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.
The atmosphere on the Fish Quay
"I think the best thing about it was, in the old days, oh here we go, “the old days,” in its hay day, it was the hustle and bustle"
I think the best thing about it was, in the old days, oh here we go, “the old days,” in its hay day, it was the hustle and bustle on the Fish Quay; you had people dragging nets off, shouting and bawling, you had them pulling the chains off the boats, rattling and dropping them accidentally, and skippers would go berserk and this sort of thing, and the landing of the fish, the fish boxes would catch on the side of the quay, and all the fish used to go in the water. It was just, there was so much going on. It was just like a, it was just a community, it was fantastic, really. As I say, the wagons were all there, kind of virtually revving up in the mornings, waiting to get away as well because they had to get down to London by such and such a time with the, down to Billingsgate Market, they used to go to, I think it was, they used to take a lot of fish down there. And they used to go roaring off down the roads.
It was, the Fish Quay has always been, well obviously the birds as well, the seagulls and everything like that, they’ve always been noisy beggars sort of thing. Sometimes you look at some of them, they’re like bloody ostriches, some of them, absolutely massive things.
Actually I was coming down the street once, in the morning coming to work with the Bedford pick-up truck, it was an old three-gear column change thing and of course we were very busy and I was legging it down the road driving too fast as usual and I hit this thing in the middle of the road and I thought it was something like, I don’t know, a dog or something and it absolutely caved in the front of the pick up- the grill, radiator, the whole lot, and what it was, it was a seagull! But it was absolutely huge, and it did, I think, in those days, it did, I think, about 80 quids’ worth of damage which in the kind of seventies, was a lot of money. I always remember that.
Martin has 12 memories in the memorynet:
Martin's memories with a Change theme:
Changes at Wight’s- Community on the Fish Quay
- The future for the Fish Quay
The Highlander Hotel- North Shields Fish Quay
Martin's other memories:
- The early days at Wight’s
- The business
- The Cabbage Patch
- The Fish Quay
- The atmosphere on the Fish Quay
- Wm Wight Ltd
- The Cabbage Patch
This memory has these themes:
Community | Environment | Sounds and Smells | The North East
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