# Mmmmmm Since when??



## hillbilly (Oct 12, 2010)

I keep on hearing the term "Trawlerman" banded about these days. As far as I know having been brought up in the Rutland Street area of Grimsby in the early 50's in a family where almost all the males went to sea and females braided "cod-ends" on a broom handle at the frondoor it was a word I never heard. The men were and always will be known as "fishermen" and were proud of it. Its todays "know it alls" who don't know a trawler from a snibby who invent such words and sing their painfully crap so called fishing heritage songs when most fishermen I knew would sooner listen to Slim Whitman or Elvis Presley. So there you have it they are and always will be fishermen not trawler men. Oh and by the way those who joined the MN went "big boating".
Am I right guys?


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## Farmer John (Feb 22, 2012)

I agree with you about the music, the average farm worker was/is exactly the same, they don't go round whistling to fair maids when sat on their ploughs.

Ewan McColl wrote "The Shoals of Herring" as a description of a fisherman's life. Interestingly, it came back to him as a "traditional" song with the title changed to "The Shores Of Erin" very shortly afterwards, a whole back story invented by some chancer of a singer.

Work songs are a very different thing.


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## Erimus (Feb 20, 2012)

Way back 2008/2009 there were some BBC series called Trawlermen....but Royal Navy used the term in the 30's I believe.

geoff


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

Dr Alec Gill MBE will put you in the picture as to why they are referred to as "Trawlermen". Here's a clue > "They were not supplied with fishing rods when they sailed to the fishing grounds". (Thumb)


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## howardang (Aug 3, 2008)

hillbilly said:


> I keep on hearing the term "Trawlerman" banded about these days. As far as I know having been brought up in the Rutland Street area of Grimsby in the early 50's in a family where almost all the males went to sea and females braided "cod-ends" on a broom handle at the frondoor it was a word I never heard. The men were and always will be known as "fishermen" and were proud of it. Its todays "know it alls" who don't know a trawler from a snibby who invent such words and sing their painfully crap so called fishing heritage songs when most fishermen I knew would sooner listen to Slim Whitman or Elvis Presley. So there you have it they are and always will be fishermen not trawler men. Oh and by the way those who joined the MN went "big boating".
> Am I right guys?


The term "Big Boating" is, I think, only heard in fishing ports like Grimsby & Hull. I joined the MN but had never heard the term Big Boating, not coming from either port. 

I joined the MN and went to sea.

Howard


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## jg grant (Nov 22, 2007)

Farmer John said:


> I agree with you about the music, the average farm worker was/is exactly the same, they don't go round whistling to fair maids when sat on their ploughs.
> 
> Ewan McColl wrote "The Shoals of Herring" as a description of a fisherman's life. Interestingly, it came back to him as a "traditional" song with the title changed to "The Shores Of Erin" very shortly afterwards, a whole back story invented by some chancer of a singer.
> 
> Work songs are a very different thing.


 Yes, I had the sheet music of same as sung by the Corries but I didn't know it had morphed from shoals of herring to shores of Erin. It's all coming back, the work was hard and the cuffs were many, to hunt the bonnie shoals of herrin.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#6 . Think I've mentioned this before - I only found out a few years ago that "Last 
Train to Klaksvik" was really "Last Train to Clarksville" - I was pretty sure that there are no railways in the Faeroes but ... people say they monkeyed around.

John T


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## woodend (Nov 23, 2009)

Very interesting! The two songs 'Shoals of herring' and 'shores of Erin' must have slipped by un-noticed. I have just listened to both on Tube. Also not heard the term 'trawlerman' out hear it has also been 'fisherman'. Recently however some reports have shortened this to 'fisher' and fishers'. Where are we going?


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## hillbilly (Oct 12, 2010)

As for Dr Alec Gill MBE how many times did he trudge up the North Wall on a cold snowy night with his mattress over his shoulder with a hangover knowing full well that in a few hours he'd be thrown all over the place in a northerly gale.
This is what "fisherman" did. The didn't need anyone to differentiate for them whether he was a Carp fisherman or not. He was a fisherman and that was that just as a doctor is a doctor.


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## hillbilly (Oct 12, 2010)

There was nothing "mere" about Grimsby fishermen and thats a fact.


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## Anchorman (Jan 13, 2006)

hillbilly said:


> I keep on hearing the term "Trawlerman" banded about these days. As far as I know having been brought up in the Rutland Street area of Grimsby in the early 50's in a family where almost all the males went to sea and females braided "cod-ends" on a broom handle at the frondoor it was a word I never heard. The men were and always will be known as "fishermen" and were proud of it. Its todays "know it alls" who don't know a trawler from a snibby who invent such words and sing their painfully crap so called fishing heritage songs when most fishermen I knew would sooner listen to Slim Whitman or Elvis Presley. So there you have it they are and always will be fishermen not trawler men. Oh and by the way those who joined the MN went "big boating".
> Am I right guys?


I have a book printed in 1965 called "The Trawlermens Handbook" by the Hull Steam Mutual Insurance &Protecting Co Ltd.

I was on GY and Hulll pools in the 60s and both "fishermen" and "trawlermen" was used to describe someone moving over to "big boating" as they called it.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ... or somat like that. 

The general term round Grimsby and Hull was "fisherman" but ... really ... who gives a fish's t1t? I could be wrong but I seem to recall round Bridlington they were "fisher lads" but I could be wrong.

John T


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

If you wanted to go to sea, you went down St Andrews Dock,HULL for Trawlers. And Posterngate, HULL for "Bigboats" MN.(Thumb)


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## hillbilly (Oct 12, 2010)

Thanks "trotterdotpom" (great name ) fishermen it is and thats sorted. In passing a young lady asked me the other day if the fish when emptied on deck from the cod end were "stunned" before they were cleaned as she called it. I think she really meant gutted but couldn't bring herself to say the word. I said no love they had their guts taken out in situ' i.e. alive. She was mortified and probably won't eat fish and chips ever again.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#15 . Well, let's face it, they don't unaesthetise the spuds before they chop them up either - landing in the hot fat must be a quick release. 

John T


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## cueball44 (Feb 15, 2010)

Not as bad as listening to crabs and lobsters screaming and scrambling about before they reach your table. (EEK)


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## Aberdonian (Apr 7, 2011)

hillbilly said:


> I keep on hearing the term "Trawlerman" banded about these days. As far as I know it was a word I never heard.


I beg to differ hillbilly. The word "trawlerman" goes back to the 1800s and is in common use at UK fishing ports. 

Keith


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## Mad Landsman (Dec 1, 2005)

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the first recorded use of 'Trawler' in English was in the 16th century to mean a man who fishes with a trawl. 

The first recorded use of Trawler to mean a boat was not until the mid 19th century. 

'Fisherman' is much older but a man who used a hook, or angle, has become separately known as an Angler. 

Trawlerman is not recorded by the SOED as a word. (2007 edition) 
Presumably, when the use changed from meaning a man to meaning a boat something was required colloquially to describe the man. 

Until the OED decide to do the necessary research and include it as real word then one can only suggest that it was originally applied to men who worked trawlers by those that did not. - As in the the case of the Royal Navy thus describing them. 
Perhaps originally used disparagingly but adopted in spite, as is often the case.

Thanks to the wonders of modern media the word has apparently become 'current'. (It may even be included in a newer edition of the OED than my copy..??)


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## Aberdonian (Apr 7, 2011)

A term frequently used to describe British sea fishermen going back to the days of sail was "white fishermen" which distinguished them from, say, salmon fishers. There are over a thousand references to "trawlermen" in old newspapers in one family research site. An early example:

BRAVE RESCUES.
......skipper of the Hull trawler Edward B. Cargill (J. H. Lynn), which illustrates one aspect of the experiences of the Hull _*trawlerman*_. Mr Lynn states that when 200 miles Spurn lightship, about six o'clock yesterday morning, he sighted Norwegian schooner...... 
20 October 1898 - Hull Daily Mail

Keith


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