Place: Grimsby's Fishing Heritage Museum
Subject: Personal identity
The Fishing Heritage Museum is an award winning museum which recreates Grimsby's maritime history. It gives tours of 1950’s fishing voyages, has temporary exhibitions, and holds a collection of historic vessels in the adjacent dock.
"We left the Fishing Museum with a new perspective on how the industry and town grew through the massive demand for fresh fish after the arrival of the railways, and then declined from 700 boats to 10 in the 1970’s with EU accession. One certainly understood that fishing was not just another job, with 27 days at sea without washing, ‘cleaning your fangs’ or changing your underclothes, and up to 30 hour shifts, and only 3 days between voyages on land. I was left at some points wondering why it was people like Graham have such a passion and love of it."
These stories and ways of life can act like a mirror to our ever more apathetic and sheltered society. The first hand experience of our guide is vital to understanding how our standard of life, towns, eating habits, culture and even language have been shaped. On the other hand Graham’s down-to-earthness was a reminder that it was the need to earn a few quid that pushed people into these feats of stamina and endurance, and sometimes death, in inhumane environments.
We should be thankful that today’s economies are being driven by ‘new media’ centres, solicitors, IT experts, web designers and accountants; but I doubt these professions will become the new heritage museums of the future. Perhaps there is something else being told here, that despite the extremes of endurance fisherman still managed to build strong family lives and community on dry land, something that is often missing in a 9 -5 in-front of a LCD display, exec commute home to watch Big Brother on TV and enjoy our central heating.