BREYDON IN LEISURELY AUTUMN 173 



She had " skun " so many in her day that she had begun 

 to think the eels a part of her own personality. 



As a lad I used to gaze wonderingly on old " Betty " Fox, 

 the last of the eel-women, who came regularly to market on 

 Saturdays with a big kid of eels, mostly of a goodly size. 

 She sold her eels at the then regulation price of sixpence per 

 pound. She was dressed in some undescribable material that 

 looked as if it had been fished out of Breydon ; and was 

 fronted with an old sack apron, with pockets to hold her 

 takings. 



Her scales were made of two ancient saucepan lids, not so 

 well balanced as they might have been, each hung 'by three 

 cords to a home-made beam of wood trimmed into shape 

 with a knife. One seller's scales were made of a couple of 

 wicker baskets, suspended from a rusty iron beam. The eels 

 were kept in sand; this was to make them weigh heavy, and 

 it all came off with the skinning. "Betty" was as artful as 

 age and experience could make her. After weighing out, 

 say, six or seven pounds, she seized each eel separately, 

 holding it belly upwards firmly in a piece of rag or sacking. 

 It was ripped and disembowelled ere it could squirm twice ; 

 an adroit stab immediately separated the head from the body, 

 and with one dexterous twist and a sharp pull, its skin was 

 taken off, as one draws down a stocking. If an "order" 

 came from an hotel the fish were duly weighed, but " Betty " 

 was inclined to be a bit careless (?) as to how far down the 

 body the vertebrae-stabbing took place. Often a good two or 

 three inches of nice fat eel would remain attached to the 

 gaping head, inside the skin. A few pounds of eels, leaving 

 sections behind them, would mean a dinner afterwards for 

 " Betty " for nothing ! 



Gone are those queer and interesting days for ever, and 

 with them most of those quainter characters which the place, 

 the times, and the circumstances made distinctive. Illiteracy 

 and the wild life brought out that which was strongest in 

 their natures, making them unique and distinguished in the 

 curious world they lived in. Those strong instincts and 

 manners, which were brought into play by their environment 

 and the exigencies of the life, are not so marked in their 

 degenerate successors. Breydon has so greatly altered, and 

 those who "follow" it to-day have to adapt themselves to 



