This piece has been produced for the Angling Heritage
website of the tragic events of 12th May 1951 when Hugh Falkus lost
his wife and comrades making a film called Shark Island. There are many more photographs now
available which I am sure will be of interest, accompanied by a synopsis of the
events of the day (This tale is told in full detail in Chris Newton’s excellent
book “Hugh Falkus; A Life on the Edge” published by Medlar Press in 2007.)
It all started when Hugh Falkus heard a programme on the BBC
in 1950 by Charles Osborne about marine life. It concerned the fishing for
basking shark off the west coast of Ireland.
The “hot spot” being Achill Island,
where the sharks are harvested, or butchered, dependant upon your
perspective. The fish are caught for the
oil from their liver, “squalene”, and each fish can produce up to 100 gallons.
Whilst the fish were then caught in nets, the traditional
method was for a man to harpoon them from a small boat. Hugh quickly realised
that this would be a much more dramatic visualisation of the process and make
better footage. (The fuzzy picture below is of Hugh Falkus harpooning a basking
shark)
He approached Sam Lee who became Director, with the filming
done by Bill Brendan from Bude accompanied by Hugh who starred in the film, his
wife of four weeks and Charles Osborne using his boat Pride of Cratlagh to film from.
Hugh chose the right year as over 1630 sharks were taken
that year.
The tragic accident started as the boat was out and at
around 3pm as the tide turned the wind picked up. Shortly afterwards, as the
fisherman were finishing their days work, they heard a faint shout and saw an
unclothed man clinging to one of their boats. The rowed out in a small boat and
tied a rope around the man taking him to shore by which time he was
unconscious; it was Hugh. Help was sent for a doctor but upon his arrival, Hugh
was regaining consciousness and told of the boat being damaged and his party
needed rescuing. The Price of Cratlagh had
gone down on Daisy (Dysahgy in Gealic) rock. (Marked in the white box)
As the locals arrived, the found Diana and Sam Lee, both
dead but found no trace of Charles or Bill Brendon was ever found.
They tried to swim to other rocks 250 yards away, but Hugh
thought nobody from shore would see them so stripped off and swam over 1.25
miles in water of only 10 degrees, a superhuman effort for which he was long
admired by the locals.
As a footnote, the locals do not fish around the rocks which
are partially submerged due to the danger, a medium sized wave could easily
smash a boat on the rocks, and Hugh said they were caught by an outsize freak
wave.
Hugh retuned to finish the film, a copy of which is in the
AH archive, but we have not been given permission to put it onto the website
for viewing by the general public by Canal, the copyright holders who may
reproduce it.
