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Cod and the coast |
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Provisions
As soon as he had passed an exam in front of the local company representative and his parents had signed the necessary contracts, the work of making the new clerk’s clothes began. Clothes that were indispensable for the voyage: woollen socks, shirts and jerseys, everything needed to keep him warm during the long cold winters out there.
Recreation of a 17th Century fishing vessel
© Geraint Jennings |
Often the lad would be given half as much again as necessary, because before he could get through a quarter of them he would have grown and his clothes would have become much too small for him.
A big trunk would be made for him which would be filled to the brim and around the month of March in company with a score of other lads like him he would board the "Sharston", the "Seaflower", the "CRC", the "Patruus", the "Fanny Breslau" or another such ship, and be showered with the tears of his poor mother, his aunts, his sisters and his girl-cousins and would be off to the Coast for a voyage of five long years.
Families would have recieved cod and other fish in crates and barrels |
As soon as the ship had disappeared over the horizon, it might seem to those left behind that he would never return, but a couple of months pass quickly and come Winter the fleet would return with some passengers: agents, book-keepers and some young clerks who had finished there five years’ apprenticeship, and who were coming back to spend their leave in Jersey with the intention of going back to take up a more senior position, with more responsibility and more remuneration.
But that was not all. There would also be a collection of crates and barrels containing all sorts of fish, cod, smoked salmon, oysters, herring, capling, halibut, cod swim bladders and cod tongues, addressed to the families and friends of those who had come back as well as those who had remained behind.
Words: Geraint Jennings
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