John Coulton, Southport Shrimper

John Coulton, Southport Shrimper 2006 - photo by Simon Kirwan

John Coulton, Southport Shrimper 2006 - photo by Simon Kirwan

When this picture was taken in 2006, John Coulton was 76 years old. He had been a shrimper on Southport beach for the previous 60 years, and built the Venture, this amphibious shrimping vehicle, in 1963, although he no longer owned it, and was unimpressed by its present delapidated state. Beach shrimping is all that remains of a once-vibrant fishing industry in Southport, and John remembered a time when over 80 shrimpers followed the ebb tide along the vast expanse of sandy beach, trawling for the brown shrimp which Southport became famous for. There are no more than five remaining shrimpers, all of John’s generation, and he blames the decline on the pollution of the Irish Sea by the dumping of raw sewage, industrial chemicals, agricultural pesticides, and effluent from the nuclear power station at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Southport is a traditional northern seaside town, which is currently seeing a period of re-generation thanks to the influx of Euro-cash into Merseyside, after decades of decline. A visit to the display in the re-designed but architecturally uninspiring cafe at the end of the refurbished pier is an opportunity to glimpse what Southport was like in its heyday, maybe 70 – 80 years ago, when it was almost a resort to rival Blackpool.

Apart from tourism and shopping, there is very little commercial activity in Southport, and the shrimpers are almost the only surviving connection with the Southport of the early part of the 20th century. Once the last of them have ceased to operate, it will be gone for good.