THE RAW MATERIAL 



patrollers and other adjuncts of the Navy, who were 

 brought into being from the rough and ready and 

 too much ignored community whose home was the 

 humble little fishing vessel, and whose constant 

 workground was the stormy deep. 



The war produced its many evolutions and revoc- 

 ations, and outstanding amongst even the most 

 striking of them all was the change amongst the 

 fishermen. Women turned to bus conducting, 

 tram-driving, motor and van driving, postman's 

 work, farm labouring, and perilous munition tasks ; 

 gently nurtured girls forgot their luxurious earlier 

 days in the heavy demands of voluntary hospital 

 work — all classes of men and women everywhere 

 were being altered out of recognition ; but there was 

 no change more astonishing than that of the unpro- 

 mising fisherman who had turned smart naval sea- 

 man, or the grim skipper who had sported a battered 

 bowler, an intensely fishy dopper, and enormous 

 dumpers, who had gravitated when travelling to the 

 crowded third-class smoker, turned gold-braided, 

 blue-clad Chief Skipper or Skipper, with a place in 

 the Savy List and the Gazette, and a first-class pass 

 when travelling by train. 



The raw material could be divided into two great 

 classes, the inshore fishers and the deep sea men ; 

 the former working in open boats near the land and 

 the latter going to the North Sea grounds and much 

 farther afield in sailing and steam vessels that were 

 admittedly the finest seaboats of their class in the 

 world. 



17 



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