October, 1970

With one less sister in the house my two younger – and constantly quarreling sisters – no longer have to share a room. This not only pleases them but everyone else also as we no longer have to endure their screaming matches – at least not as much. My mother is driving up the phone bill calling Sharon almost every day just to ‘check in’ and make sure she is not wanting for food and money. This habit would decrease as each child left home and by the time I was in university it was me calling her (usually for money).

As autumn settled over Bay Roche fisherman were busy ‘wintering’ their boats and repairing fishing gear. The site of men mending nets was a wonder. They would hang what looked to be an infinity of a nets up and down the docks and mend the holes left behind by fish too determined to live, at least for another season. The fishermen would use a wooden tool that looked like hallow blade with a needle at its center and with a rounded wooden block in their other hand they would knit fresh netting over the holes. All along the wharf men sat on either side of the nets, chatted, smoked and knitted their nets. The Early 70’s was a period of great change both for the province and for the county and the nets demonstrated this transition. The old timers mended their hemp and flax nets while voicing their derision about the new fish plant and the younger men mended, with the same old wooden tools handed down to them by their fathers, the newer nylon nets and praised the convenience, if not the lower cost per pound on their catches, of the fish plant.

My father, usually on his way home after work, would often have to field questions about the lower cost on the inshore fisherman’s catches. He would usually skirt the question saying something about it being the head office decision and that he had nothing to do with prices. Unknown to almost everyone in Bay Roche was what my father was actually responsible for at the new fish processing plant. My father was managing the purchase of large new stern trawlers – five to be exact – that would essentially put almost all of these inshore fisherman out of work. It was not something my father was not proud of and, in fact, in later years the subject was verboten. Most of the smaller inshore fisherman would be hired to crew the stern trawlers and many of them would even make better money than before, but the smell of diesel and offal would soon replace the earthy smell hemp netting and the belching and chugging of the plant and large steel boats would soon replace the annual gossip fest of the fishermen as they mended their nets.

From October, 1970
The Love you Save by the Jackson 5