EARLY MEMORIES 55 



of some of the hot scenes in the Mutiny and a 

 devoted sea-fisherman. He has never deserted 

 Dover, and has since those days caught fine bass 

 and pollack, as well as some of the few grey mullet 

 ever taken on a rod in the Granville Dock. Thanks 

 to his acquaintance with the powers that were, 

 we were allowed to fish from the Turret, then at 

 the extremity of the Admiralty Pier, now only 

 half way along that structure, which has grown 

 to the dimensions of the sea-serpent. We also 

 used to hire a boat and fish near a buoy under the 

 shadow of Shakespeare Cliff, in days before finan- 

 ciers dreamt of Kent Coal, and at both places 

 we caught numbers of pollack, codling and whiting. 

 That lofty pier was not very convenient for fishing, 

 though the difficulty of getting leave lent it a 

 fictitious value, and there was of course the advan- 

 tage of immunity from the crowd. It was a bles- 

 sing, difficult of exaggeration, to be free of the 

 ordinary loafer, who is always prying into baskets, 

 always asking silly questions, his hand rarely out 

 of your creel, his nose never out of your face. The 

 many changes, which Government improvements 

 and other developments have made in the harbour 

 have not improved the sport, while the busy 

 trawling fleet, that once fished the Varne and 

 Ridges, is all but extinct, only a few fishing boats 

 nowadays creeping in and out of the dock gates. 

 Those once prolific grounds have been indeed 



