This scene presents a very sustainable way of fishing. These people use natural and human energy, rather than machinery, to find their catch and bring it in. This cuts down the scale of fishing to meet the community's own needs, and allows fish stocks to grow big enough to reproduce before they're caught.

This is in stark contrast to today's over fishing where the size of each catch is increased hugely by machinery and new technology. As fish stocks dwindle, sea trawlers have to go further away from the mainland to find fish. This has led to the Cod war with Iceland as well as major tensions between British and Spanish fishermen.

A sustainable solution can be found by balancing our human needs with those of the natural world. By allowing the fish time to grow and reproduce, we can avoid species such as cod becoming extinct.

The mackerel now, it is a lovely fish, blue it is, with a smooth, sleek body and a silvery darling sheen, and fetching black bands down its sides, and a deeply forked tail that is handsome.

A lovely fish, a good, sound pound of a weight, and very tasty too. Full of nourishment is the mackerel. But bringing in the mackerel catch, it was hard, horrible, cold, dirty work, particularly the gutting, pthhh! a filthy job, and it was the women that had to do it. But then, everyone in the village worked hard the whole year long, and the men, to be fair, had it no easier, for going out on the boats was just as hard, and perilous, especially in winter when a storm could come from nowhere, and over the years the cruel sea it had taken more than its share of husbands, sons, sweethearts, and brothers.

And while we were working we talked constantly of this and that and what was what and local goings on. Now let me tell you, sometimes, plenty of times, the talk could get right raw and coarse and saucy, especially when we got round to discussing men, which often we did, and not always in complimentary terms. But we were hard working women doing filthy, heavy work so no apology need be made for that. And often we told stories to make the time pass easier, and they would like as not be near enough to the knuckle, but this one I'll tell now is innocent enough, and I'll wipe away any blushes that remain.

Marie, was a village lass with a right sweet nature, kind she was, and softly spoken, and wouldn't suffer herself to bring any kind of harm to anyone, not by a word, not by a deed. She worked a deal more than was her share and wasn't one to curse or whinge or complain. Well liked she was, and bonny too. Now Marie was betrothed to village lad by the name of Loic, and this Loic she loved with a love and a passion that burnt both bright and true. So it hit her right hard when one night she found her Loic drunk in the arms of a hussy named Josephine.

Hit her right hard did I say?

Drowned all her hopes and dreams it did; drowned all her faith and trust it did; stole all the peace from her mind it did. Her tears they would not dry. Marie she could not bear it. One night when the moon was shining right bright and full she drowned herself in the silvery sea.

And that was when the trouble began.

After the death of Marie it seemed that, be the weather fair or foul, every time a boat went out some ill-starred lad was lost. Then the stories started and would not stop. And the stories told of fishermen who had gone to their deaths after catching a glimpse of sweet Marie alive like a mermaid in the sea.

Now Loic, you remember Loic? Marie's faithless lover? Loic was beside himself with both grief and guilt. True his judgement had been somewhat flawed, but then, what man's judgement isn't ever somewhat flawed? Perfection man is not. But Loic still loved Marie and the tears he cried for Marie would not dry.

One night when the moon was shining right bright and full Loic took his boat out to sea, searching for Marie he was; ready to promise anything he was; ready to die for her he was. All to make amends for the wrong that he had done. No one knows if Loic did find his Marie that night; but Loic was never seen or heard of again, and neither was sweet Marie ever again glimpsed by a fisherman fated to die.

So perhaps he found her after all. And perhaps the spirits of sweet Marie and Loic are together to this day somewhere beneath the bright and shining waves.

That was all so long ago of course. Today fishing is a very different trade. A global trade. Some say it's a dying trade. That whole species of sea life are dying out, that the biodiversity, as they call it, of all the great seas is under threat. I think that is terrible, for what would life be, without a nourishing, tasty mackerel to eat?