Looking Back is a tribute to those that made their living in the British deep sea fishing industry. The title is drawn from the superstition that a trawlerman who looked back after leaving home would not return from the sea.
You didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t look back
as your quiet feet joined the fleet
of souls that paced the way
to waiting ships on the cold North Wall.
There were no backward glances after
the soft clunk of Austin Cambridge taxi doors.
Your eyes were forward as crews converged
at Riby Square and headed for the ships
as the Freemo lights winked
the town awake behind you.
All looked ahead
like that retired skipper flapping his wings
on the bow rail when the light broke
as you struck north by Spurn.
And you were gone.
And you looked forward
to cold green boiling seas,
ice floes, force eight winds
freshening to nine, a hundred-
and-fifty-foot castles of ice,
frozen spray, smothering wind,
polar breath that whispered and cried
and scarred your leathery face
through bent and battered rails
as bows made rough love
with hungry waves of heavy seas
on the frosted roof of the world.
But you don’t look back
to where you know or hope
the bed’s unmade and washing’s delayed
until tomorrow or later.
You look forward
to following sunsets with no sleep between;
to bearing up again to poisoned fingers
and salted boils on frozen thumbs;
to killer waves, growling ice, black frost;
to cutting the trawl and shooting
in a secret icy world, towing and hauling
where the air is cold and still as death.
Looking ahead to 66° North,
to White Sea, Iceland,
Bear Island, Greenland and Norway,
hoping for fish-shops to thunder on deck,
silver awash in the pounds.
To bringing the doors in, lashing the trawl,
turning for home, sleeping
ah! sleeping,
counting the baskets and kits,
dreaming of poundage and money for liver.
Coming home, fixing nets,
tending to warps and bobbins and floats,
forgetting how you were damned,
abused and cursed on the deck,
from the bridge, in the galley.
Enrolling in card schools, done with the watch,
with the net and the knife for a while.
Looking forward to home,
to Cairns’s and Cottie’s,
the Lincoln, The Raglan,
Red Lion, White Bear and The Corp.
To letting kids rummage
through your long black bag
among the stuff that Customs failed to find.
To enjoying the one day ashore
for each week at sea,
to being the two-day-tycoon,
the king for a day,
the three-day-millionaire.
To seeing the missus laughing at the lock-pits,
shivering on ‘Pneumonia’,
knowing that both will be attended to soon.
To seeing the lights and
hearing the Blundell Park roar;
another goal missed, scored by Glover,
Rafferty, Brace or Tees.
You never looked back.
We will. We must.
Keeping faith. Keeping trust.
In your shadow, we will look back
to the fleet of ships Grimsby bound
from Barking, Brixham and Esbjerg.
To the fish-rush that the railway brought
and carried away.
To the spread of the wealth,
to the times of the smacks,
that were swallowed by steam,
overtaken by oil.
To line and beam and stern and pairs.
To sweeping mines,
to convoys and cod wars.
To collisions, to sinkings,
to triumph, disaster, despair.
In your shade we will look back
while your shadows flit across the town
and through our minds.
We will look back – we will look back.