first glimpse of blue sea and sky The last few times I’ve visited Clovelly, it’s felt a bit like entering a theatre and walking slowly down from the ‘gods’ - the car park at the top to centre stage: the harbour below. You pay your entrance and then from the royal box you get the first tantalising glimpse of blue sea and sky. Princess Anne may take this same winding cobbled road when she comes to unveil a plaque to seafarers on May 6th. Round another bend and the sea shanties drifting up the natural amphitheatre of cliffs are a reminder that, as usual, I’m late for the performance. Down another tier to the grand circle and the harbour is laid out before you. On lobster and crab or herring festival days the quay is packed tight with colourful stalls selling their wares to visiting crowds. But this time there is no slightly camp pink lobster or sequinned fishwives on stilts. On this visit (as for much of the year) Clovelly is a working harbour, with fishermen still playing catch up after the winter storms. Yet as I jump down on to the pebbled beach - I am, as ever, late!
centre stage: the harbour and the sea
Stephen Perham painting Neptune “You’ve kept me waiting,” grumbles Stephen Perham, the harbour master, lying on his back, daubing red anti-fouling paint on Neptune’s hull. “You didn’t text back, so I thought you’d run away to sea,” I reply, recognising Neptune as Stephen’s father’s old herring boat. It’s been five or six years since I first wrote about Stephen’s quest to revive herring fishing in Clovelly and I want to check that he’s still passionate about these fickle fish. “I’m behind getting her ready for the season,” he tells me, “being a wooden boat she needs a lot of TLC, plus her engine needed repairing.” Stephen has been busy over the last weeks clearing the beach and replacing the wooden posts around the harbour wall.
Peter Braund (another old Clovelly name) is loading Stephen’s other boat, the picarooner, ready to go out and check their pots. The tiny, graceful picarooner was copied from one of the original wooden Clovelly herring boats, designed to beat the larger boats out to the shoals. Peter is one of the few in Clovelly who remembers herring fishing before it was banned in 1977 to protect herring stocks. Stephen was too young to go out on the boats. He reminds me of an image of father and son, trapped inside by the herring ban, Dad drawing the ‘fishing marks’ in the condensation or the salt on the window pane to show his young son where he would shoot the nets – if he could. Joy, Stephen’s partner joins in, “there’s plenty of herring but people have forgotten how to prepare and cook them.”
Peter Braund (another old Clovelly name) is loading Stephen’s other boat, the picarooner, ready to go out and check their pots. The tiny, graceful picarooner was copied from one of the original wooden Clovelly herring boats, designed to beat the larger boats out to the shoals. Peter is one of the few in Clovelly who remembers herring fishing before it was banned in 1977 to protect herring stocks. Stephen was too young to go out on the boats. He reminds me of an image of father and son, trapped inside by the herring ban, Dad drawing the ‘fishing marks’ in the condensation or the salt on the window pane to show his young son where he would shoot the nets – if he could. Joy, Stephen’s partner joins in, “there’s plenty of herring but people have forgotten how to prepare and cook them.”
Tommy loading lobster pots I have my answer, so I walk along the harbour wall to find Tommy Perham, Stephen’s older brother, clearing lobster pots from the quay, ready for Princess Anne’s visit. He is roping the heavy baskets down to John Balls in the boat below. John’s boat, Aurora, is still away for repairs (the winter storms created a shingle bank which blocked the harbour trapping her inside) so they are sharing Tommy’s boat. Tommy left fishing for several years to work in the building trade and as a fishmonger. His pots are baited with salted herring. It seems a waste but he tells me there’s no money in herrings. Last year was a bumper harvest – there were so many, they flooded the tiny local market and they couldn’t give them away. Yet Tommy seems hugely content to be back fishing and very happy to answer the tourists’ questions – exchanging quips with a Canadian over whose lobsters are the largest. The visitors have to step over the ropes and a skipping joke is repeated many times. I notice the fishermen are incredibly patient acting as though they’ve heard the joke for the first time.
They are patient with my questions too. They get a brief respite as I climb back up the cobbled streets to fetch new recorder batteries. (You can pay for a lift up the hill by landrover – but somehow that would be cheating.) I am unimpressed that I’d forgotten the batteries, but very impressed to find them in the fudge shop, inside the Charles Kingsley museum - a reminder that Clovelly is not just about the harbour. Even the donkeys are out on their daily stroll, down down-along street, cheekily snatching greenery from the gardens. I can’t help thinking though, that in the days when everyone’s livelihood depended on catching herring in those flimsy boats – all eyes must have been drawn to centre stage: the sea and the harbour.
They are patient with my questions too. They get a brief respite as I climb back up the cobbled streets to fetch new recorder batteries. (You can pay for a lift up the hill by landrover – but somehow that would be cheating.) I am unimpressed that I’d forgotten the batteries, but very impressed to find them in the fudge shop, inside the Charles Kingsley museum - a reminder that Clovelly is not just about the harbour. Even the donkeys are out on their daily stroll, down down-along street, cheekily snatching greenery from the gardens. I can’t help thinking though, that in the days when everyone’s livelihood depended on catching herring in those flimsy boats – all eyes must have been drawn to centre stage: the sea and the harbour.
John Balls loading his pots After a crab sandwich from (the third Perham brother) Barry’s seafood shack, I catch up with John as he deftly strings eighteen pots together with bright blue rope. Born in Cromer into a fishing family, he discovered North Devon while working as a relief coxswain on the Appledore lifeboat. He decided “it’s not a bad part of the world to make a living” and about ten years ago bought a cottage in Northam. Lobsters grow by moulting their hard outer shell and when she is soft-shelled as John put it, “the male takes full advantage”. Then the females known as ‘berried hens’ (because their eggs look like thousands of tiny berries) carry them packed tightly on their abdomen for nine months or more, before they shed them the following Spring.
John spoke of the baby lobsters from the lobster hatchery he helped release and the reserve local fishermen protected voluntarily from Clovelly around to Bucks Mills. There is talk of closing this area again as a shellfish nursery, he tells me. “If it’s managed by fishermen for fishermen it’s much more likely to work. No genuine fisherman is going to take everything out on the first day because there’ll be nothing for the rest of the week. And fishermen especially down this part of the world have a good track record in closing off their own areas.” This is true with the Trevose box off Padstow, the ray box off the North Devon coast and the marine conservation zone around Lundy, all seasonal or permanent ‘no take zones’ supported or instigated by local fishermen. ‘Managing sustainable fishing by fishermen for fishermen’ is a refrain I keep hearing. There are lots of different groups interested in fisheries management and conservation and in North Devon they’ve a good reputation for meeting and working together. With the common fisheries policy agreeing to decentralise decision making, even the legislation appears to be supporting more local management. I will blog this one day when I get my head around the complexities and know a bit more what I’m talking about!
John taking pots to store in the bay
Stephen and Peter arrive back in the picarooner. “Find anything?” I call across the water. A few fishermen sell lobsters and crabs to local restaurants or private clients but around 95% of the shellfish catch heads straight to Cornwall to be processed (there is no local processor). The Clovelly potters would love to sell more of their catch locally – if you’re lucky enough to time it right ask them what they’ve caught – or call to negotiate a meeting point or delivery. Call John on 07810 561656.
The only other working fishing boat in harbour is BD310, “Jordan and Joe Rossi’s boat.” As Stephen says “there aren’t many fishermen left here now.” The few other vessels afloat on the rising tide are charter boats. The Independent is ready to take people out fishing or to Lundy. Boat Stories will write about our trip on the Jessica Hettie - once she’s back in the water. Meanwhile, I notice the Neptune is still half-painted. Stephen promises she’ll be ready for the Whitsun holiday towards the end of May. I fully recommend the fifteen minute trip round the bay: as you look back at the village, Stephen tells historical tales of the goings on in each cottage. He’s lived in several of them himself.
As for my favourite fish: they should arrive in late autumn – but they like to keep everyone guessing. Later in the year Boat Stories hopes to film their story and will remind you when to start pestering your local fishmonger or restaurant - asking if they have any Clovelly herrings.
The only other working fishing boat in harbour is BD310, “Jordan and Joe Rossi’s boat.” As Stephen says “there aren’t many fishermen left here now.” The few other vessels afloat on the rising tide are charter boats. The Independent is ready to take people out fishing or to Lundy. Boat Stories will write about our trip on the Jessica Hettie - once she’s back in the water. Meanwhile, I notice the Neptune is still half-painted. Stephen promises she’ll be ready for the Whitsun holiday towards the end of May. I fully recommend the fifteen minute trip round the bay: as you look back at the village, Stephen tells historical tales of the goings on in each cottage. He’s lived in several of them himself.
As for my favourite fish: they should arrive in late autumn – but they like to keep everyone guessing. Later in the year Boat Stories hopes to film their story and will remind you when to start pestering your local fishmonger or restaurant - asking if they have any Clovelly herrings.
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