John Hillman decides that it is high time that the European Eel got some of the attention that it deserves

With the Pride of Britain Awards having been broadcast this week it has become apparent that, amidst all the Z-list celebrities and weeping firemen, we have forgotten our less glamorous heroes.

Who? Who have we so callously defamed with our disregard for their contribution to the advancement Britain? I refer of course to that most noble of species the European Eel.

Now obviously an eel has never been responsible for rescuing a baby from a burning building, but in their own quiet way they have been making the ultimate sacrifice for us northern Europeans ever since our hairy, and slightly unattractive, ancestors first grunted their way up here all those thousands of years ago.

In the modern world, where you can buy a kiwi fruit or mango in the middle of winter, it’s quite easy for us to lose our connection with the natural environment so many of us don’t realise that without this slippery little sea-snake we would have been a pretty malnourished excuse for a nation. Too weedy to pick up dung let alone fire a long-bow.

During the harsh winter months these fish, found in abundance around our estuaries and coastal waters, provided a cheap and plentiful supply of food rich in vitamins A, E and B12, all of which are essential for the aid of a healthy reproductive system, at a time when popping to the vitamin counter at Boots simply wasn’t an option.

Eels might look boring and un-exotic but they actually begin their lives in the Sargasso Sea, off the Caribbean, before catching a lift on the gulf-stream and floating over here on a three year cruise. They then hang around providing us with food for 14 years before swimming all the way back to where they came from for their one and only bash at coitus before nobly dropping dead from exhaustion.

So remember that without this selfless act of sacrifice the chances are that our ancestors would have found life up here in the northern hemisphere that little bit harder, meaning that there’s just that little extra chance that you or I wouldn’t be around today.

Sure, now that we have 24 hour supermarkets we’ve forgotten all about them; you probably think that they’re completely unappetizing compared to your organic rocket pesto and goats cheese pizza, but maybe one day in the future, perhaps when the world economy totters on the brink of collapse after being run by incompetent morons for eight years (oh, hang on a minute), you might want to reflect and give thanks to the common European Eel, a true hero of Britain and a damn sight more appetizing than Simon Cowell and a pair of blubbering traffic wardens.

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