THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I shall not forget those autumn nights off the far north-west coast of Scotland, when, surrounded in the blackness by the lights of two dozen neighbouring boats, we twisted and turned after the mackerel shoals; and how, beyond Cape Wrath where Loch Eriboll opens to the sea, just as the grey clouds turned bloodshot with dawn and sunlight picked a silver glitter from the stark cliffs and the granite moorland slopes of Ben Hope, we knew that a giant shoal was in the water below us – shot for them and found them.

Thompson/Fishing, 1983