Stories and Memories

The oral history component of Sea's the Day is the backbone of the project and underpins everything else except for the recipe cards.  A number of Selsey people volunteered their time for training and to undertake just over 30 interviews. These took place in fishermen's huts, in living rooms, and sometimes in council offices. As topics emerged we also interviewed the people associated with them. Legislation featured strongly, so an interview was conducted with Sussex IFCA (Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority); welfare is sometimes a concern so the Fishermen's Mission also features; history is the motivation behind the project, and the interview with Chichester district Council's archaeologist James Kenny informed the oral history and set the historic context for fishing in the introduction to the book.

The volunteers were fantastic, and it is their dedication and all consuming interest in the project that made the huge amount of work achieved possible.