Death on the
Ocean Wave?
New Film explores the impact of the government-sanctioned destruction of the North East's Inshore Fishing Industry
Hartlepool Fisherman, Stan Rennie, in "All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea"
Photo courtesy of Glimmerama Films
Scott Hunter
25 October 2026
It must have come as quite a surprise to Teesside’s inshore fishers when they woke one morning in the autumn of 2021 to find their livelihoods washing up dead first at Greatham Creek, then Bran Sands, and from there down the North Yorkshire coast to Whitby and beyond. The crab they would otherwise have been harvesting had come ashore to meet them. It will have come as less of a surprise to them when, the following spring, the lobster they set out to catch were also found dead.
Between the crab deaths in the autumn and the lobster in the spring came Defra, who let them know that this was all down to natural causes and so they wouldn’t be getting any compensation, even though it looked like a pollution incident, and researchers at the Environment Agency had found the crab tissue that they sampled to contain high levels of the chemical pyridine (a by-product of coking, and thus prevalent where steel is made).
It must have come as quite a surprise to the powers that be at Defra that the fishers did not do as they were supposed to do and just whinge a bit and then go back to work, the fact that the devastation was total and there was nothing to go back to notwithstanding. Instead, the fishers fought back, sought funding, employed researchers, made lots and lots of noise, and had local people right behind them.
The matter was eventually heard by a parliamentary committee, and from there a panel of experts was assembled to consider the matter. It took the panel four weeks to conclude that neither the fishers nor Defra had come up with a plausible explanation of the cause of the die-off, and instead came up with an explanation of their own, which also, coincidentally, was that the cause was natural, and the fishers were to get no compensation. Thus, Defra chalked up another win.
Things quietened down after that. It must have come as an enormous relief to the powers that be at Defra that most of the fishers had gone and got jobs at Lidl and stopped bothering them, apart from a bold few who wouldn’t let it lie. But at least the negative publicity was in abeyance.
All of the fuss was over by the beginning of 2023 when Defra’s panel of ‘independent’ experts published their findings. So, all done and dusted, and could be quietly forgotten about. Except that the fishers’ plight had, unhelpfully, from Defra’s point of view, attracted the attention of multiple award-winning film maker, Jeanie Finlay. This attention has resulted in the recently released documentary “All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea.”
It follows Hartlepool’s Stan Rennie, as, almost inadvertently, he shifts from lifelong fisher to political activist. Jeanie Finlay herself remains in the background, asking the occasional question, but otherwise leaving Stan to tell his own story. The result is both a portrait of someone heroically fighting for justice against all odds, but also someone who ultimately just wants to be able to get back in his boat and get on with the day job.
Stan aboard the Sarah Lynn. [photo courtesy of Glimmerama films]
So, the film does a double take on Stan, showing how much the fight for justice impacts his life (and his health), as well as how he gets involved in the campaign for which he eventually becomes the figurehead.
It was Stan who, quite by chance, uncovered the mendacity of Defra, when it published and misrepresented a photo he had taken in Hartlepool dock. This proved to be the springboard for the campaign that followed, which led eventually to the showdown in the Houses of Parliament where Stan and marine biologist, Dr Gary Caldwell, ran rings round the defence put up by Defra.
In fact, the film lands quite a few punches on those vested interests – Defra, the Tees Valley mayor, and the South Tees Development Corporation – who stood to gain from the suppression of the real cause of the crustacean die-off (reckless redevelopment at Teesworks, the main site of the white elephant that is now Teesside Freeport). For those of us who followed the events around the die-off closely, it is frustrating that more punches weren’t landed, not least because there’s a lot of scope for it. But we recognize that this, ultimately, would be to misunderstand the film, which is primarily a portrait of a person whose life is up-ended by catastrophic events beyond his control. It is not attempting to use Stan’s story to illustrate the tangled politics around the cover-up of the causes of the die off, but the reverse. The events surrounding the die-off illustrate how Stan’s life is affected and how he deals with it. In the end it tells a human story. Precisely the kind of thing that Jeanie Finlay’s previous work shows that she is supremely good at.
If you want the raw politics, read it in the press. Read it, may we suggest, in Tees Valley Monitor; we reported on it much more than any other publication. But the human story and the politics can not be entirely separated. So, we asked Jeanie Finlay what prompted her to make the film in the first place. Here is her reply:
"I'm from Teesside, this is the place where I grew up and the first beaches I went on as a child. I care deeply about this place.
“I'm old enough to remember successive generations of politicians standing on the poisoned land of Teesside making promises of renewal and regeneration, that THEY have the answer for this time. There's an archive clip of Margaret Thatcher we use in the film, she's about to do her famous "walk in the wilderness" from 1987 where she changes from one pair of court shoes to an almost identical "sturdier pair". It feels like an apt metaphor for the big show of promises made that don't fully live up."
“Why make something political?, my films have always been political - the personal is inherently political. They may not be party political but they spotlight lives and voices that may not usually have a platform. Our lives are dominated by people that shout loudly - through their job, position or advertising amplified reach - it feels vital for democracy and human understanding that we are also able to hear from a variety of (quieter) voices.”
Quite.
As for Stan, four years after these events were filmed, he still has plenty of time for activism as stocks have not recovered. Catches remain minimal. The pollution that killed off the crustaceans turned out to be just the first wave. Capital dredging in the Tees Estuary followed that resulted in large quantities of highly toxic material being dumped in Tees Bay, killing everything.
All Rivers Spill their Stories to the Sea is currently being screened at the following locations in the Tees Valley:
The Arc, Stockton: 23 – 28 October
The Waiting Room, Eaglescliffe: 29 November
Stan has informed us that it will be screened at Hartlepool Town Hall on 15 November, but that does not yet appear on the film company’s website.
Details of other screenings are on the company’s website here:
https://www.glimmerama.com/allriversspill
Negotiations are underway to have the film screened in Middlesbrough. Details to follow.
For those who can’t wait, we have been informed that there is a watch party with The Nerve on 2 November. Further details of that as they become available. There is also a review of the film on The Nerve’s website. For those who might prefer theirs to ours, the link to that is here:
And finally …
Director, Jeanie Finlay
The Director’s Statement:
All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea tells the story of fisherman Stan Rennie and the community of fishermen along the north east coast and how they cope after they lose their entire catch overnight. The anger, the indignation at the indifference from politicians.. It's the origin story of an unlikely activist. As the ecosystem that surrounds him declines, so does his health. Stan needs to be on the water to fully live.
But it's also a film about home and denial and grief. Stan has to face his biggest fear - that the sea as he has always known it, and the generations before him did, will never recover. If he no longer sets to sea, who is he?
The film is also about my complicated relationship with my home, made at a time when I was dealing with sudden, intense grief. My childhood friend Tom Butchart, star of my 2011 Teesside record shop film Sound It Out, died just hours after premiering Your Fat Friend at Tribeca in 2023. He had been accompanying me on filming trips, and a glimpse of him appears in the film like a ghost, walking in front of the derelict steelworks, which, like Tom, exists now only in memory. The film is dedicated to him.
Now, instead of making a film in the place I grew up, I was filming in a place filled with memories of my dear friend who had just died, and my father's failing health. That sadness has inevitably imbued the film with a sense of sorrow. Something I leaned into as the edit progressed.
The landscape the audience sees is the first beaches I played on as a child, and the sea is where my 77-year-old tiny mother swims three times a week. Making the film has felt deeply personal. I have been embraced by the fishing community and can now helm a fishing boat.
The film is also about hope. Communities like Stan’s feel that their voices are often excluded from the discussions that decide their futures, especially when they are blocked form communication by their elected officials and so the film tells their story and gives their perspective. Our public conversations are dominated by those with the loudest voices, and so my film focusses on people who don't have a platform.
If these ways of life are to be protected, then solutions need to be found through working together with those who work directly in and with the ecosystems under threat. These voices, if not heard now, are in danger of vanishing forever.
Spoiler Alert: Contains some colourful language.