| Description | Charles Parker and Ewan MacColl interview Ronnie Balls, a fisherman from Yarmouth, Norfolk, England:
Track 1: Ronnie Balls talks about the differences between sailing boats and steam drifters, talks about fishing in his father's day, 2.52 mins
Track 2: his first wages when he was 17, making good money from home fishing near Yarmouth during the First World War, his first voyages, they talk about working his way up to getting his skipper's ticket, getting four years experience (discharges) to get a mate's ticket, 3.01 mins
Track 3: he says it normally takes six years to get a mate's ticket, he got better chances because he went in his father's boat, he lists the ships he sailed in at the beginning of his career (around 1920), 3.42 mins
Track 4: Silence, 0.59 mins
Track 5: Charles Parker and Ewan MacColl ask Ronnie Balls to repeat some of the things he talked about earlier; he talks about his earnings in his first year of fishing and lists the boats he sailed in, the bad fishing in 1921, 2.29 mins
Track 6: Ronnie Balls talks about his earnings in his first year of fishing, 1918, bad fishing in 1921, no fish and bad markets, men went fishing for whitefish instead, his brothers working as skippers in his father's boats, 3.28 mins
Track 7: talks about the Duncan Commission, set up in 1934, which got rid of the redundant drifters, the loss of the Russian markets, 2.39 mins
Track 8: talks about the new steam fleet that was built from 1900 up to the First World World, the disappearance of the Russian herring market after the First World War and the decline of the industry, 2.50 mins
Track 9: talks about the firms disappearing and the skipper-owners struggling on, worse for the Scottish people in the Moray Firth, Scotland turning to white fishing before the Second World War, talks about why Yarmouth didn't turn to white fishing, 2.53 mins
Track 10: talks about the strength of the industry between 1924 and 1930, when there was still some market, 2.36 mins
Track 11: talks about buying a boat from his father for herring fishing with his brother, sailed in it from 1922-1923, paying his father back for the boat, buying nets, buying a bigger boat in 1930, 2.54 mins
Track 12: talks about 1930-1931 being very poor years, they couldn't pay for the boats they bought, there was no market for herring, 2.56 mins
Total: 33.26 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D1040980 |