BARROW LOAD OF LEAD

WHEN I WAS ABOUT 10 YEARS OLD

PHOTO: The Marine Drive, Scarborough, 1971

In the photo above, you can see someone fishing over the edge of the railings. In recent years, the Marine Drive at Scarborough has been transformed as the council has thrown thousands of tons of rocks over the edge to act as a breakwater, and it no longer looks like this. In the 1950s and early 1960s, I used to climb down the back of the Far Pier on a spring tide (Extra low tide) with best-mate-at-that-time, Richard Sheader, and go looking for abandoned lead sinkers that got snagged on rocks below the level of the water from people fishing on the Marine Drive. Richard's family were from the fishing fraternity at the bottom end of town, and very well known and respected.

Climbing down the back of the pier was always a little bit of a hazard but very narrow steps down the back of the pier wall allowed this to be done without too much hassle. Once at the foot, then the next hurdle was a green slippery part which got you over and around a sewer outlet, which was almost always throwing up huge brown turds and rubber condoms by the bucket load. Sometimes, we had to wade through this. Wading through human turds was a way of life to us. (I still think I'm doing it today, sometimes. Ha! Ha!) At 8 to 10 years old, I don't think we really knew what condoms were, and in fact, in those days, they were called rubber Johnnys.

Once at the other side of all this stuff, the rocks were always still slippy because the base of the Marine Drive was only above sea level for a few days every six weeks or so, when Spring Tides abounded.

Lead sinkers were usually EVERYWHERE and sat on top of rocks, down the side of rocks, and sometimes deep in big sea puddles where we had to wade in to get hold of the sinkers, and dodge the waves as they rolled over the deep water hole. (I couldn't swim in those days, by the way!) Nine times out of ten, the sinkers were tangled in masses of nylon fishing line, so a sharp knife was absolutely essential to free up the lead.

Lead attracted a lot of money from the metal merchants and that's why we were there. Lead is heavy, of course, but we used to gather enough to fill a small barrow, and then cart it to Websters Scrap Metal dealers near North Marine Road, in town. (All uphill!) I'm not sure whether they are there today, though.

Sometimes we'd get ten shillings, sometimes a full pound, but you have to remember that this was equivalent to maybe £10 to £20 in today's money, and a heck of a lot for a 10 year old. Not bad for half a day's work, though. I sometimes think this is when my interest into entrepreneurship started.