A Salmon or Two

Foreword

One day a few years ago, my Grandpa George came to me holding an A4 notebook, full to the brim. He said, ‘Mel, I’ve been writing the story of my life. Do you think we could make it into a book?’

This notebook was years in the making, thanks to the dyslexia that coloured Grandpa’s entire life. He didn’t learn about it until his thirties, and he spoke often about it in his later years – about how his teachers had called him stupid, and how he had hid the huge challenges he had with reading and writing. I wish I could tell the little boy sitting in the classroom being made to spell ‘and’ again and again on the chalkboard that he would write his own book one day, full of the adventures that made up his life.

For Grandpa’s dyslexia didn’t slow him down. I always remember him as a whirlwind of activity, with a huge smile, surrounded by dogs, digging rhubarb in the garden, or fishing in the river, or swinging by the house with a salmon, or scaling the roof to fix the aerial, or bombing down a ski slope in the Alps. I’m very honoured that he trusted me with the task of writing up his colourful and often hilarious memories, which span his life from childhood until the 1980s. Grandpa paints a vivid picture of what it was like to grow up in Northumberland in the 40s and 50s, navigating school, apprenticeship and a narrow escape from national service thanks to the good fortune of ingrown toenails. Grandpa fished on the River Tweed all his life and his deep love for the river runs through these pages, including more than one account of his poaching near-misses! He was a first-hand witness of the decline in salmon populations and the fishing industry over the decades, until he was one of the last net fishermen left on the river.

This book is not finished. Grandpa always intended to carry on, to capture all the adventures he had in the second half of his life – from learning to ski in his 60s, to his years with his beloved second wife Jo. But this wasn’t to be, as Grandpa’s health slowed him down and made it harder to grapple with the already monumental challenge of writing. I’m sad Grandpa never got to finish telling his tales from a very full life. But I hope he, and all the readers of this book, find joy and laughter in his story.

Melanie Punton, October 2022

Chapter 1: Growing Up in the Country

I’m now approaching my 70

th

birthday and semi-retiring from my electric work. So I feel I can spare some time to tell you some of my experience of a full life.

I was born on the 2nd April 1938 at a farm called Lilliestead, Cantys, near Berwick-upon-Tweed in North East England. My mother was Nan Purvis and my father George Carr Purvis, and my older sister by four years was Irene. When I was a year old we moved to a famous fishing village called Horncliffe, where my parents got a new council house at No. 6 The Crescent, and where I spent 20 years growing up.

My first memory is an outing to the Christmas party at Winfield Aerodrome in 1942, the local camp during the Second World War, to meet Santa. I remember seeing Santa come from a Spitfire plane, shouting Ho Ho Ho with a big bag of toys. I had to sing a song to get a parcel from Santa, and I sang You Are My Sunshine, and Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree. I was only a young lad during the war, but I remember the night the German bombers knocked my Granny’s chimney off while I was staying with her in Scremerston – what a fright when the chimney landed on the bedroom floor.

On my first day of school I was escorted by my next door neighbour, Joyce Frankish. When I got to the door I bolted home. Joyce finally got me into the school to meet Miss Carr, the Head Teacher, and Miss Watt, the infant teacher. This is where I spent the next six years, which turned out to be very hard for me. From an early age I was very slow at understanding the alphabet and letters, and putting them together to get a word. I always remember having to write the word ‘and’, putting it back to front and having to write it over again, and still getting it wrong time after time. I was sent to stand in the corner of the room until the next class. Maths was better, and mental arithmetic I loved, but I was still in big trouble when I had to write it down. My parents tried so hard to help me read and spell, but I did not get any better. I was not cut out for school, and was always glad when 3.30pm came.

That’s when I came to life. Growing up in the country, being the boy, I had lots of jobs at home to do. Cut the kindling, get the coal in from the coal house, feed the hens and ferrets, fill the lamps with paraffin. All before tea. We had no electric in them days. From a young age, five or six, I had my jobs every night before I could get to play with my pals. If it was bad weather we would spend the night inside by the fire, and it was very cold. But it was a good time for me.

My father was a fisherman on the River Tweed. He worked for 52 years at North Bells Fishery, with his father and two brothers. In the 1940s and 50s there were 35 fisheries and 600 men employed in the net fishing, from Berwick to Tillmouth 12 miles upstream. My father would cycle five miles to the shiel on a Sunday night, carrying four days’ rations in a haversack bag, to start fishing at 6am on Monday. The men would cook on an open fire with a big cast iron kettle, a pot of potatoes and a frying pan full of fish or eggs and bacon. On Wednesday he’d come home for more groceries, then back to the fishing until Saturday 6pm. Home to get a bath and a good meal, then off to the pub. You can see how my mother and all fishermen’s wives had lonely lives. One night at home a week, and then he was off again.

From the age of seven I would cycle on my three wheel trike after school to the shiel. Theirs was the life for me. I don’t know if I was lucky growing up in the family fishing. But I did love it. Learning to knit nets, pull nets in row boats, and count fish. From a very young age I was a country lad. Show me something once and I knew how to do it. Every night I would disappear away to the fishing, and come home at all hours, sometimes at two or three o’clock in the morning, cycling three miles up the road from the river on my little three wheeler. My mother used to just leave the door open for me.

Dad finished at the fishing each year on the 14th September, and we spent a lot of time together in the winters. He did lots of jobs in the fishing close season. The one I loved the most was rabbit catching. He would rent the right to catch rabbits from the local farmers to make a living. We sat night after night, making snares and nets by the light of the fire or a flickering candle. Friday night was always the best night! No school in the morning. My father would set his rabbit snares on the Friday and check them next morning. We might get 50 rabbits or more for the market. My first job was to kill the rabbits. Not with a stick – you must kill them right. So Dad taught me to grip the rabbit by the back legs and grip the front side of his ears. Bend his head back and tug.