Play for Today1970

[telling Sally about the perils of being a skipper on a fishing trawler]

Mike Thurlow:
I could run the flaming boat on a sandbank ten minutes out of St Andrews. Or get iced up in the Arctic - down like a stone. Anything could happen. Worst thing of all could happen.

Sally Brown:
The worst thing?

Mike Thurlow:
The thing you don't get away with, no forgiveness - if you don't catch no fish. They'll let you run aground - there'll be no comeback if the charts are wrong or the fog's thick. Get knocked-off for poaching round Iceland - they'll maybe let you off. Lose the odd feller over the side - it makes no odds as long as there's a good story. They'll let you off if you sink with all hands - heroes, then, appeal funds. But you try coming home with no fish. Then see what happens.