Betty and Cyril Ramsden often turned their holidays into opportunities to film local traditions and customs.  Here they do so in 1957 at Seahouses, in Northumberland, famous for its crab and lobster fishing.  With their usual eye for detail, the Ramsdens gives us a real bird’s eye view, from on their boats, of the fishermen as they bring in their haul of live crabs. The Ramsdens were semi-professional filmmakers filming both for pleasure and taking on commissions from companies such as the...

Betty and Cyril Ramsden often turned their holidays into opportunities to film local traditions and customs.  Here they do so in 1957 at Seahouses, in Northumberland, famous for its crab and lobster fishing.  With their usual eye for detail, the Ramsdens gives us a real bird’s eye view, from on their boats, of the fishermen as they bring in their haul of live crabs. The Ramsdens were semi-professional filmmakers filming both for pleasure and taking on commissions from companies such as the Yorkshire Evening Post. Title-Bring 'em back alive. The film opens at a small harbour side where men stand and gut fish before placing them into boxes that are filled with ice. A fishing boat sails into the harbour, and the men continue to gut more fish. The trawler is then tied up, and barrels of fish are pulled onto the dock from it. Another boat comes in, and a child pulls a rope that has been thrown from the boat to him. The boat called the `Children's Friend' moves up to the dock side and the sailor then secures it. The final boat to arrive brings in boxes of live crabs. Men in white plastic pinafores and white Wellington boots drag the crates of crabs up the side of the pier wall. The crabs are then put into various boxes, weighed and put into barrels with sacking cloth secured over the top. Title-The End