大象传媒

I would like to add this in part as a link to the Dunkirk page.
Horrie Osbourne, was my "Uncle" by marriage to my mother's cousin, Ethel . Actually we all called him Lol, we always used to smile about his working on the water because he could not swim. Based at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex he was a cockle fisherman all his life

He was on the Resolute and his half brothers were on the the Renown.
His boat was ahead of the Renown on the way back from Dunkirk.
He had passed through the same water only moments before the mine
destroyed his brothers and their boat.
He circled and circled in the Resolute in the vain hope of finding survivors,
all that was left were spliners of wood on the water as insignificant as matchsticks.
This left a deep impression on my uncle and after returning to Leigh he joined the navy and served on mine sweepers, for which he recieved a medal. I'm sure he felt he wanted to keep others safe in lieu of what happened to his brothers. He never spoke about Dunkirk he was a deeply moral and modest man .
It is our understanding that Frankie's wife remarried to a serviceman and sadly, like Frankie, he failed to come back too.

After the war my uncle returned to cockle fishing which was the livlihood for his family. Shortly before he died he told me a story about something which happened to the family's business some three decades or so after the war. Their business was shut down for months on end by the minister of Fisheries. The reason was supposedly that someone hadsuffered poisoning at an Hotel from their cockles.
Their business was wrecked by this. I believe it was discovered that the hotel's refigerators had failed and were responsible for the poisoning. My uncle said said that when they were allowed to reopen much of their trade had been taken up by Norwegian Cockle Fishers. I asked if they got compensation? He told me "No, we were warned that if we complained or went public we'd never fish again." I believe they ended up only being able to work a three day week after this. It was a soul-destroying for someone who was so decent to be treated this way by ministerial-face-savers.
I hope there is an journalist somewhere who would could investigate the facts of this.

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