nor·mal magazine

How I learned to love my body








Monday 2 February, 2026
Text by Grace Fitzpatrick
Photography by Sophie Fallon



Cornish pearls — Using only the power of the wind and centuries-old traditional techniques, harvesting oysters in the last wild fishery in England is a sustainable, yet dying, practice. Jack Burke goes trawling with Jason, one of the few keeping it alive, to find out more.
 “It’s in my blood,” Jason says, squinting into the middle distance. The early sun cuts hard lines into his salt-weathered face – a complexion etched by a life hauling rope, reading tides, and smoking wet, filterless cigarettes on a river that hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.

It is a crisp October morning and we are standing outside his fisherman’s cottage on the edge of the Fal, pulling on waders. Outside, the river sits glassy and pale, willow trees dipping their fingers into the water. Woodsmoke lifts from a nearby chimney. It is beautiful, unspoilt, Cornwallpreserved in amber.

“This,” he says, flicking his head behind him, ​“is the family home.” His father was a fisherman too. He learnt everything here. ​“I was never going to do anything else.”
“It’s in my blood,” Jason says, squinting into the middle distance. The early sun cuts hard lines into his salt-weathered face – a complexion etched by a life hauling rope, reading tides, and smoking wet, filterless cigarettes on a river that hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.

It is a crisp October morning and we are standing outside his fisherman’s cottage on the edge of the Fal, pulling on waders. Outside, the river sits glassy and pale, willow trees dipping their fingers into the water. Woodsmoke lifts from a nearby chimney. It is beautiful, unspoilt, Cornwallpreserved in amber.

“This,” he says, flicking his head behind him, ​“is the family home.” His father was a fisherman too. He learnt everything here. ​“I was never going to do anything else.”
“It’s in my blood,” Jason says, squinting into the middle distance. The early sun cuts hard lines into his salt-weathered face – a complexion etched by a life hauling rope, reading tides, and smoking wet, filterless cigarettes on a river that hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.

It is a crisp October morning and we are standing outside his fisherman’s cottage on the edge of the Fal, pulling on waders. Outside, the river sits glassy and pale, willow trees dipping their fingers into the water. Woodsmoke lifts from a nearby chimney. It is beautiful, unspoilt, Cornwallpreserved in amber.

“This,” he says, flicking his head behind him, ​“is the family home.” His father was a fisherman too. He learnt everything here. ​“I was never going to do anything else.”





















“What I like most about the wild oyster is that it has a chance. It can avoid us, live out its full life. Farmed on es – you know exactly how it ends.”JASON, WILD OYSTER FISHERMAN


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