Fish

Fish and fisheries are in the news as the predictable consequences of Brexit have their impact.  Like Fantasy Bob striding out to bat, the fishing industry's expectations were high.  They were seduced on all sides by snake-oil salesmen and charlatans;  FB's hubris came only from the memory of actually getting a bit of bat on the occasional ball in the nets.  In either case what could go wrong?  Well, they ken noo.  And like FB, they are slumped in the corner of the pavilion ruefully unbuckling their pads.  Older, but in all probability no wiser.

It puts FB in mind of a summer long ago.  When he grew up in Aberdeen the fishing industry was perhaps the biggest employer and Aberdeen had claims to be the largest fishing port in the UK.  Seeing the rows of trawlers moored in the harbour was a very impressive sight as was the fish-market in full business.  The arrival of the oil business changed all that.

When he was a student, FB gained summer employment in one of the larger fish processing factories that at that time surrounded the harbour area.  He was as part of a squad which unloaded lorries, moved boxes of fish around the factory and loaded lorries again,  tasks that were just within FB's narrow skill set. Occasionally he got to put the fish through the yellow brine prior to smoking.  But driving the fork-lift truck was strictly out of the question.

In slacker periods between lorry deliveries, FB and the squad would play cricket.  Cricket, but not as you would know it.  A slat from a broken fish box served as a bat and the ball was a fish head.   Games were highly competitive and the quality of the sledging, as might be expected from a group of fish porters, of a consistently high standard.

Ah, the halcyon days.... over all too soon.  A downturn in the market caused the company to seek economies.  FB was shown the door.   To this day FB suspects the manager's decision was unduly influenced by seeing FB ungainly swing  across the line of an in-swinging cod head.  What might have been.  A promising career was strangled at birth.  FB had to seek other opportunities.  But if he had stuck in at the fish, he is sure he would have risen to the ranks of being allowed to drive the fork lift truck.

And now, as the photo of Peterhead Fish Market, the largest in Europe, shows facilities lie empty.  Alternative uses must be found for them.  

They look perfect for conversion to indoor nets.  As FB's batting companions in the fish house might have said, 'Fit aboot some siller for 'at, Boris?'