To Those Bell Bottomed Boys
Are there ghosts on Hessle Road
Do the bell bottomed boys
Slide quietly into Rayners
For the pint, the craic, the noise.
Do their pockets still jingle
Until, having spent it all
It's again through the Bullnose
To pursue the ghostly trawl.
Do they wander through estates
Where terraces used to stand
A self contained little village
That bordered on dockland.
Do ghostly clogs clack and echo
As a gang of bobbers meets
To wander to the Fish Dock
Through the old ghostly streets.
Is there still a St Andrews
Where bobbers do their bit
Hand balling a slippery catch
Kit by kit by kit by heavy kit.
Do Big Lil and her Revolutionaries
Stand in lines by the dock
Checking on a vessel's safety
Before it slips through the lock.
Does the Lord Line Building
Once a building of pride
Again survey the scene
From St Andrews Dock side.
As I stand among the remnants
Of a weeded and silted Dock
Looking at what's left of
That once so busy old tidal lock
In my mind I hear rattling chains
As they ready the trawl
To prepare for sea once more
To chase the silvery haul.
I can go take a pint at Rayners
See history lined on the wall
Raise a glass to the Bell Bottomed
Boys who lived and died for the trawl.
3 days between trips, spending more than 300 days a year at sea, famous for their brightly coloured bell bottomed suits, and their ashore celebrations, known as 3 day millionaires, now just a memory in our City.
The Fish Dock now a shopping park, the dock filled in, and haunted by an air of decay and depression, the once proud companies offices sliding daily nearer collapse
Just a small memorial to the lost stands on the Bullnose, which they passed on the way out into the river and onwards to Icelandic fishing grounds, danger and, too many times, death.
Copyright © Terry Ireland | Year Posted 2022
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