Granton Trawler

"My dad was a trawlerman out of Granton in the late thirties on the "Coriolanus", one of Devlin's boats if my memory serves me right, but being an Army reservist, he was called up for the BEF and went to France, where he managed to get out of Dunkirk in one piece."

School and Harbour

"I went to sea at 14 years of age, in 1943, in the 'Starbank' called after Starbank Park at Newhaven.

 During the war with the shortage of crews, they would ship two boys in place of one man, usually the coal trimmers, and they shared the wage

If you've never shoveled coal in the bunker of a North Sea trawler, you have no idea what hard work is ! "

Stuart McCann, Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia  -  May 2005

Stuart added:  "Thank you for the site and for stirring an old man's memories."