re COD ENDS
I was just going to say that!
Also I have just been trying to recover a copy of the CD of our Fleetwood show "It All Comes Out Of The Cod End"* Unfortunately the ancient CDs from which I had to archive the sound files were well worn and the show as recorded by the late Dave Ryan is incomplete. However all the songs on another CD were completely recovered.

I was hoping that Ron Baxter's song "Braiding" would be among them but it's not. As Mudcat's "SailorRon" he used to be a frequent contributor to various maritime topics on this forum. He no longer has an on-line presence (and doesn't want one!) but he can still be contacted through me. I may already have posted the words in the "Fleetwood & Fishing: Songs of the Trawling Trade" Permathread. If memory serves me right, the lyrics are as follows -

Braiding (Ron Baxter)

Sat on the pavement on a summer's day,
Hands all a-flashing, earning your pay
With a wooden needle and a cop o' twine
Braiding's fine in the summertime.

Sat on the pavement in a scarf and brat
All of your neighbours stop to have a chat
You've no overseer bearing down
Braiding's fine in Fleetwood town

It may be nylon, but it's mostly jute
And you can work all the hours that suit
But in the end, girls, you just get paid
For all of the pieces that you've made

You think on your pay, well, it's not so grand
But you're at home on the other hand
Home wi' your kiddies at dinner-time,
Home wi' your neighbours, needle and twine.

Sat on the pavement on a summer's day,
Hands all a-flashing, earning your pay
With a wooden needle and a cop o' twine
Braiding's fine in the summertime.

Some of the braiding was done as out-work, a way for women with young children to earn some money at home. Some of the early fishermen's cottages in Fleetwood still have hooks above the front door which would be used to start off the pieces specified by the braiding-lofts.These would later be collected for stitching together to make the trawl-nets. I think the cod-ends would have been done in the lofts. Double-corded with much heavier twine, they would certainly have been "trouble".
Boris Nets is the only braiding-loft left in Fleetwood. They still make trawl-nets, and also the circus-tent-sized keep nets for Scottishh salmon-farms.


* meaning the prosperity of the town depends on the fish landing on the quay
* cop = spool
* brat = apron

Ross