ICEMEN AND LUMPERS
Ron Baxter
Tune: Ross Campbell

There's icemen and lumpers, and smokers and all;
There's riggers and porters and makers of trawls;
There's drivers and painters and merchants on the quay;
Their living relies upon them on the sea.

There's boxmakers, winchmen - and Spencer's as well!
You know - Isaac Spencer's, that makes all the smell!
There's policemen and Customs, who always have to see -
What's stowed in the kitbags of them from the sea.

There's auctioneers and shipwrights and makers of sails;
There's owners and merchants, and old British Rail;
There's boilermen and "Cosalt" of Great Grimsby;
They all rely on work from the sea.

There's filleters and coalmen, and pilots and crew;
There's dredgemen and chandlers, and bums - not a few!
There's bookies and ladies - Oh! Where would they be?
Without all that money that's made from the sea?

Sung by Ross Campbell.

By the nineteen-twenties, the fishing industry in Fleetwood employed over 9,000 people. For every one that worked at sea, there would be two or three working on shore jobs, building, repairing and preparing ships for sea, processing and selling the fish, and transporting the end product to inland markets.