Market Whimsies 



many jokes they might direct against the engine room staff, fisher- 

 men did not ignore the echo-sounder any more than they had ig- 

 nored the steam engine or the diesel. Any sign no matter how 

 unrehable, was received with gratitude. It was difficult to follow 

 an underwater trail. 



In spite of all their skill and all their knowledge of the grounds 

 they worked, Jan's first few trips confirmed his belief that farming 

 was a much more assured investment. Whether it was that his 

 first skippers were not quite so adept as they pretended or whether 

 it Wcis simply that they were working in a slack season, they usu- 

 ally ended by landing a fair amount of the 'rubbish' that they 

 called 'unsaleable'. It did sell, of course, but the prices were not 

 what anybody would have wanted. Jan's share in these trips was 

 little more than a few shillings per week. The skippers made 

 practically nothing, since they were paid on net earning and not 

 gross. As for the owners, they were losing money. But years 

 later, Jan had still to find the owner of a trawler who would admit 

 to making anything out of the business. They kept their hell ships 

 going out of pure philanthropy. It was because they were public 

 spirited that they allowed their employees to work for anything 

 up to twenty hours a day. Some trawlermen suggested that it was 

 an American plot to foist moral rearmament on British seamen. 

 Others believed the owners were Communists who were secretly 

 trying to hasten the date of the proletarian revolution. Both 

 groups were wrong. 



The truth was that the fleet had grown so antiquated as to be 

 almost an uneconomic proposition- in spite of all the benefits that 

 accrued from direct subsidy, from preferential rail fares and from 

 the high quality of catches brought back at the end of very short 

 trips. 



Only by spreading tentacles through other branches of the fish- 

 ing industry, wholesaling, coaling, ship's chandlering, net mak- 

 ing, retailing, could a trawler owmer be certain of recouping pos- 

 sible losses at sea. And that was what they did. It was much easier 

 to buy a shop for a couple of thousand pounds than build a ship 



6s 



