Once upon a time Britannia ruled the waves and the North-East fishing fleet was one of the largest in Europe. Things may have changed but a new book has rekindled old memories. Mark Foster reports

THE days when the fishing industry was still the major way of life along the Yorkshire coast are now long gone. The once great fleets that trawled the North Sea and beyond have declined to only a fraction of their former strength.

And new EU restrictions designed to protect falling stocks look likely to make the situation even worse for the hardy band that still make their living by taking on the elements.

But former skipper Fred Normandale remembers when things were very different; when his home town of Scarborough was one of the great centres for the industry and had the characters to match.

He has turned his memories into a nostalgic book, First of the Flood, which has now become a local bestseller.

Fred, 54, comes from a family that has been involved in fishing for generations - a tradition his son, Danny, is continuing as a skipper in his own right.

Fred wanted to document what was a way of life when he was a boy in Scarborough's old town, before it disappeared for ever.

"As a boy I grew up among some wonderful characters - big men with big hearts," he said.

"They were extremely hard working and, when ashore, extremely hard drinking, though never mixing the two pursuits.

"I thought this was a normal background, that everyone lived in a world such as mine. But I couldn't have been more wrong - it was unique."

His father worked on a fishing coble, and Fred himself first went to sea as a boy, surrounded by men full of tales of their life and adventures at sea.

Ten years ago he started writing them down as short anecdotes and eventually, intertwined with his own early years, they turned into the fascinating 300-page book he has now produced.

"Times have changed so much. People struggled then but they were happy times and now those days have gone for good," said Fred.

He added: "The battle with the elements is still ever-present, but now there's a more ruthless enemy - the bureaucrats.

"The few remaining fishermen are fighting a paper war against legions of experts using licences, permits, quotas, logbooks, surveys and a host of other technical measures for ammunition."

Fred is now working on his second volume, Slack Water, bringing Scarborough's fishing story up to date.

* First of the Flood is available from Bottom End Publishing, PO Box 318, Scarborough, price £10 plus £1.50 post and packing