True Story

Today I write something different.
I thought about this story while I was in bed. It happened when I was in buisness. It was around 1971. I had not been in business too long and I had a cafe/ snack bar which I later turned into a restaurant. s well as the local youths visiting me in the winter months a few local elder people also used my place. One such man was a beachcomber, he was an unkempt man in his late 50s. He told me that he would fill my freezer of fish for me for the coming season. I, to be honest would never have had anything from him as I did not fancy eating anything that he had touched. It is said that his place was the dirtiest place around. Anyway, he told me this about the fish. It was cod that he was talking about. To be honest I just didn't believe him. Coming from the midlands I just never expected it possible to catch fish at the seaside. I had the shock of my life when one day in late winter, he entered the cafe with a hessian sack and produced 2 of the largest fish I had seen. One was over a metre long and the other one was almost as long. I had no idea what they were only to notice that they had huge heads. He told me that they were cod. He then proceeded to give me information about how his records over the last 15 years had noticed that each year, catches were getting less and the size was also getting smaller. I asked him how he caught them and he told me that he and some of the old timers would bait lines. What they did was have an anchor and a long line with several offshoots and these lines were baited with I think ragworms which were dug for in the sand. When the tide was out they would check to see if any fish were on the lines rebait and then wait for the next low tide. He then asked me to go down and he would show me how it was done.
It was many months later when I eventually did go down to see him. It was on Christmas Day. It was the only day I had off. Anyway my dog which was a Jack Russell was friends with the beachcombers dog which was an Alsatian. My dog rarely made friend but these two got on very well. So he told me the time to go down and I duly did. Being Christmas we were the only people on the beach. He started to check to see if he had caught anything. Yes he had, a nice cod about 2 kilos. He just left it on the beach and then started to bait the lines again. My dog then started to take the worms off, I shouted to him and he stopped. Then he did something incredible, he cocked his leg and peed over the cod. I was hoping and praying that the beachcomber would not turn round. Thank goodness he didn't. Naturally his Alsatian who was called Lucky went to do the same just as the beachcomber turned round. He gave the Alsatian the biggest kick up the backside, turned to me and told me he had never done that before and couldn't understand why. I dare not tell him. Anyway he just washed the cod in sea water, finished baiting and we started to walk up the beach. Two people were walking on the sea front and noticed his fish, asked him if it was for sale, so they had the fish that my dog had initiated. I don't suppose for one minute it made any difference, but that was a true episode. It was I guess around 1972 Christmas Day. It seems now though that there are very few cod caught that way now. More's the pity. The bechcomber also caught crabs in May time. Often he called into mine for a cup of tea and several crabs would be crawling all over the place. Those were the days. More soon.