Fish Town 1990-2020. The EU Years.

The FISH TOWN project was only a year-long documentation of a fishing industry about to enter the new European Union (EU) regulations in 1990, which would change the social and economic future of a historic fishing town called Grimsby on the East coast of England. The project ended up spanning 30 years!

The fish docks, where all the fish landings, auctions, filleting, and global distribution, were in a relatively small area called ‘The Kazbah’ (Where did that name come from?). A village if you like, on private land owned by British Associated Ports (ABP). Drivers needed no license, no MoT’s, jobs were on a family basis, or an interview was as simple as, ‘let’s see how fast you can fillet Boy’. Health and safety rules were still in the Victorian era and everyone knew everybody either by a nickname or some other namely wording. The ‘Kazbah’ pub opened at 6 am and the smoke-filled cafe’s bustled with all-day breakfasts, steaming tea urns, and banter that should have been scripted for ‘Live at The Apollo’ (a famous London comedy theatre).

ZOOM forward 30 years to 2020 and BREXIT. What a perfect opportunity to revive FISH TOWN ..

Fortunately, I did archive all the black and white negatives and created a filing system, so looking back through the contact sheets stirred my imagination to resume the project. I did a few visits to the ‘Kasbah’ and it was absolutely as it was 30 years ago. Only deserted and decaying. Everywhere was fenced off due to dangerous structural damage. Although a new and very efficient fish market was built. No businesses were trading nearby. All had left the docks forever to new premises on sterile business parks, or to a new heroic seafood village modelled on the old pontoons.

After a few phone calls to ‘get the bigger picture’ I returned, armed again with my cameras, digital Nikon D5’s this time. I documented up to 10 seafood processing companies, photographing the workers and facilities. A far cry from the 1990 images. It’s now a seafood laboratory. Robotic, high-tech, global digital production and distribution operation. I photographed the ‘Kasbah’s’ empty premises, closed cafe’s, ghostly streets and found a smokehouse still operating in the same traditional way. Smokehouses didn’t have to change at all!

Over 6 months, I captured the new way the FISH TOWN worked and am sponsored by Epson Printers, using the latest printers, scanners, pigment inks, and fine art papers. X-Rite sponsors me with the latest i3 Pro Plus calibration tools and I’m supported by Nikon Professional. These sponsors helped me produce this whole collection of FISH TOWN images, as an important cultural, social, and economic documentation, covering 30 years of change to a fishing town’s community, way of life, and economic structure. Without them, I doubt I’d be writing this..

This is a unique collection of images that are now displayed here for the first time. These unpublished images have been digitally remastered using today’s technology. The FISH TOWN collection of images documents the fortunes of Grimsby over 30 years. It records the working life of filleters and dock workers, the ice house at work, buying and selling, early morning auctions, and more. The capture of these unique moments in time is made even more impactful by the use of monochrome to convey industrial starkness and an emotive, raw honesty.

The inaugural exhibition of this project is to be shown in Grimsby this year (2022) for the local populous and a book is to be published to coincide with the exhibition. Hopefully, thereafter the exhibition will go on tour to other galleries in the UK.

Visit www.stevethornton.co.uk to see more of the project images, Listen here for Steve on BBC Radio.

Words by Steve Thornton