FishermanNotes

Summary of two interviews with a retired fisherman from the Hel peninsula, recorded winter 2007/08.

• Began at 14 on his uncle's boat, 1953. No wage; a share of the catch, paid in fish and later in money.
• Nets were mended by the women on the beach; songs for the work, mostly forgotten by his daughters.
• Eel was the money fish; herring was food.
• The cooperative (post-1950) changed who owned the boats but not who crewed them. "Same men, different paper."
• Weather lore: a red sky over the bay meant nothing; the behaviour of the gulls meant everything.

He asked that his name not be used. Recording kept by the family.