WORMS

WHEN I WAS ABOUT 12 YEARS OLD

When I was a student aged 16 to 19 at Scarborough Technical College, we used to scare the girls waiting for the College bus outside the Scarboroughy Railway Station, by digging massive lugworms out of the planters outside the railway station. We used to sneak up behind them and hang the worms, up to 2 feet long, around their necks. But that's not what this particular story is all about.

No, this story is about a BIGGER worm locals called the "Thirsk" which is actually a large ragworm residing in huge quantities in the thick deep mud of the Scarborough harbour.

When I was about 12, I used to go down at low tide with wader boots up to my waist and stagger through the mud in the inner harbour with a bucket and garden fork. The mud always went up to my ankles at least, but sometimes I would sink even deeper to my knees and more, and on a few ocassion, I got stuck and had to be dragged out by accompanying schoolmates. The mud was always dark grey and very slimy, but the perfect home to ragworms.

One could easily imagine getting stuck on a dark evening when no-one notices, and the tide comes in and the worms have an unexpected feast.

Digging them out was actually relatively easy compared to the energy expended struggling through the mud. In fact, every fork-full of mud would render forward at least three or four big worms. They had to be pulled out very carefully by hand from the mud, otherwise they could easily break in half. Frequently, they reached up to three feet in length, but ragworms are the best bait a fisherman could ever have, and well worth the effort.

I've heard that digging for "Thirsks" today in the harbour is banned because of health and safety regulations, (which is not really surprising because it would be easy for an inexperienced person to get stuck or even drown.)

At low tide, the harbour mud looks dead and dirty to most onlookers, but you can be assured that underneath the surface of the peaceful mud lies a massive wriggling population of ragworms enjoying going about their lives.