John Nichols is the chairman of Thanet Fisherman's Association, and Vice-Chairman of Kent and Essex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority. He has spent his life as a commercial fisherman working out of Broadstairs, Ramsgate, Folkestone, Scarborough, and Whitby.
Here he talks about his childhood, as he puts it, "making a nuisance of himself" at Ramsgate harbour helping the boatmen moored there, building his own boat as an apprentice shipbuilder in Whitstable, and taking visitors on trips to the North Goodwin Light Vessel and the Goodwin Sands. He also mentions his part in the rescue of the Ross Revenge, Radio Caroline's broadcast ship.
This is part one of a two-part interview conducted as part of the Goodwin Sands Oral History Project, a podcast series which speaks with those who have grown up within sight of the Sands, who make their living upon or around them, or who have been creatively inspired by the air of uncanny mystery they invoke. The Goodwin Sands are a pair of large sandbanks of the south-east Kent coast which offer both shelter and a dangerous hazard to unwary shipping or those caught in storms, and are the site of great historical importance and maritime archaeology.
This podcast project was undertaken as a response to an application to dredge the Goodwin Sands for aggregates and building materials to expand Dover Harbour, a proposition vehemently opposed by local residents and the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust, who have created this podcast series. It is hoped that through hearing the voices of the people connected with the Sands their cultural status might be raised and further industrial interference might be avoided in the future.
Credits:
Presented and interview conducted by Joanna Thomson, co-founder of the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust.
Production, editing, sound design, and music by Ben Horner.
Additional music, "Magnetostriction" by Silicon Transmitter, used under Creative Commons licence.
For more about the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust please see https://goodwinsands.org.uk/, and please see https://theaudiosphere.com for more on our producer.
