At the turn of the last century Graham West’s great-great-grandfather, Charles, packed some belongings, boxed up some oysters and took his boat from Whitstable to the west coast of Scotland. After a freezing winter, the population of native oysters off the Kent coast had all but died out, so Charles headed north to join the Loch Ryan Oyster Company. It took a long time for the native oysters to become re-established; Charles didn’t return to Whitstable for five years.
West’s company, West Whelks, is built on his family’s 150-year history of landing and selling shellfish on Whitstable harbour. He supplies tens of thousands of oysters, whelks and other shellfish to restaurants, as well as selling seafood directly from his stall on the harbour. But like others in Whitstable, West is now wondering if a local fishing industry can survive in Britain‘s polluted waters. A number of Whitstable’s fishing boats have left the harbour or been driven out of business entirely, and a business that has supplied sustainable food for thousands of years (oysters were cultivated here by the Romans, and exported across the empire) is dwindling.
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