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The Longshoreman: A Life at the Water's Edge
 
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The Longshoreman: A Life at the Water's Edge [Illustrated] (Hardcover)

by Richard Shelton (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 335 pages
  • Publisher: Atlantic Books; illustrated edition edition (12 Feb 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1843541610
  • ISBN-13: 978-1843541615
  • Product Dimensions: 19 x 14.2 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 451,598 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
'A magical life on the longshore alive with natural history but with a stern warning concerning all our futures.' David Bellamy 'Richard Shelton, not unlike some Victorian naturalists, has successfully combined a delightful autobiography with a scientific history of fishing. He describes an entire world with great charm.' Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield ' When I first urged Richard Shelton to write his naturalist's memoir, I never expected him to produce a classic. But he has.' Redmond O'Hanlon, author of Trawler

Product Description
This work combines autobiography and natural history, cutting-edge science and impassioned argument. It follows the author from stream to river, from pond to lake and loch, from shore to deep sea, on a journey from childhood to an adulthood spent in boats in conditions fair and foul.

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The Longshoreman: A Life at the Water's Edge 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Longshoreman Richard Shelton, 13 Feb 2004
By Robin Hull (Strathtay, Perthshire) - See all my reviews
This book, as one would expect of an autobiography, is about a man. But it is so much more than that for it is about airs, waters and places, about ecology and hunter-gatherer man’s station in the planet. It is filled with people; the author’s family, colleagues, fellow sportsmen, engine drivers and a host of stalwart, politicians and salty trawlermen speaking a language (often obscene) of their own. Mostly it is a fascinating insight into the incredibly varied lives of fish and shellfish. “What remarkable lives shrimps lead, and how little thought we give the matter as we eat them.” The author could employ the same sentence for almost all of the many species he describes.
Shelton is a fortunate man who, throughout his life, made a living from the realisation of a boyhood dream. The book begins with a fishing expedition to a Berkshire chalk stream. Sticklebacks and Miller’s Thumbs were the quarry. The first wriggling bar of silver in the net and the glimpse of bigger things, as a ghostly trout disappeared among the crowfoot, convinced the boy that fish were to be his life. For a time steam locomotives and traction engines fascinated him with their lifelike steamy pulsation, which mirrored the armour and physiology of the crayfish in the chalk stream. Early hunting forays with catapult, airgun and, later, a shotgun led to culinary experiments with sparrow pie and rabbit stew. A grandfather introduced him to red floats and Roach. These and other piscine captures were also consumed, as were most of his fishing and shooting trophies through later life, introducing readers to many novel dishes.
We follow Shelton through school and university where, after the brief seduction of medicine, he turned to Marine Biology. Thereafter fish took over his life. He studied the sensitivity of lobsters, the pollution of the Torrey Canyon and the vanishing species of the rivers and seas around Britain. Whenever possible he would be off along the shoreline wildfowling at dawn for Geese and Wigeon.
Do not be put off by the science for it is very readable, even, at times, exciting. The research is diluted with humour and spiced by the violence of the high seas in storm. The scientists, often an encumbrance in trawlers, were castigated by one skipper as the progeny of ‘heid bangers and airse bandits.’
This is a book for anyone interested in natural history and is filled with the sound ecological sense of conservation. It is also a darn good read, but it is a pity that it has no index.
426 words
Robin Hull
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars beautifully written, 31 May 2004
this is part autobiography and part natural history by a leading authority on fish conservation. Dr Shelton's wry, amusing and informative observations on the chiltern chalk streams, life at St. Andrew's University, wildfowling and his subsequent research bring to life a form of natural history writing that is very rare indeed - buy it! read it!!
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