North Foreland to Holy Island

Since Britain joined the European Economic Community in the mid 1970s, the fishing industry along our coasts has been under pressure from overfishing. Mike Smylie takes us on a tour of England’s North Sea coast, taking us to harbors that you could once walk over on the hundreds of fishing boats to coastal inlets where the herring once shoaled.

Each area of the coast had its unique boats, built for local conditions, as well as methods of catching the fish. Mike Smylie, shows us the fishermen and women on shore and at sea, their boats, the harbors and tells us of the methods used to catch the fish. He also documents the changes and the decline of the industry, from the times when it once employed hundreds of thousands.