Trades Tuesday – Beatsters (Net Menders)
Mending
the nets was an important job in itself, as each net was some 50m long, and,
with up to 100 nets per boat, the total length of netting per boat could be
almost two miles.
The
beatsters, as the net-menders were called, were highly skilled and, it is
said, could almost mend nets in their sleep!
Evelyn
Cooper was born in 1908 and was brought up in Oulton Broad, where her father
had his home and adjacent net store, a good two miles from Lowestoft
harbour. Like many other girls of her age
and background, whose fathers owned herring drifters, she worked on the family
store.
“I dint start orf with my father. I began when I wuz 14 an’ served my time with
Harry Baxter. Him an’ my father were
good friends, an’ my father thought that somebody else should learn me. He had a big store, Harry Baxter did, with
about 12 girls an’ women workin’ on it.
You worked upstairs on the stores an’ there were two rooms on this one,
with about six beatsters in each. There
wuz three other apprentices started when I did an’ we used t’ have some real
laughs there. Mr. Baxter dint say much,
he wiz good to us, but the forewoman wouldn’t let yuh play about all that
much. She used t’ keep yuh on yuh toes! Well, she had to. I mean, you git four girls of about 14 all
together! When we first started we had t’
make the tea an’ fill the needles an’ run all the errands. Then we started t’ learn the work.
“The first thing they did was teach
yuh how t’ hold the knife an’ the needle.
One wuz for cuttin’ out, the other t’ mend with. Then they’d give yuh a piece o’ lint an’
teach yuh t’ do what they called a sprunk.
That wuz one strand of a mesh broken.
Then you were taught how t’ do a crow’s foot. That wuz two strands. From that you went on to a hole, then you were
put with a person that wuz a full-time beatster an’ she would teach yuh for
your first year. You got two shillings a
week for yuh year’s apprentice, then you went improver for another year at
three shillings a week. After that you were
out o’ yuh time.
“Once I wuz out o’ my time, I went an’
worked for my father. There were four of
us working there—two other girls, my sister an’ me. I worked for my father till I wuz about
23. Yeah, then he got diabetes an’ he
retired from the fishin’ industry. When
us children were small, my mother used t’ do the nets for my father. Yeah, an’ we used t’ sit there with her an’
fill the needles. An’ we used t’ get the
meals ready so she could keep mending.
That wuz a fam’ly affair, yuh see.
At first, my mother didn’t know anything about nets. She’d been in service afore she married. But when my father got his own boat, she
hetta learn how t’ beat, so a friend of hers used t’ come round an’ show her
how t’ do it. Like I say, we used t’
help her. Yeah, we used t’ fill plenty o’
needles up afore we went t’ school an’ then fill ‘em again when we come hoom.
“My father went in the smacks when he
wuz 12 an’ then from there he went into the drifters. He wuz in the Hyacinth (LT997) at one
time, then he eventually got his own boat, the British Monarch
(LT889). That wuz before the First
War. We had pictures at hoom when I wuz
a child of all the boats he’s been in.
That wuz like an art gallery, our room, with these paintings. They were quite big as well, an’ there used t’
be the name o’ the boat written across the top, like on a piece o’ ribbon, with
a seagull at each end holdin’ the ribbon up.
Durin’ the war the boat wuz chartered for patrollin’ down at Dover an’
Portsmouth an’ us children had little sailor hats with H.M.D British Monarch
written across.
“When my father got diabetes, he sold
up an’ bought a shop further down the Beccles Road—what’s now the Broadland
Stores an’ Cheese Shop. After I got
married, my husband built him a wooden smokehouse down in the garden an’ he used
t’ do bloaters an’ red herrins in that.
Not to sell or anything, but just as a hobby. He used t’ do ‘em for the fam’ly an’ for
friends. Me an’ my two sisters were
brought up on fish. Yeah, that wuz our life—eatin’ herrin’ an’ mendin’
nets. Father used t’ fry the fish up in
a gret ow iron pan in the kitchen an’ we hetta eat ‘em. My mother used t’ say, ‘Eat yuh fish up. That make brains.’ I ate so much o’ the stuff when I wuz younger
that I shoulda bin Prime Minister!
“When the nets came hoom from a fishin’
voyage, we used t’ help hang ‘em on the rails out in the yard. Then we’d get ‘em down, fold ‘em up an’ haul ‘em
up inta the top room on the derrick. We
used t’ sort ‘em out inta different bays accordin’ t’ what needed doin’ to ‘em. The good ones would go in one place, the spoilts
in another an’ the dogfish nets in another.
They’d got great big holes in ‘em, the dogfish ones, an’ there wuz a lot
o’ work in them. Durin’ the Hoom Fishin’
we used t’ hope for a little breeze sometimes so we got some spoilts, ‘cause we
got a shillin’ a net for doin’ spoilts.
An’ if there wun’t a very big slit, we’d soon earn the shillin’, you
see. A beatster got 15/- a week an’ a
shillin’ a net. That wuz our busiest
time then an’ we used t’ work from eight in the mornin’ till nine at night. That’s when we made our money, then. Every mornin’ at ten we’d stop for a mug o’
cocoa an’ a piece o’ cake, have dinner between on an’ two, then work through
till five. After that it wuz
overtime. An’ all for 15/-a week! Oh, an’ you worked Saturday mornins as
well. My sister an’ me actually got
10/-a week; the other five bob went towards our keep.
“We used t’ have some good times up on
the store. Mind yuh, you got tired ‘cause
you were standin’ all day, but we used t’ enjoy the work all the same. We used t’ have a sing-song an’ that kind o’
thing, an’ on Mondays we’d always be talkin’ about what we did at the
weekend. Oh yes, Mondays always went
quickly. We were so busy talkin’ about
what pictures we say an’ what dances we’d bin to. As I say, we used t’ put the long hours in on
the Hoom Fishin’, an’ with the oil lamps that wuz sometimes difficult t’ see
what you were doin’. Mind yuh, the ow
coal fire used t’ be nice, an’ you’d leave orf workin’ every now an’ again an’
go hev a little warm up. That wuz yuh
feet what used t’ git cold. Yuh hands
dint ‘cause that wuz all hand-work what you were doin’. We had little shun-knives t’ split the knots
with an’ a beatster’s knife wuz her pride an’ joy. Whatever you lost, you never lost yuh
knife! The overalls we wore were plain
blue stuff, with a belt at the back. There
wun’t no buttons on ‘em so there wuz nothin’ t’ catch on the nets.
“When the men came hoom orf the Westward
voyage in about May time, there’d be a bit of a break, then they’d go down t’
the Shetlands. While they were down
there, the crews used t’ mend the nets.
But there’d be a lot t’ do when they came hoom ‘cause they didn’t mend ‘em
as well as the girls. They’d just repair
‘em till they got back, You know, just do what wuz necessary. They’d repair the biggest holes, but they’d leave
the crow’s feet an’ the sprunks. You
used t’ get stingin’ nets orf that Shetland voyage. They were the ones what’d
had jellyfish in ‘em. They’d be full o’
nasty dust an’ you used t’ sneeze an’ sneeze! There’d be quite a few dogfish nets orf the
Shetland voyage an’ they used t’ be put aside in a bay for us t’ do after Chris’mas,
when we were slack. We used t’ hate
them. They were dreadful. They were so badly torn that you’d sometimes
be nearly a week on one net! An' you’d
only get a shillin’ for doin’ it—whereas with an ordinary spoilt, you could sometimes
do that in a couple o’ hours.
“It was them shillings what we were
after, yuh see, an’ if we wanted t’ earn ‘em we hetta keep goin’. Mind you, we did mess about. Oh yeah, my
friend an’ me used t’ have some real fun—even when my father wuz hoom. One day he’d gone t’ Beccles, so we went t’
speak t’ these two boys who were waitin’ outside the gate for us. The only trouble was he missed the
train. We saw him come walkin’ back, so
we hetta crawl behind the hedge, go around
the back o’ the store an’ climb in through a winder afore he come in t’ see how
everyone wuz getting’ on. Then, another
day, we’d bin down t’ the shop one dinnertime after some sweets. All we’d got on were our old overalls, no
hats or anything. As we were walkin’
back t’ the store, a boy come past with his motorbike an’ sidecar. We weren’t very far from the store, but he
said, ‘Hop in. I’ll give yuh a lift.’ So one of us got in the sidecar an' the other
on the back o’ the motorbike. When he
got t’ the store, he wun’t stop! He took
us all round Beccles an’ Carlton Colville!
We should bin at work at two an’ we never got back till three. Our hair wuz all standin’ up. My father stood there out the front, so we crept
in through a winder at the back. My sister gave us a black look, but we couldn’t
help it—the boy just wun’t stop.”
Extracted from Living From the Sea by David Butcher.
To
hear an interview with Annie Goffin in an interview about her work in the
1920-1930’s, you may visit the Bristish Library link below to listen to the
recorded interview in their archives.
Annie
Goffin interview - Work and industry | British Library (bl.uk)
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