24 Benjy has a measure for checking.

8:26 Lobsters that are too small must be

8:29 thrown back.

8:30 Is he tempted sometimes to keep ones

8:33 that are nearly, but not quite large

8:36 enough?

8:43 At last it looks as though Benjy’s luck is

8:46 in.

8:57 Yeah yeah

9:01 [Music]

9:03 When all the pots of a fleet have been

9:05 dealt with, he settles down to fix

9:07 elastic bands on the lobster’s claws.

9:12 Some days the catch is not so good.

9:15 In this June outing in the 13 pots of

9:18 Benjy’s first fleet,

9:20 there were only two lobsters of legal

9:22 size

9:24 and one or two crabs.

9:29 He sees it is because the lobsters have

9:31 cast their shells and they’re not moving

9:33 much until their new shell is hard.

9:37 However in a later July outing the catch

9:40 is much better.

9:42 There was a lobster of legal size in the

9:44 very first pot pulled up

9:48 and two good-sized lobsters in quite a

9:50 number of the pots that day.

9:56 The lobsters have to be kept apart because

9:58 they would attack each other.

10:06 After putting elastic bands on the lobster

10:08 claws, the fleet of lobster pots is

10:11 relaid in a new area. To do this,

10:14 Benjy has to stack the pots one by one

10:17 on the side of his boat

10:21 whereas larger lobster boats have a vent

10:24 at the back through which the pots are

10:26 dragged out as the boat moves forward.

10:27 [Music]

10:34 Once the fleet is relaid in a new area,

10:36 he moves on to the next of his fleets

10:40 and begins the process again.

10:43 It takes him about three hours to do

10:45 all 65 pots.

10:47 [Music]

10:51 On the July trip, as Benjy’s boat had

10:54 finished the last pots and was heading

10:56 home, a launch, the Marine Scotland

10:59 Fisheries official launch,

11:01 arrived to check the size of his catch.

11:06 “How you doing?”

11:09 How glad he must have been that he

11:11 hadn’t kept any of them that were too small.

11:14 Apparently the fine can be up to 2,000

11:17 pounds every undersized lobster.

11:25 Benjy’s lobsters have all been approved.

11:48 Today’s catch has been a good one.

12:01 [Music]

12:26 [Applause]

12:28 [Music]

12:32 Back in the harbour, Benjy first deals with the crabs he has caught.

Add them to those in the storage cage until the restaurants want them.

12:35 [Music]

12:52 [Music]

12:58 He moves the rest to a more

13:00 spacious cage,

13:05 adding today’s catch to them.

13:10 [Music]

13:11 “Would you see your future in the

13:14 business, how many more years do you

13:15 think you'll keep going and what what

13:17 then after?”

13:19 “Well, as long as I’ve got my health I’ll

13:21 keep carrying on. My father worked up to

13:23 he died and he was 84, he worked all his

13:27 days, so if I’ve got my health I’ll just

13:30 carry on. How old?

13:32 Well I’ll be 76, 67 this year.”

13:43 [Music]