Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on July 08, 2005 at 07:03:41 from 82.7.160.20 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Peter duck violence posted by peteb on July 07, 2005 at 19:13:00:
As has been said recently, what AR wrote was usually based on fact. I think that harsh treatment of boys on Lowestoft (and other) fishing vessels was pretty normal in those days.
I commmend 'Singing the Fishing' by Ewen McColl and Peggy Seeger, a classic which is now available on CD. It has reminiscenses by Sam Larner of Winterton who went in 1892 at the age of 12 as a boy in a Yarmouth herring lugger - "They wre cruel old men...Take a rope to your backside as soon as look at you...etc"