Good morning, the Time Crashers are going to explore the life of fishermen and fishwives. The work is hard and grueling. Will the Time Crashers rise to the occasion or will they crash and burn? The run time for this documentary is 46:25.
The Time Crashers is in Suffolk and the home of one of England’s oldest industries: fishing. It is cold and rainy, “perfect conditions” as Tony Robinson puts it. The year is 1885 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. Britain is the world’s most powerful trading nation. Fishers in Suffolk send their goods to market by train. Charlie takes charge of the Time Crasher’s manual. He announces the men are oystermen and they work for the company. The number one rule is not to eat their catch. Oystermen are no longer independent and now work for a private company. Louise takes charge of the women. They will be the “wives” of the oystermen. They will be helping their “husbands” catch oysters but will not get paid for the position. The wives will have to find other ways to make money. The Time Crashers play along with this theme. Running a fishery was the job of the company foreman. Roger Barton is going to keep the Time Crashers on track. He announces that they have an order for oysters and that the order needs to be completed by 5:00. The foreman also has a wife, and she will oversee the ladies. The Ladies will be collecting seaweed. Zoe is feeling optimistic in this era and will find the seaweed with Meg. Wet seaweed was the bubble wrap of the day and will be used to pack the oysters. Meg gives Zoe a lesson on how to walk over mudflats. Zoe has taken a hit in confidence during the eras, so perhaps this is an era where she can shine. The Foreman works with the men. Oysters were originally the food of the poor, however, due to overfishing, the oyster population collapsed. When the population collapsed, then the oysters became the food of the rich. The men will have to collect 400 oysters and five sacks of muscle. The men divide their work and set off. They will have to mind the tides, so they must get a start on the oyster beds. The tide will come in in four hours. The weather is miserable. There are only 7 hours left in the day for the Time Crashers to fulfill their order. To make extra cash, the oystermen caught herring. The remaining fish wives work with the herring to fulfill local orders. It is the first time some of these women have even gutted the fish. At the muscle beds, the men are working hard raking oysters. Chris is complaining about the cold. Roger comments that there was always a weakling and he thinks Chris is the weakling. Downstream, Zoe and Meg are nearly finished collecting seaweed. Zoe is happy with the physical work of picking seaweed. The other fishwives are working to gut the herring and preserve them. To fulfill an order of 100 herrings, they need to be halfway by midmorning. However, they have only done twenty-nine herrings so far and it was only 11:00 in the morning. The oyster pickers go through their catch and have only caught 280 oysters. They will have to trawl for the rest of the oysters. The tide is against them. The muscle rakers want the tides to stay away while they finish their five sacks. This is a section that got nerve-wracking. Will the Time Crashers make their deadline for seafood orders? Or will they get a just punishment for their failure? Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more. Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting to mention the social historian, Cassie. She does a good job providing context, but does Sir Tony need a social historian to provide context? I think Tony could have handled this show on his own and did not need the social historian. In all honesty, I was here for Tony and the celebrities and not Cassie. Anyway, this was a tense episode of will the Time Crashers finish their order? I had my doubts throughout the episode. Again, this would be a good series for a fun history day.
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