Mike Shevdon - The Road to Bedlam

"Still here?"

"Every one of these went down off this coast. These boats are out there somewhere, or were smashed to pieces against the rocks, or were driven up on to the beach. If they were lucky, the men will have been rescued. Often as not, they were never found."

I looked around the room. There were boats of every size: trawlers, steamships, cargo ships, even lifeboats.

"The ninth of February, 1871 was a nice day. Boats put out in a fair north-westerly. With the dawn on the tenth, though, the wind veered."

The old man's eyes were open, but it wasn't the pictures he was seeing.

"By seven o'clock next morning it had turned one hundred and eighty, south-easterly and building hurricane force. The waves came up and the sleet and snow were driven flat. Some boats tried to run before it, but the waves overpowered them, the wind stripped the rigging and they were driven on to the rocks, the bottoms ripped out. One tried to make port; it was crushed by the swell against the harbour wall, the men pulled from the sea on ropes thrown from the harbour by rescuers who lashed themselves to the mooring rings so as not to get swept away theirselves."

His voice was soft, but somewhere in it was the force of the storm.

"Others went for the beach. They grounded the boats on the shingle and the men jumped into the waves, only to be dragged back by the undertow. Men from the town were standing chest-deep in the waves, trying to haul them out, their hands numb with cold, their faces frozen with shock.

"The lifeboat went out time after time, dragging men from the waves, but it was only one boat. There were ships swamped by the waves, men hanging from the rigging, calling out for aid. It was piteous. No one could reach them. The lifeboat went out for a collier brig. It was foundering and the men were clinging to the stern. The lifeboat tried to reach them, but a wave picked it up and smashed it into the fully laden brig. The lifeboat crew and the men from the brig were all lost."

"It sounds horrific."

"It was. Forty-four men were lost that day from this town alone. Up and down this coast, Scarborough, Bridlington, Filey, many more, 'twere the same. Women stood on the harbour within sight of their menfolk and watched them drown."

"That's awful."

"Not quite like village life, is it?"

"No."

"That was a bad one. There were other bad ones too. Happens about every twenty-plus years. The weather forecasting's got better now, and there's more warning, but even a warning's no good if you're two or three days away from port. You just have to sit it out."

"You still lose boats?"

"Aye. Even with the new lifeboat down the coast. All the technology, navigation equipment, radios; it's all naught if the sea takes against you. There's no fighting nature."

"It must be harsh."

"It is. It is harsh, but it's a way of life. The women are strong. They know what can happen. Many of 'em have seen it. It's a small community and a close one. There's always help, always someone to catch you when you fall. We look after our own."

I wasn't sure what to say to that.

"Not these lasses, though. Gone to the big city, lure of the bright lights. I can't blame them. It's a hard life when you don't know whether your man's coming home or not. The day was, they didn't know owt else. It's what they were brought up to. Now, though, it's all internet and mobile phones. They've seen a different life. That's why they've gone. I can't blame them."

"So it's not happened before?"

"Oh, there's always been those that didn't stay. They married out, or moved inland. The ties are still there, though. They never went far. It's in the blood, see?"

"So what changed?"

"These girls are part of it, going off, God knows where. What are they thinking? Who'll keep things together, if they've left? Who'll keep the lights on, make it worth coming back to port?"

"Maybe they don't see themselves that way?"

"The boats sit tied up in t'harbour. They say there's no fish, that the sea's turned its back on them."

"Has it?"

"There's fish, but you have to work for 'em. They don't jump into your hold on their own. It's hard, I know, but you don't catch fish in port."

"Maybe they're only allowed to catch so many. Aren't there quotas for fishing these days?"

"Aye, there are. None of our boats are close to reaching 'em. If they go out they come back wi' nowt. Empty nets, empty holds. It happens. The sea has lean years like everything else. It's happened before, it'll happen again. You don't stop. You keep at it until the nets are full again and things come right."

"Maybe they've over-fished it. Maybe it needs time to recover."

"Aye, well, it's time they don't have. No fish means no money. If they can't pay the loans on the boats then the banks'll pull the plug. By the time it comes back we'll be buying fish frozen from Norway. The town'll die and that'll be that."

"There are other things. The call centre looks pretty impressive. Won't that keep things going?"

"The council's golden goose? Don't be daft. It's only there cos of grants and incentives. As soon as the money dries up they'll move the jobs out to India or somewhere."

"What about tourism?"

"Look outside. It's not Scarborough, is it? That beach is so steep that if you get in t'sea you can't get out again. No, this town lives and breathes fish, and at the moment it's mightily short of breath."

"That's a very pessimistic view."

"It's a realistic view. The women of this town are the lifeblood. When you never know if the men are coming back, they've had to be. Once the women start leaving, it's the beginning of the end."

"Maybe they didn't leave. Maybe something happened to them?"

"Something did happen to them. They lost faith." He turned to the book on the desk. "Every man that ever went missing, lost, drowned, is in there. There's no book for missing women, and I'm not intending to start one."

He turned away and stomped down the stairs, leaving me with the book of names and the pictures of lost vessels. It was a sobering experience. I leafed through the pages, seeing the same names crop up again and again. By the time I'd reached the present day, I was wondering why they ever left port at all. To me it was inconceivable, after suffering such personal loss, to send another family member out on to the waves. But then, as he'd pointed out, I wasn't born here. I wasn't part of this community and I would probably never understand what kept it going.

After a while I went back down and passed the printed guide back to him. There was no word of thanks or invitation to return. He didn't speak, just took the sheets from me and replaced them where he'd found them. As I turned to leave, the street door opened and a middle-aged man stepped inside.

"It's bucketing out there. Fit for neither man nor beast." He shook the water from his sleeves.

"Back again, Ted?" said the man behind the desk.

He looked sceptically at my umbrella as I approached the door, knowing it would be useless in the wind, but then held the door open for me so I could leave. The water dripped from his orange waterproofs leaving a puddle inside the door. I stepped through quickly, not wanting to keep the door open longer than necessary and then found myself struggling to fasten buttons and turn up my collar in the blustery wind.

Within moments, I was wet again. The rain found every gap, every crease. I made my way back to the harbour front, shoulders hunched against the wind, the halyards on the moored sailing boats tinging like manic vespers bells against the aluminium spars. Rather than make my way back to my room, I headed for the Harbour Cafe. The door was so swollen with damp that I had to push hard to get inside. I wedged the door closed again, shutting out the weather.