‘You don’t get seasick, do you?’ – my day on a Cornish fishing boat five years on from the Brexit referendum

It was all sky and sea and salty tales but the reality of Brexit is far more grim for these fishermen, writes Colin Drury

Watch out for the lines, they can take a limb off if they catch you (Getty)

Walking around Cornwall’s Newlyn Harbour in shoes and a shirt at 5am, I felt about as out of place as I looked. All around me, fishing boats were coming in or going out to sea. Big men – brawn and boots and no bloody nonsense – were hauling catches into the adjacent market. The whole atmosphere was flesh and rope and blistered hands. And there was I, a soft city lad, calling into boats: “Excuse me, I’m a journalist: what do you chaps think of Brexit?”

Safe to say, I was given pretty short shrift. Until, that is, I got to Graham Nicholas. The skipper of the Girl Pamela – a four-hand, 37ft crabbing vessel – listened sceptically as I told him I was writing a piece for the fifth anniversary of the EU referendum and then he asked his own question: “Have you ever been on a fishing boat, son?”

I had not.