George Lewis is the author of several books including Mates for Life and Strange Mates (Ammonite Press) and Castles and Waterfalls (Park Lane Books). He also contributes to newspapers, magazines, encyclopaedias and partworks. Lewis learned about knots in the 1950s from herring fishermen on his ancestral Isle of Man. Pupil and teachers have long gone their separate ways: the former, like most Manxmen, to the British mainland through economic necessity; the latter into the history books after the Irish Sea was trawled to near exhaustion. Lewis retains the traditional knowledge and here demonstrates that knots can give us so much more than the means to catch the traditional accompaniment to chips.