RECENT articles on fish curing in Grimsby prompted Tom Willis, of Worsley Road, Immingham, to get in touch.

Tom wrote: "In 1938, at the age of 15, I started work at John Everett's fish curers in Railway Street. I would start work at 7.30am and go straight upstairs, where Bill Snell would be waiting for me. He would go into the first smokehouse and start passing out to me speats of smoked fish.

Haddock ready for smoking in years gone by.

"These I would place on a trolley and as I filled them up they were taken away by packers who would grade them, pack them and then box them, ready for distribution.

"The best fish was finney haddock.

"While all this was going on, the women downstairs were busy filleting and cleaning the fish and placing them in a large wooden tub of brine.

"After a while the fish would be placed on speats and stacked ready for the smokehouses. By now the houses were empty.

"I would go to the stores and bring bags of oak shavings and oak sawdust from Ogle's sawmill in Victoria Street. Bill would then go from smokehouse to smokehouse, preparing the sawdust ring with shavings in the middle. Once that was done, Bill and I would start the smoke process.

"By morning, the smoke would have cleared and cooled, ready for the next day's work to begin.

"Those smokehouses still stand today, near to the Newmarket Street footbridge. Maybe they should be preserved for future generations to see, as they are part of Grimsby's past fish curing era."