24 ALONGSHORE 



wind do hang when It gets up in thic there tatie- 

 digging quarter, sure 'nuff!' 



Fishermen who do nothing else may easily be 

 baulked by weather too calm or too rough; but 

 the proper longshoreman can find something to 

 do at all times, even if it is nothing more than 

 saving his boats and gear in the height of a storm. 

 When he can catch nothing with nets, he often 

 can with lines. When prawns and lobsters fail, 

 there are mussels and winkles to be picked at low 

 tide, or laver [edible seaweed] to be gathered off 

 the sandy rocks and boiled according to various 

 semi-secret recipes. When nothing to eat or sell 

 can be got from the sea, jetsam for firewood can 

 be collected alongshore, and hidden in safe places 

 under the cliffs. And when the sea refuses to give 

 up anything at all, living or dead — then the boats 

 can always do with a brushful of paint and the nets 

 with at least a little mending. Experts in the 

 weather sometimes prefer to do nothing but talk 

 about It; on the principle, admitted in most walks 

 of life, though frequently dubbed laziness along- 

 shore, that connolsseurship In anything whatever 

 confers a right to consider one's talk about that 

 thing as work — hard work. Witness the connois- 

 seurs in music, pictures, theology, aye! and life it- 



