Grimsby, Cleethorpes & Louth.

Grimsby

Grimsby was once the largest fishing port in the world but with the decline of fishing stocks and the loss of the access to the seas around Iceland the industry collapsed.  Most of the deep water trawlers had to be decommissioned (SCRAPPED) and the workforce lost their jobs.

I come from a fishing family, my father was a chief engineer on a trawler, unlike most fishermen my dad never wanted me to follow him into a career at sea,  he had no need to worry on that score!!  It was a terribly hard life.

There are still a few boats fishing out of Grimsby but they are small compared to the deep sea trawlers of old that used to fish the seas around Iceland, Newfoundland and The White Sea & Bear Island.  However these small boats still go out into the North Sea, regarded as some of the roughest areas water when the weather is bad.

The fish processing industry still survives on Grimsby Fishdocks with many merchants still sending fish all over the world; perhaps ironically, processing fish from Iceland that is now landed in Scotland and transported overland to Grimsby.

These few pictures were taken in the last few years, some of them on quite a foggy day.

A typical fishing boat operating out of Grimsby now, up on the slipway for repairs and a "paint job" and two boats in freezing fog on the quayside.

A couple of Grimsby boats and one from Jersey by the look of it's number letter.

Thro' the eye of an old anchor.

This old anchor was left on the South Quay for quite a long time,
presumably dragged up by someones net?

Cleethorpes

The view from the observation tower at the top of "The Point" a block of luxury appartments on High Cliff.

"The Winter Gardens", a popular place of entertainment for dancing, weddings and a resturant. A local landmark, now sadly no more.  It was demolished to build more luxury flats but then the recession came along and put paid to that idea.  It is now just a flat piece of waste ground, someone had the idea of using it as an all day car park, £3 pounds a day!  It is sadly missed as a venue, especially by the patrons of the "Bags Ball" on a Wednesday night!  Maybe best to leave it there though!!!

Once the local Electricity Board showrooms where we used to buy cookers etc from or go to pay your electric bill. A lovely art deco building, I once worked inside it when I was a BT telephone engineer and it is a real treat to see.

Cleethorpes pier, recently sold....AGAIN!

Louth
A few images from my favourite town in Lincolnshire.

This small house stands opposite a more modern block of flats.