Hull Maritime volunteer, Julie Corbett talks to former trawlermen who worked on the Arctic Corsair. Here they share some of their memories.
In November I travelled up to Newcastle to meet Albert Whiting and Billy Boyle. Both had sailed on the Arctic Corsair. The visit was arranged by Terence McDermott (Terry), who along with Henry Howard founded the North Shields Fishermen’s Heritage Project in 2015.
It was a privilege and delight to sit with these three men as they shared with me and each other their memories of fishing and the fishing communities they remain connected to.
Here I introduce the heritage project and recount some of the Albert’s and Billy’s stories from Hull.
The first aim of their heritage project was to raise funds and then commission a statue to remember men who fished from North Shields and those who lost their lives. This statue ‘The Fisherman’ by local Ray Lonsdale is situated on Fiddlers Green on the banks of the Tyne at North Shields. You can read more about the North Shield’s heritage project and their work here.
Terry kindly drove me between Newcastle and North Shields and during these journeys recounted a brief history of North Shields. The area was affected by the collapse of the ship building industry. The changes in the social and economic circumstances very reminiscent of Hull’s Hessle Road area. The dock area appears underused. There is still fishing and one of the main commercial activities is a thriving prawn fishery. We also passed a dockside site where components of the wind turbine towers are manufactured and transported by sea.
I met Albert and Billy in the office of the heritage project. Even before our coffee they asked about progress on the Arctic Corsair. Albert could not imagine a lift down to the fish hold. (update on Arctic Corsair here). My description of the North End Shipyard development (update on dock gates here) resulted in delightful reminiscences of bus routes across Hull in the sixties and several is ‘such and such’ place still there.
Albert started fishing as a deckle learner fishing on trawlers in the fifties. His first trip was on the Ben Chourn, a steel screw steamer. On this trip he worked as a trimmer. A trimmer shovelled the coal for the steam boiler. In the early sixties Albert moved to Hull, working as a deckie, and living on Longhill Estate. In the decade Albert was in Hull he fished on Boyd Line Ltd trawlers including the Arctic Corsair.
Billy’s connection to the Arctic Corsair began when he was a schoolboy. Billy’s father, Skipper J W.E Boyle, was the trawler’s first skipper. In Hull, Skipper Billy Boyle (senior) was known as Paddy Boyle and earned the nickname “Killer Boyle”. Then it was possible to officially go to sea while still school age. Billy junior went on the Arctic Corsair, not as a working member of the crew but as a ‘pleasurer.’ This was a person not working in any formal capacity but taking the trip for their own pleasure. This was common. When I interviewed John Wilkinson, who engaged in the drawings for the Arctic Corsair (read more here) he recounted trips as a schoolboy on a trawler his father was the cook on.
In Figure 4, you can see Billy’s dad, Skipper Boyle on the Arctic Corsair’s bridge. This photograph was one Billy took himself. Billy thought that the most striking thing here was the small sized ship’s wheel. Today the bridge is fitted out differently.
Billy attended Hull’s Trinity House School. His choice of joining the deep-sea fishing fleet rather than going to either the Royal or Merchant Navy after leaving that school was, he said unusual.
Billy began his fishing career as a deckie learner on the Arctic Corsair in 1968 and worked through the Ranks gaining his Skippers Ticket in 1978.
The last time he sailed on the Corsair was as Mate when she was converted to Pelagic Trawling, and fished for Blue Whiting, west of the Hebrides and Mackerel off the UK South Coast.
