“The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.” ~ A.K. Best
I am pretty sure the life of a fishermen must be a tough one. I know here in the UK fishing quotas and the rise of the big supermarkets who drive down wholesale prices has made it all the more harder to make a living. This picture was taken in Hastings, which is home of one of the oldest fishing fleets in the UK. Boats have worked from this part of the beach in front of the ancient town for over a 1000 years. The Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society preserves the fishing community’s medieval right to carry on using that beach – known as the Stade – for ever, free of charge. Many of these fishermen and now fisherwomen too are from families who have been fishing here for multiple generations. They take pride in their work and their boats and if you head down to this part of the beach you are pretty much guaranteed to see at least some of them tinkering away on their precious livelihood. You can also buy fish direct from the them in the little fisherman’s huts that run along the back of the beach. The whole place is history in action.
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