The team
Dai Morgan opened the shop in 1979 after twenty years on the Milford trawlers; his son Gethin has bought on the market floor at half past four since 1994 and owns it now; Siân Rees came home from Billingsgate in 2012 and runs the slab, the crab bench and the school; Carys does Saturdays and the deliveries. Between them they have filleted most of the fish eaten in Barry.
Owner and fishmonger. The market at half past four, the boats, the kiln, the van
Son of Dai Morgan, who opened the shop in 1979 after twenty years on the Milford trawlers; on the market floor at Milford Haven at half past four five mornings a week since 1994, and the owner since 2006. Knows the nine skippers by their first names and their boats by the sound of the engine. Lights the kiln, drives the van, and will not buy a fish he would not eat.
Head fishmonger. The slab, the crab bench, the fish school, the Friday boxes
Grew up above a chip shop in Cadoxton, trained at Billingsgate for three years and came home in 2012. Runs the slab from eight, dresses every crab that goes out, fillets most of the trade order, built the Friday box in the first lockdown and started the fish school in 2022 because she was tired of explaining pin-boning one person at a time. Teaches it every Saturday it runs.
The rest of us, and the paperwork
Gethin's daughter, at university in Swansea during the week and on the slab every Saturday since she was fifteen. Drives the Friday box deliveries, dresses crab nearly as fast as Siân, and runs the shop's Instagram, which is where the turbot gets announced at ten past eight.
One refrigerated van, at Milford Haven market by half past four, Tuesday to Saturday, back on Holton Road by half past seven with the landing, out again to twenty kitchens before nine and the home deliveries on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. Temperature logged at every door.
Food hygiene rated five since the scheme began; registered with the Fish Health Inspectorate for the smokehouse; every box traceable to the boat, the landing and the market lot number, and we will show you the sale note if you ask. Members of the National Federation of Fishmongers.
A fishmonger's margin is about a third and most of it is the van, the ice and the wages; fish that does not sell by the second day is smoked, made into fishcakes or given away, not discounted into a bin. That is why the Sunday price exists and why the kiln is lit three times a week.
Number twelve
Dai Morgan came ashore in 1978 with a bad knee and a trawlerman's idea of what fish should cost, and bought the lease on a shop that had sold fish since the docks were built. He put in the marble slab from a closed shop in Cardiff market, painted the front the blue of the Milford boats, and built the kiln in the yard in 1984 because nobody in the Vale sold a kipper he would eat. The slab, the blue and the kiln are all still here. The tiles are the originals, and the drain in the floor is why the shop can be hosed down at three.
Finding the shopA box for two, four or six: haddock or cod landed that morning, batter mix, blanched chips, mushy peas, tartare, a lemon and the card. Order by Thursday 6pm, collect Friday four till seven or have it delivered within five miles. The same form takes a counter order, a lobster, or a seat at fish school.