~ Chapter Two ~
Man of the Sea

Charles was the first-born of George and Mary Gisby, who had married the previous year when they were both in their mid-twenties.  George was a cordwainer, a leatherworker making shoes and boots, a trade he had gained from his uncle, Thomas Gisby, for whom he also worked.

            Before young Charlie was two years old, he had acquired a sister, Anne, and the family had moved from Alkali Row, which only a few years later was to become the site of a Victorian soup kitchen.  Their new home was in another narrow backstreet on the other side of King Street called Love Lane.  It was a busy, little street, with a public house at each end of it, a brewery and a grocer’s store.  It was also where George’s Uncle Thomas carried out his boot-maker’s business.

            By 1871, when Charlie was almost twelve, the family had grown substantially.  Although little Anne didn’t survive, Charlie now had three brothers and another sister.  The family had also moved again, this time to the wider and more affluent thoroughfare of St John’s Road.  Their new address in the community around the Church of St John the Baptist was only a ten-minute walk up the hill from Love Lane, but it must have seemed a world away from the rowdiness and squalor of that place, which would be condemned as a slum shortly after the turn of the century.

            When he became old enough to work, Charlie did not take up his father’s trade.  Forsaking the mundane and undoubtedly softer occupation of a leatherworker, he chose instead the perils and hardship of life as a fisherman.  He left the family home to move a few miles down the coast to Ramsgate, which was a larger fishing port than Margate and thus offered more opportunities for work.  In 1881, at the age of 22, he was living in St Lawrence, Ramsgate, lodging in the High Street with the young Gander family, whose head of household was also a fisherman.

            The harsh realities of a fisherman’s existence at that time are depicted in the following extract from an eloquent address by Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria, to the International Fisheries Exhibition held in London in 1883:
             “The most unremitting toil on the part of the fishermen but just suffices to supply their daily wants; toil which exposes the men to dangers and to hardships of which only those who have a close and familiar knowledge of the sea in its various moods can form an accurate conception.

             In winter cold and summer heat, almost every port and bay sends out daily to the fishing grounds its fleet of boats, manned by their keen and eager crews prepared to face almost any emergency in their efforts to wrest its treasures from the deep.

             In the brightness of a July evening, when the sea is barely rippled by gentle airs, which spring to life and die away in a succession of lovely cadences, no more beautiful spectacle can be seen than that of a large fleet of fishing-vessels, gliding with almost imperceptible movements from the land towards the hazy and distant horizon.  At such times a fisherman’s life appears an idyll.  Not less interesting is the scene in the early waning of a winter’s day, when the pale and fleeting glimpse of sunshine lights the heaving surface of the sea, and the boats, heeling to the force of a blustering December breeze, seem to spring from wave to wave as though endued with the life, and eager desire to excel, of a racehorse.  At such time, the thought of the long hours of darkness of the winter’s night to be passed by their crews, cold, wet, and liable to many dangers, will bring home fully to one’s mind the toilsome nature of a fisherman’s occupation.

             On our exposed and stormy coasts the return of the boats is often awaited with anxious forebodings by the wives and children on shore.  On starting from the harbour for the fishing grounds, a clear sky and gentle breeze may appear the sure signs of settled weather; the nets or lines may be shot under most favourable circumstances, with every hope of a successful haul of fish.  Of a sudden, almost without any warning, a gale springs up, the heavens become overcast, the darkness deepens, the ocean begins to throb uneasily, ever increasing its agitation until its surface becomes broken with black angry waves, here and there topped by white hissing crests.  Matters become so serious that instant endeavours have to be made to secure the nets or lines.  Often, however, the change is so rapid that to persist in the attempt would endanger the safety of the boat and its crew, and great loss has to be incurred in abandoning the gear, when all haste is at once made for the land.

             On shore the howling of the wind will have alarmed the wives and families of those afloat.  Before dawn they will be found gazing to seaward with anxious eyes, endeavouring to pierce the darkness which hangs like a pall over the waters; seeking to catch a momentary glimpse, as it tops a wave, of the boat which contains the breadwinner.  In their thoughts hope and fear alternate.

             As the darkness pales, and is succeeded by the dawn, one by one the boats become visible to these trembling watchers, appearing first as black specks on the horizon, which enlarge and become more distinct as the light increases, until their numbers can be counted, and the boats distinguished by their various slight peculiarities.

             As the little craft approach the harbour, their movements are followed by the wives and mothers of those on board with a concentration of attention possible only in a woman who knows that in each shrieking squall or breaking sea may be borne the doom of her husband or her son.

             On board the boats the crews will be found sitting well down, as much under shelter as possible, still and quiet, but on the alert, ready to spring into activity at the order of the master who is at the helm.  The little vessel’s sails are close reefed, but urged by the pressure of the wind, she seems to bound over the seas, now poised on the crest of a wave, next rushing madly down its steep incline as though she would engulf herself in the dark valley beneath, then she overtakes and struggles up the steep ascent of another mountain of water.

             So the struggle of man and man’s handiwork against the power and fury of the elements is carried on, until, by the mercy of God, the boat and crew reach the safety and shelter of the port.

             Our storm-beaten and iron-bound coasts are frequently the scenes of dangers such as I have just imperfectly described; and we must all from time to time, by means of our daily papers, have been made familiar with the details of the disasters to our fishing-fleets overtaken at sea by sudden gales.  These disasters are more fatal in the summer months; for, although storms are then rarer than in winter, they give but little or no warning of their approach, and burst in irresistible might on the unfortunate craft which, but a few minutes before, had been riding in fancied security at their nets.”
            Charlie had chosen to be a man of the sea.  That life of “most unremitting toil” described by Prince Alfred would be his for another decade and more, during which time he would meet and marry his first wife, Amy.