A: It had nothing to do with his role. It was characteristic of his attention to detail, and willingness to stray outside his limits.

“Utmost Fish”

Hillsdale College’s “The Churchill Documents,” Vol. 14, for September 1939-May 1940, carries a recollection by Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare. Shakespeare (1893-1980) was a Liberal MP, 1923-45. He served Churchill as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs from 1940 to 1942. This note is from his diary for 18 October 1939 in his book, “Let Candles Be Brought In,” pages 230-2):

One morning I found on my desk a pink tab with a memo to this effect: “I am concerned about the shortage of fish. Parliamentary Secretary will immediately take up the matter with the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff and the head of the Mine Sweeping Division to see if any trawlers can be released for fishing. We must have a policy of “utmost fish.” Parliamentary Secretary will report to me by midnight with his proposals. WSC.

*****

This was indeed a poser. I had no knowledge of, or responsibility for, the fishing industry. That question came within the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I got busy, however, and arranged with the Ministry of Agriculture to call a conference of trawler owners from Hull, Grimsby and elsewhere, and Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff—Rear-Admiral Harold Burrough, whose name later in the war was brilliantly associated with the Malta convoys—came to the rescue by releasing a few trawlers.

After many hours of intensive study of the problem, I dictated a comprehensive memorandum on the essential facts of the industry, the number of trawlers and drifters still used for fishing and the numbers taken over by the Admiralty, daily catches, difficulties of protecting fishing fleets from aircraft and mines, and I concluded by suggesting the formation of a new Fishing Promotion Council, composed of representatives of the Admiralty, Ministry of Agriculture, trawler and drifter owners, and of the trades unions concerned.

I completed the memorandum just after midnight and took it into the presence. Churchill read it, asked numerous questions and concurred in the formation of the new council and instructed me to constitute it forthwith. He also asked me to approach Ernest Bevin [Minister of Labour]  to secure his interest….So a policy of “utmost fish” was fostered by the Admiralty in wartime.

Churchill Trolls for Answers

As a result of his enquiries, Churchill convened a meeting. (Churchill papers, 19/3) 18 October 1939

I have asked the Minister of Agriculture to bring Mr. Ernest Bevin and his deputation to the Admiralty at 4.15 o’clock tomorrow after they have explored the ground among themselves….I will preside myself.

Meanwhile Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, Director of the Trade Division and Controller or Deputy-Controller should together with Financial Secretary meet together this evening to work out a plan, the object of which is the Utmost Fish, subject to Naval necessity. The immediate loss arising from our requisition should be shared between ports… the fact that a port has built the best kind of trawlers must not lead to its being the worst sufferer.

Side by side with this equalisation process a type of trawler which can be built as quickly as possible, and will serve its purpose,​ ​should be given facilities in the ship-yards. As soon as these trawlers flow in, they can either be added to the various ports, or else be given to the ports from whom the chief requisition has been made, the equalising trawlers being restored after temporary use – this is for local opinion to decide. It is vital to keep the fish trade going, and we must fight for this part of our food supply as hard as we do against the U-boats.

​No Carping Around

Norman Rose in Churchill: An Unruly Life, 254, is rather good on this:

Of course, not all were happy with Churchill’s forays into spheres beyond his immediate domain. His “Utmost Fish” order—intended to resolve the shortage of fresh fish—being a case in point. This carping did not deter him.

Professor Rose was not floundering around when he wrote that.

Of course it wasn’t his sole point. But the story is no old cod, for sure.

First published in The Eleutheran, September 2008; Edwin’s Turtle Lake Marine Preserve, with a fine new dock and the bottle shack restored in December 2014.

Edwin’s of old

Three miles south of Governor’s Harbour, on the right side at the S-bends as the road plunges toward Palmetto Point, is a large saltwater lake. Passersby who stop to investigate will find the remains of a curious shed built of mortar and beer bottles, the amber, green and clear glass sorted by colour, bottoms facing out. A few yards away, obscured by bush and weathered by the years, was a wooden sign whose words were just legible:

Edwin’s Fishing Lake

Established March 10th 1954

The First Fishlake of the Bahamas

Over 20,000 fish of 32 varieties have

been placed in this lake.

Enjoyable entertainment for

tourists and sportsmen

Fishing 9AM-5PM

Edwin Burrows, Founder

The old sign is covered now by a modern one. The curious will wonder: who was Edwin Burrows? Why did he establish the first (only?) “Fishlake of the Bahamas”? What happened in this place and when? The answers, like most Eleuthera stories, are more complicated than people might expect.

Scary stories

Residents of a certain age tell spooky stories of the Fishlake. Some have encountered a ghostly woman hitchhiker with a bundle on her head and/or a bag in her hand; drivers have given her a lift, only to find a few miles later that no one is there. The spectral apparition has also been spotted headless, rising out of the mist on moonlit nights!

A fisherman known to Arrington McCardy of Hatchet Bay told of a midnight crabbing trip when “something really big came out of the water….I didn’t waste time investigating—I ran. I went there a few more nights with the sweat rolling off me. After awhile I wouldn’t go back.”

Eleuthera’s version of the Loch Ness Monster? Probably not, says Shirley Burrows, Edwin’s daughter, of Governor’s Harbour. “Most of the people who saw these things were from my Daddy’s time, when there were fewer electric lights and high powered search lamps…”

Entrepreneur Edwin

Edwin Burrows, who passed on in 1982, was a farmer and fisherman who raised twelve children in Governor’s Harbour. Ingenious and ambitious, he constantly sought new ways to support his large family. “My father was the first on the island who ‘doped’ pineapples, applying a spray that induced them to produce fruit the year round,” Shirley recalls. “In those days, when most of the tourists were clustered around Governor’s Harbour instead of spread out in developments, the market for pineapples was best in the tourist season rather than in the late spring and summer when they normally matured.

“Daddy also observed that everybody else was growing tomatoes to sell to French Leave Resort. So he grew lettuce, broccoli and sprouts, and had the market to himself.”

Edwin also ran a club on Cupid’s Cay, built with his unique combination of beer bottles and mortar; the remnants of a wall are still there, but you have to look sharp to see it.

Noticing that visiting fishermen were sometimes unable to get out on the ocean, either for lack of boats or high seas, Edwin Burrows decided to stock the placid lake with ocean game species and invite the public. He caught the fish by line, with traps or with a net. He also made a beach for turtles to lay eggs. Today the turtle population is thriving. (Maybe that’s what comes out of the water on dark nights.)

Denizens of the pond

Burrows Fishlake is tidal, with an underwater opening to the Atlantic, but like most such pools has high mineral and salt concentrations. This makes for interesting anomalies.

“Ocean fish grow bigger in the lake than the ocean,” Shirley continues, “but some develop oddly. Caribbean grunts are usually soft-skinned and tender. In the lake they grow huge, but much tougher. They turn up at the ends in the frying pan!”

There are still big fish in the lake. Sidney Burrows of Governor’s Harbour remembered a Caribbean lobster with an eight-pound tail caught there. Sid once hooked a 600-pound turtle on a long line, that could not be landed. A diver saw a 150-pound jew fish, and Sidney trapped 50-pound groupers, but the meat was too tough. He finally gave up on the pond because “everything in it is too big.”

Edwin’s Fishlake it is not much used today, though the Burrows family has recently restored Edwin’s shack and built a nice jetty where you can rent kayaks.  The ghostly legends persist. Are  you superstitious? Or frightened by things that go bump in the night? Best then to postpone any midnight reconnoitering.

More Eleuthera byways:

The Queen’s Baths