Freak weather in the North Atlantic is usually all that can stop Grimsby’s hardy fish merchants gathering in droves to buy the cod and haddock that comes through the famous port’s market.
Then it may only be a few sailings from Iceland - a lull for a week or two at very most, before returning by the box load.
Even then overland supply from Scotland and Norway can fill some of the voids on the 25-year-old ‘new’ quayside facility, as it is still referred to, such is the length of the tradition in the town.
But one wet market in the Far East blew in a new challenge to daily rituals that are ingrained in the fabric of Grimsby’s proud industry.
“The original shutdown of the market was something we never anticipated, but we had to follow government advice,” chief executive Martyn Boyers said.
“At the time it was open ended, we didn’t know what was going to happen.” The announcement on March 23, 2020 came on the back of three successive weeks of storms that left the market without the Icelandic catch - Ciara, Dennis and Jorge had wreaked havoc making it the worst start to the year in his living memory.
As Covid-19’s emergence was noted, strict visitor bans had been put in place - just weeks after hosting Boris Johnson and the media entourage on the final throes of the 2019 General Election campaign.
But it was his national address that really made all sit up and listen - and stay at home for April, once that week’s sales had been done.
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“About five weeks into the original lockdown, just after the May bank holiday, we started back, as we were working on a pre-sold basis instead of having the fish auction,” Mr Boyers said. While the food industry was an essential sector - key workers all - customers of the fish and chip shops the nation over were marooned at home.
“One of the enduring features of the fishing industry and the community around the docks is the ability to change and adapt and get on with things in the face of adversity,” he said as a route to the dinner table was re-established.
“We’re living through history, people will look back on this in years to come, and the resilience shown has been great.
“Take-aways could continue, and you think take-away and you think fish and chips. That opened the door, then another big boost was the direct sale.
“Grimsby has a huge concentration of mobile retailers who go all the way round the country, and it is fair to say all have done terrifically well as they have had a captive audience - everyone was at home.
“We organised fish to come in, and that’s how we operated for seven or eight weeks. There was a lot of good will from a lot of the fish merchants and a couple of agents involved.”
One high, Easter, had been and gone, and the British summer and the seaside favourite was then looming.
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“We got back to the familiar auction at the end of July, and we have been operating ever since,” Mr Boyers said.
Eat Out To Help Out - with fish a dish that over-trades in hospitality over retail - was seen as a massive success too - though that and schools returning were the prelude to the second wave.
“There were a lot of mistakes, it was a case of dealing with the unknown, but we’re now coming out of lockdown and the economy will recover quicker here as all around are falling again,” Mr Boyers said, looking across France, Germany and Italy.
“Some businesses have never done so well, others have never done so badly, and they couldn’t help it - I have huge sympathy as it was no-one’s fault.
“When Boris Johnson came up no-one thought Brexit would take a back seat to anything, we all thought we would be preoccupied by it.
“Throughout we have kept the business going, we haven’t had any visitors for a year, we’ve created our own bubble, a small team of people we are used to dealing with.
“We’re going to carry on that way too. We won’t have anyone for the time being, but hopefully we will get a chance to. It is clearly something we’re going to have to live with.
“We have changed the way we have operated, reduced the amount of handing, with new procedures.”
Despite the masks and the metres now separating - one thing has remained true.
“We still do the traditional ‘shout’ auction,” Mr Boyers confirmed. “Masks do make it more difficult, it is not quite the same, but it is difficult to move away from. It is one of the last bastions of the tradition. It hasn’t quite got the atmosphere, there was always a buzz about the auction before and that has been lost a bit, but we’re still there.”
For fishmonger Emma McKeating, the buzz around the industry was still loud enough to reel her in to her spiritual home.
An award-winning counter employee with Tesco, her passion for fish saw her excel in her calling, only for the supermarket giant to close the majority of the displays well before the pandemic.
Staying with the skills she’d acquired in Stoke - you can’t get much further inland to have an ambassador of seafood - she rocked up at a Leeds independent, Tarbett’s, where she’d done work experience previously. She was there when the first lockdown was instigated.
“It was so bizarre. The announcement about the national lockdown was made, I went into work the next day and the boss said I might be furloughed by the end of the week.
“The business went the opposite way, we had people queuing down the street asking for the fish as the supermarkets had closed their fresh counters so they could have more staff on the shop floor.”
Trained in Grimsby and a regular visitor back through her industry interest - be it filleting competitions, the Humber Seafood Summit or even an epic walk to the 海角视频 home of fish for the sector charity - she made the move east along the M62 and M180 when a role came up with Premier Seafoods.
It was all down to the business’ performance in the pandemic.
With online sales as well as the Riby Street shop, turnover had soared more than 30 per cent.
“Lockdown for the selling side of the industry went the opposite way to what had been expected,” she said. “ The restaurant trade stopped, but once they adapted to take-away, collection or delivery, that picked up too. But the general public more than made up for what we lost in the trade.
“Sales went through the roof in lockdown and Nathan (Godley - owner) needed more staff. I came up one Monday, he talked me through the job and how I would be able to use my skills to fillet and prepare fish. Before I got home he rang me to say the job was mine.”
It came at a great time as a house share in West Yorkshire, away from family and friends, in lockdown, had put her on a ‘work, eat, sleep, repeat’ treadmill.
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Now she’s living in leafy Barndolby-le-Beck in a fisherman’s house, having hit the perfect partnership as he spends 300 days a year at sea.
Coastal life is doing wonders for her mental and physical health too.
“The first lockdown took everyone by surprise, it felt a lot stricter, subsequently it has felt a little different. I also know a lot more people in Grimsby than I did in Leeds. I get to walk on the beach, I go to the market with Nathan, it has shaken up my routine for the better.”