Skegness’s Jolly Fisherman, he of the beaming smile and rotund belly, might be a little less cheerful after it emerged that his image was used without permission on the cover of Bill Bryson’s latest travel book – in which the bestselling travel writer fails to fall entirely under the coastal town’s famously “bracing” charms.
The Lincolnshire Echo reported earlier this week that Lincolnshire town council, which owns the copyright to the image, had not been approached by Transworld Publishers before it used the Jolly Fisherman on the jacket of The Road to Little Dribbling. The council usually charges only £10 to those who want to use the image to cover paperwork fees, granting permission to requests for usage that will promote Skegness.
Town clerk Steve Larner, who grants permission for usage of the Jolly Fisherman, told the Echo that he “wouldn’t have given permission in this case as [the cover] doesn’t mention Skegness”, adding “if the image is used to promote Skegness, then generally speaking it is for the benefit of the town, and if it brings people in then it’s positive”. Bryson does mention Skegness in the travelogue, recalling arriving in the town on the “most miserably rainy weekend of the summer”. “As I could see, there was nothing wrong with Skegness that moving it 800 miles south couldn’t fix,” Bryson writes, adding that: “people everywhere were standing in doorways or under awnings. A few were eating fish and chips, but most just stood staring at the bleak wet world. It wasn’t in the least bit bracing.”
A spokesperson for Transworld said that “given how extensively the image has been reproduced in the past, it was presumed that the image was in the public domain. Now it has been established that the image is in copyright until 2018, we are in contact with Skegness Town Hall with a view to confirming permission.”
Larner told the Guardian that “after positive conversations with the publisher” he was now working with Transworld to resolve the issue.
According to Transworld, “the use of the Jolly Fisherman as part of the cover illustration of Bill Bryson’s book was inspired as a tribute to the iconic nature of the image, which Bill writes about with much affection in his chapter about Skegness”, pointing out that the author also writes positively about the town.
“It was the most traditional of any English seaside resort I had encountered,” Bryson writes. “There was lots of bright neon and noisily chiming arcades and a sickly smell of spun sugar which even the rain could not obliterate. The seafront was dominated by a handsome clock tower, with a good-looking park called the Tower Gardens standing nearby.”
Adding that “everyone knows one thing about Skegness, and that is that it is bracing”, Bryson also goes into the history of the 1908 poster by illustrator John Hassall, which shows the beaming fisherman on the beach, with the caption: “Skegness is so bracing.”
“It is a splendid illustration, but what is especially interesting, I think, is that it gives no hint of sunshine, frolicking swimmers, donkey rides, deckchairs or any other traditional seaside amusements. The man is dressed for foul weather and is quite alone, yet that one image and four simple words have made Skegness famous – indeed, have persuaded hundreds of thousands of people to go there,” writes Bryson. “Hassall was paid 12 guineas for the work. The original hangs in Skegness Town Hall. I would love to have seen it, but the building was closed as it was the weekend.”
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