A full transcript is available on Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre’s website: https://www.fishingheritage.com/trawlermens-tales-bob-formbys-early-years-as-skipper/
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my name’s uh Bob for and I used to be a troller Skipper I’ve worked out of Grimsby most of my life and then spent a few years working out of South Africa as well my early days of fishing I started um I was at a Grammer school and I was expected to have a pretty good job when I left uh I left the school and I went to a college nuns corner I I was going to be a wireless operator that was my ambition I spent a year at the college and we used to come to uh Loch Hill which is a college in Grimsby that we used to do seamanship knots Etc the guy there was a fisherman an ex Skipper uh and he that’s all he liked was fisherman and eventually after a few weeks at this college he he Tau me into being a fisherman he actually got my me my first trip to see it was on a troller called um the rebounder it a CB in troller uh my face trip as a Dey laner on this ship and we used to sleep forward and in this folkal there was there was eight bunks four of them was for the Seaman the other two was for Cole because we had a CO fired stove down there and that was my first experience of of going to see fishing uh we only fished in the North Sea uh the weather was not too bad um but I noticed when I was working on the deck uh with it with the deck crew they’ point up onto the bridge and say the skipper wanted you and he’d look up and his face would be in the window and he’d be making a t sign like this with his fingers and I saying what does he want he wants a cup of tea so I had to go off make the captain a cup of tea take it to on the bridge and from that day on I thought that’s where I want to be on the bridge looking out the window and watching everybody else getting wet and that’s that’s my first experience of fishing okay I I did one one trip in this the ship called rebound um when we came in doc I I was kind of promoted I went into one of the new vessels like it was actually the Ros cougar which is similar ship to the Ross tiger from there I stayed in that ship long enough to be promoted up to a deand and then um I stayed in the ship for quite a while and I can remember my first uh pay as a deck hand and it was 36 and I God I thought I’d got the world I I bought a racing bike I bought a um a record player I bought everything um yeah and I thought I was King for the day with this settling and from then on um I worked on the deck um and I got a chance of going thir down in a North Sea Ship Without a ticket if they were shorter men that’s what they used to do if he was good enough you could go St down without a ticket so I did a couple of trips as as BOS of a vessel and then uh the office decided that I should go to school and get my third an ticket um the schooling uh is 3 month college and it’s it’s self-funded we had to pay ourselves for this so I eventually I went to college I got my third Dan ticket and luckily enough as soon as I got the ticket I got a ship as a boson then I decided after then that I wanted to go deep water I wanted to go Iceland and and white sea and Russia and them places because I thought that was where the money was and that’s where I wanted to go um I finished up going as a BOS and on one of the deep water vessels um there for several several voyages and of course it when you’re a boson deep water you get chance to work on the bridge so you go up on the bridge do a toe get a bit of information pinch information from the skipper and the mate’s notebooks uh and eventually The Next Step as a mate the mat’s time it was three month at College again um self-funded again eventually got my mate’s ticket and was lucky enough to get a B bir as a mate but as soon as you got your mate’s ticket it was a case of you had to do four years at Sea as a mate before you could even go for your Skippers ticket so this four years maybe take you five because it was only SE time you couldn’t count your time off so you had to keep going until you got the four years in as soon as I got that time in it was a case of back to college get my Skippers ticket pre while I was mate doing this I was with a a big friend of mine who used to be Skipper of the ship I was mate of while I was at College every time this guy come in and made a trip we’d go out for a drink and he’s always used to put 50 Quid in my top pocket which in them days was quite a lot of money but every Voyage he did that I got my Skippers ticket went down to the docks and the guy had been made with the guy who’d been giving me 50 Quid every trip he got the sack and I took his ship I was a bit you know a bit gutted about it and I said to him you know I’m sorry this is happen he said oh gosh don’t worry about it you’ve got the ship and Away you go and this is how I started off being a skipper my first um ship Skipper was the Blackburn Rovers and this’s the one one I I took off a friend of mine it’s a big responsibility when you take a ship Skipper it’s um you’ve got to look after the ship the crew um battle the elements catch the fish and at the end of the day you’ve got to please the owners when you get back in the dock so you sail from Grimsby and you’re kind of king of the world it’s your first trip Skipper but then when you get down to the grounds you’re thinking gosh I’ve got to I’ve got to catch a lot of fish here um a lot of people say you well how do you know where to fish when you get to Iceland and the thing is if you get to Iceland and and you see 10 or 15 ships fishing this is where you fish because they they they’re not there for nothing so you fish there when this fish takes off this is when we get the Diaries out the information I’ve pinched off other Skippers when I’ve been on the bridge and where we was and what we caught at this certain time and this is you start looking for fish and this is this is part of the job that I found really adventurous you’re looking for fish you’re battling the elements and if you find the fish yeah it’s wonderful um but it’s it’s kind of um it’s quite a stressful job because you’ve got to be on top of it all the time you you’re trying to earn a living for the crew and yourself and and then you’ve got to please the owners because you was always only as good as your last trip at Sea luckily my first trip uh we we at on a good fish shop and we managed to fill the ship up with quite a lot of fish and we came in in the dock I think we had around about 2,000 kit of fish uh and we made a record Voyage of around about 20,000 which in them days was quite a lot of money um which stood me in good stead for doing a few more trips as a Skipper and then after then we made good trips but it was all Iceland is always a back ATT you you battl in the elements in the winter months the freezing cold it’s it’s atrocious at times but just the adventure of it i’ I’d love I love to do it