Generations: The Stories of Hastings' Fishing Families
Hastings photographer JOHN COLE has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding to publish Generations: Hastings Fishing Families. The book documents the generations of Hastings fishing families in Britain’s’ oldest beach-launched sustainable fishing community, with photographs from 1991 to the present.
Profits from the sale of Generations will be shared with the Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society (HFPS) who work to protect and uphold the heritage of Hasting’s historic fishing fleet.
Back in 1991 John travelled down from London to take some photographs of the Hastings fleet, what he expected to be a couple of days work turned into a two year project and a life long passion. In an interview with the Hastings Online Times he explains: “walking along the beachfront, photographing the fishermen at work, staying at a B&B in the Old Town, I fell in love with Hastings”, 8 years later he would move to Hastings and continue to photograph the fishing community.
In 1991 there were over 40 boats fishing from the Stade (Saxon for landing place) on Hastings’ beach, now less than 10 regularly go to sea. It is this story of the fleet’s struggle and resilience that John wants to tell in Generations: “Although I feel it is vitally important that Generations highlights the current struggle of the fishing community, my book is also a celebration of the enduring spirit of Hastings’ fishermen and women, working in centuries old methods of manual labour in an age when so much of our work today is done online in the comfort of our home or office“.
Through their story John wishes to raise the profile of this historic fishing community and encourage us all to support them, “this is a project very close to my heart and will, I hope, bring awareness to the plight of Hastings fishing fleet, as well as so many other small fishing communities throughout the UK and the world.“
There has been a fishing community in Hastings for over a thousand years and many of its fishermen have family ties that span hundreds of years of life at sea. Today’s fleet is proud of its commitment to sustainability, protecting the local fisheries for generations to come. Paul Joy, fisherman and chair of the Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society explains “the Hastings fishing fleet has been practicing sustainable fishing practices for generations. Our fleets’ sustainable fishing practices include changing net sizes to target key species that are big enough to be caught. We are more custodians of the sea, like farmers looking after next year’s crop. We work with like-minded NGO’s, like Greenpeace, to make sure that our children benefit in the long run.”
To learn more about Hastings, its fleet and the seafood they catch, click here.
