“Start Rowing Boys”
During the War (1939-45 not the Crimean) I lived at Tynemouth and we used to crawl through the barbed wire that was all along the sea front in those days, ignoring the ‘keep out – mines’ signs, to get down on to Sharpness Point, the Oxfauld, Castle Rocks etc. It wasn’t a case of “will we catch fish here” it was more a case of “how many shall we take”. Remember this was in the days of food rationing and very little trawling. I would say the average size of fish that we caught was between 6 lb and 10 lb. on mussell and limpet. I was a founder member of Borough of Tynemouth Angling Club in the late 40’s and we used to meet at the Wooden Dolly Pub on North Shields Fish Quay until we went ‘up market’ and took a room in the North Shields YMCA. At the beginning of the 1950’s the Club acquired an old 26 ft open lifeboat.
Three or four of us were elected as ’skippers’ to take club members out each week. Now this craft had a habit of breaking down on a regular basis and one of the ’skippers’ Gordon White (sadly no longer with us) had the most evil temper you could wish to see and one Sunday, fishing close inshore off Tynemouth, the engine broke down for the fourth time that day. Gordon went berzerk and, using everything we could get our hands on, we paddled ashore, landing on the beach next to the bathing pool skeer. We left it there and walked off in disgust.
Now, in those days, we didn’t have the posh, fancy floatation suits that we have nowadays. It was anything you could get your hands on to keep you warm and dry. This happened to be in the middle of summer and there were lots of people on the beach – and we got some very strange looks. (I forgot mention, by the way, that this was at the time of the Hungarian Uprising when lots of these people were coming over here.) The following night the headline on the Evening Chronicle screamed out “Hungarian Refugees seen landing on Tynemouth Beach. Police are appealing for information and witnesses on this incident” !!! We all, very sheepishly, went into North Shields police station and gave ourselves up.
As far as I know – and care – that damned boat is still buried under the sand at Tynemouth, as we didn’t bother going back for it.
