Martin Pontin
Martin belongs to: Merchants and Traders
Martin grew up in Tynemouth. After the war his father established William Wight Ltd as a family business. The shop provided the fishing fleet with stores and provisions. Martin now manages the shop.
Martin was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 15 February 2006. The interview took place at North Shields Fishermen's Mission and lasted 22 minutes and 30 seconds.
Community on the Fish Quay
"Everybody knew everybody else- that was the whole thing about the Fish Quay"
Everybody knew everybody else- that was the whole thing about the Fish Quay is that you would say one thing at one end of the quay, and it would be at the other end of the quay within five minutes flat, and somebody would come into the shop and say, “have you heard about so and so,” I and would think, “Crikey, I just heard about two minutes ago.” But it was great like that because you had your Fish Quay characters, there were loads of those- people who drank too much and people who swore, and just people that didn’t turn up to sail, and it was just fantastic. Unbelievable. And you knew every one of them, but they were just nice people.
We used to have the lads that used to sail on the trawlers, the deep sea trawlers and I found when I first came down to the Fish Quay, I thought, “going to sea for 14 days stuck in a coffin?” because that’s what it was, you slept in virtually a coffin, in these accommodations, yet you had people like Billy Johnson from South Shields who used to come across to sail, and he’d come across with his clean shoes, his brogues polished up, his suit tie, immaculate, his clean cap on and everything like that, and he’d go aboard the trawler and he’d get changed into his sea gear, 14 days at sea. But when he came ashore, on with his suit, tie, the whole lot. Absolutely brilliant people, and that’s the type of, you don’t get people like that now, that breed of person’s gone.
You know, fair enough, the lads are alright on the boats now, they’re alright but they’re all young lads who want to go out there and make money, which is understandable, but at the same time, you’ve got to understand, the trawler men, it was in their blood. Even if they went out and they didn’t make money, they went back the next trip, they didn’t make money, they went back next trip. They were the type of person, it was in their system, the sea. They couldn’t actually hack being ashore. If they were ashore for two or three days it was too long. They used to moan and groan about going back to sea but it was the only place they were happy, out on the waves.
Martin has 12 memories in the memorynet:
Martin's memories with a The North East theme:
The early days at Wight’s- The business
- Changes at Wight’s
- Community on the Fish Quay
- The atmosphere on the Fish Quay
- The future for the Fish Quay
The Highlander Hotel- Wm Wight Ltd
- North Shields Fish Quay
Martin's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Change | Community | The North East
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