|
Week
1
|
Week 2 |
Week
3
|
Week
4
|
Week
5
|
|
 |
 |
"An Ongoing
Diary"
Day 4
|
Week
1
|
Week 2 |
Week
3
|
Week
4
|
Week
5
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the tracks towards Hull.
Hull was a sea port of near size and traffic to Rotterdam until the nineteen seventies. Then came the Cod war. After all, British trawlers had been fishing in Icelandic waters, which was something the Icelanders felt was not particularly fair. In the end the British lost this bit of tasty strong hold bringing the demise of what had been a lucrative fishing industry. Today Hull is being reinvented as a potential centre with a vision towards new technologies. The year 1973 saw the most dramatic time in Iceland's history - the cod war, when Royal Navy frigates clashed with Icelandic gunboats trying to stop Hull trawlers fishing the icy seas off the island. For Britain the issue was jobs on Humberside, but for Iceland it was national survival. Before anyone else, Icelanders realized what a terrible problem over fishing would cause. For a country with a population of 250,000 which is too cold to grow corn, fishing was, and is, the cornerstone of the economy. It is a cold and difficult job, but Iceland has, as a result, one of the most affluent communities in the world. In 1975 foreign fleets caught more than 100,000 tons of cod a year off Iceland, a third of the total. No controls to manage the fish were possible then, but once foreign trawlers had been thrown out in 1976 Iceland was in charge of its seas within a 200 mile limit. However, life since has been anything but easy.
Before going to give a lecture, Jon Robson and his parents and I went to the pizzeria across the street from Hull Time Based Arts.
A night on the town started out at Ye Olde Black Boy , continued at the Polar Bear, and concluded at The lamp, only because we had to get up fairly early next day. Oh that horrible sense of responsibility.!
|
|
|
