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THE GRIMSBY LADS written by John Conolly and Bill Meek

Another one of my favorite sea songs, originally learned from the Oxford Book of Sea Songs, edited by Roy Palmer. After recording this song, I obtained an album of John Conolly and Bill Meek singing their song and I noticed that the second line of the last verse was different from the printed version in Palmer's book. I wrote to John Conolly and he said that both Bill Meek and he have a habit of re-visiting songs occasionally and tinkering with them. They had changed that line from "to the fisherman's prayer the breeze sings the amen" to "another trip's over, another day's done" in a later recording.

Black ice (in the 2nd verse) refers to sea ice that is clear enough to show the color of the water underneath and thus nearly invisible and dangerous. The place names in the 3rd verse bear some explaining as well. White Sea is north of Archangel in the Soviet Union. Faeroe refers to the Faeroe Islands, a group of Danish islands (540 square miles) in the North Atlantic, between Iceland and the Shetland Islands. Dogger refers to the Dogger Bank, an extensive sand bank in the central North Sea, between England and Denmark, submerged at a depth of 60-120 ft. The Forties is part of the North Sea, between Scotland and Norway and Bear Island is to the south of Spitsbergen.

Here are notes about this song from a lyric sheet sent to me by Bill Meek and John Conolly:

"This is one of the first songs we ever wrote together...and it is more popular in 1998 than it was over thirty years ago! We have recently received recordings of it from Holland, Germany, Denmark and Poland. It is a simple tribute to the men who did the toughest job in the world...the deep-sea trawler men whose triumphs and disasters were an integral part of our growing up, and whose lives we have tried to chronicle in many of our songs."

And here are the notes about this song from Roy Palmer's book:

"Distant water fishing has greatly declined since 1966 when John Conolly and Bill Meek wrote this song, but the skill and hardiness of trawler men remain the same. Both writers were brought up within smell of Grimsby Docks. Conolly, born in 1941, had a grandfather who was a local shipwright. Meek was born in 1937, and his father worked on the docks as a 'lumper' (fish-handler). They set out to write of the trawling industry since they felt that 'the men who did the most dangerous job in the world deserved to be celebrated in song'.

LYRICS:

THE GRIMSBY LADS
Words and music by John Conolly and Bill Meek

They sail in the cold and the gray of the morning
Leaving their wives and their families behind
Following the fishing, fulfilling their calling
Their charts are all ready the shoals for to find

Chorus: Here's to the Grimsby lads out at the trawling Here's to the lads on the billowing deep Shooting their nets and heaving and hauling All the night long, and the landsmen asleep Away to the north where there know will be waiting Frost and black ice and the lash of the gale Trawling and hoping and anticipating A ship bumper-full and safe homeward to sail From Scotland's gray shore to the cold coast of Iceland Through White Sea and Faeroe they're working their way Through Dogger and Forties to stormy Bear Island Eighteen long hours is the fisherman's day The nets are inboard and the catch lies a gleaming There's gutting and washing and packing below Ten days of fishing and home they'll be steaming A thousand miles gone and a thousand to go On Humber's brown water the new sun is gleaming To the fisherman's prayer the breeze sings the amen The smoky gray town in the stillness is dreaming Her sons from the waters return once again

photo of a Grimsby trawler