Once almost a little village
Within the city’s bounds,
Huddled around the fish dock
With its own smells and sounds,
Streets of rows of terraces
All well kept and neat,
Pride shining through
Every worker Street.
Deckies, Filleters, Bobbers
All closely living there,
The Skippers and Mates
Breathing more refined air.
Overalled fish house workers
Mingle with and meet
Segged clogged bobbers
In the early morning street.
Then they pulled down terraces
Replaced with industrial estates
Rehoused to the city’s fringes
Splitting up families and mates.
And the fishing industry died
Trawlers tied up in the dock
And old Hessle Road trembled
Nearly died from the shock.
No more deckies, filleters, bobbers
All the fish houses long gone
As this once vibrant area
Learned to adapt and move on.
The once thronged Hessle Road
Seems near deserted these days
As the population slowly adapts
To the area’s very different ways.
Rayners, the fisherman’s pub,
Struggling to survive,
Has mementos of the fleet
To help keep its memory alive.
In an ironical gesture,
Sadly surveying it all,
There’s a mural of a trawlerman
Painted on a gable end wall.
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