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Photograph of Paul Robinson in his workshop

Paul Robinson

Paul belongs to: The Coble and Keelboat Society

Paul was born in Cullercoats. His family were in fishing and merchant navy. Paul got his first boat when he was 13. He has made a living from fishing and sign painting.

Paul was interviewed by Kylea Little on 1 December 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's workshop and lasted 38 minutes and 30 seconds.

Photograph of Paul Robinson in his workshop
Photograph of Paul Robinson in his workshop

Sign Painting

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"Well, there are a lot of styles that are used on this sort of stretch of the coast"

Well, there are a lot of styles that are used on this sort of stretch of the coast, the East Coast up to the north of Scotland which are very traditional. And the boats have been painted like that, I suppose for a couple of hundred years, like. And the letters were carved, the way the yard used to carve the little stem boards. You know, if you were so into it, you could see it come from that yard, or come from that yard, like, just like the style of the man who was carving the wood, you know. If you were like an anorak about it, you could tell! But there were styles you could tell where boats are from, just every village used to more or less have its own fellow who used to go down do the boats for the men, like. But there’s just less and less people doing it. But it’s just try and keep it traditional, the way it was.

Interviewer: And you were mentioning you do, what’s the style called that you use when you’re…?

There’s quite a few styles, like, but one of them that’s up there, the fishtail, that was supposed to bring you luck. You’d find the other ones that were carved- you see it in chapels and Bibles and this kind of thing. It’s really fancy, like, it’s a really old style, like.

Paul has 16 memories in the memorynet:

This memory has these themes:
Skills | The North East | Traditions | Work

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