Chapter 4

White Fishing II

The main job in the fisherman's day was the preparation of his line
for sea. It had priority over all else and every member of the family
participated in some way or other. While he was still at sea his wife
might begin opening shells for bait or baiting a spare line and
children were expected to open so many mussels before school each
day. But it was usually on the man's return from sea about the
middle of the morning that the day's work really began.
After he had breakfast, he untied the strings of the platach in
which he had coiled up the line as he hauled it in at sea. Now the
task of redding it began. He sat on a chair and eased it through his
hands and at every tipping he cleaned the hook of used bait, small
fish and starfish (crasgag) and twisted it into the tipping. He let the
line fall in loops on to another platach on his right hand side ready
for his wife to bait.
She sat on a low stool on the right of the redded line with basins of
shelled bait at her feet and a plate on her lap. She usually wore a
canvas or leather apron kept for the purpose. She fed the baited line
into the line creel on her right hand side in regular layers, laying the
hooks from left to right and then right to left over a bunch of bent
grass laid in the creel. She also spread some bent against the lip of
the creel behind the layers of baited hooks, and a layer of chopped
grass was spread over every layer of hooks to prevent them snagging.
When lug were used sand was spread over them but this made the
creel very heavy to carry. When the Daily Express became common
reading it served a double purpose as it was torn into strips and laid
between the layers of hooks.
Baiting a line took roughly two hours and proved a very cold job
in wintry weather in draughty kitchens and it was even more difficult
when, as sometimes happened, it was done in failing light with the
aid of a paraffin lamp or, with an earlier generation, a single candle.
In warm weather redding and baiting were done outside to the relief
of all concerned.

Often when the children were sitting after school shelling limpets or
mussels they whiled away the time and boredom singing all sorts of
songs, from Gaelic and English ballads to the latest Redemption
hymns learned by mother at the herring fishing. 'Shall we gather at
the River' would ring out loud and clear or maybe the romantic 'Far
an ro me raoir' in more melodious tones. Sometimes they indulged in
guessing games for a change, mother participating too, of course.
When all was finished after baiting the kitchen or shed was tidied
up and the creel set ready on the croick (creel stand) made of four
poles with cross pieces at shoulder height, sloping slightly forwards
so that it was easily lifted when setting off to the fishing next
morning.
Just before bed-time the fishermen always went out to have a look
at the weather. They were excellent weather prophets and would
usually know what next day had in store for them. Before going to
bed everything was set ready for the morning - big leather sea-boots
and stockings stood near the dying fire and oil skins and mogans
(mittens) were ready to hand. The men always took a keg of water to
sea and enough food for twenty-four hours, usually thick oatcakes
and hunks of cheese carried in a pockan mor (canvas bag with
drawstring). If there was anything left in the pockan mor when they
came home, any children who were about begged for it. It didn't
matter how salty or wet the food was - what counted was that it had
been out in a boat!

 Depending on the tide, the crew rose any time from midnight to
dawn, and dressed in warm drawers, jerseys, trousers, short oilskin
trousers to the knee and leather, later rubber, thigh boots. Their
ordinary bonnets stayed on unless the weather really justified donning
a sou'wester. The first man up knocked up his crew and after a cup
of tea they hurried away, anxious to be ahead of any other crew,
especially if making for a good fishing ground. He put his oilskins
and floats on top of his platach on the creel, lifted it off the croick
and set off carrying it to the boat. He had another look at the
weather and never failed to consult the barometer at the weather
sheddie after it was put there when the harbour was built.
In spite of a great dislike of seeing women on the way to sea the
fishermen nevertheless relied on them to help launch the boats.
Before Balintore harbour and Hilton jetty were built in the 1890's,
boats were beached every day wherever was convenient and they had
to be pushed off each morning, mainly by the women, who got their
backs under the side of the boat and heaved, to the encouragement of
shouts from their menfolk. This was often dangerous as death by
drowning of women doing this in the darkness was not unknown.
They even had to carry the men aboard pick-a-back to prevent them
getting wet at the start of a day's fishing and because their leather
boots could not stand the wet and became crinkled if soaked. People
still remember seeing this done and in fact it still went on in
Shandwick Bay well after the building of the harbour. In fact,
everything possible was done for the benefit of the bread-winner,
even to the women warming his stockings inside her blouse or jersey
if there was no fire.
The men sailed to their fishing grounds, only rowing if there was
no wind, when they protected their hands by wearing mogans. They
knew the best places to go - sometimes directly in front of the
villages, sometimes to Davie's Rock - 'a famous place for haddies' -
to Tarbat Ness and even to Helmsdale. Until compasses were
introduced they used landmarks. One landmark used Clach Caraidh
(Shandwick Stone) and the Old Shand wick farmhouse kitchen - the
farmhouse wouldn't do, it had to be the kitchen! All these spots were
named in Gaelic which was spoken up to fifty or sixty years ago.
They carried no watches but told the time by the sun striking on
certain hills - 3.0 o'clock hill, 6.0 o'clock hill and so on. If there was
no sun, they just had to guess. Far out at sea, or in fog, skilled men
knew where land was by looking at the waves. Every seventh wave is
a directional one and land lies at right-angles to this wave.
At the chosen spot a float was flung out with a sinker stone and
then the line was thrown out from the creel very carefully so that no

 

Shandwick fishwife

 hooks got entangled. A float went out at every eight hundred hooks
lest the line break. The next man's line was then joined and sheeted
(cast) till there were four or five altogether. They cast landmarks on
the first float and then took cross-bearings. After trawlers came in
about 188213 the fishermen in yawls liked to come along after them
as the trawls stirred up the seabed and improved the feeding so that

there were plenty fish about. The lines were left down for twenty to
thirty minutes and to pass the time they had a smoke, ate their 'piece'
or fished with a hand-line for some more haddies.
Haddock were caught on hard ground in winter and on a sandy
bottom in summer. Sometimes a large cod was caught on the haddie
line when a 'cleep' (gaff) was used to lift it in case it broke the line
during hauling. Sometimes, though rarely, halibut was caught on a
shingly bottom among the haddies. A particularly good area for
flounders was off Port an Righ, inside the rocks. Cod were sometimes
caught on a ripper, a lead or stone weight with four large hooks
hanging around it and used, as the name implies, by ripping it
upwards.
When hauling the line began after the interval, the men used oars as
sail would have been too fast. While one man hauled his own line
another removed the fish and placed them in the creel. The line was
coiled on to the appropriate platach and, when fully hauled, was
detached from the following one. It was gathered up in the platach
and tied firmly with its lashings to carry ashore. Even in the short
time that the lines were down dog-fish caused considerable damage
by eating the fish on them.
Besides rough weather at sea there was another hazard - the
'kerapan'. No one knows just what it was, but to many of the men it
was a very frightening sea-monster. It was very probably a basking
shark and certainly it attacked the boats and often the men fled for
the nearest land, coming along later for their abandoned lines. They
ultimately discovered that throwing a pailful of bilge water into the
sea would frighten off the kerapan immediately.
Going out was easier than coming home as they had the prevailing
westerly wind behind them. On their return they might have to beat
their way back into the wind so they went in close to the little 'ports'
or natural inlets along the coast to turn to tack home, a way of
beating the wind.
It might happen on the homeward journey that a crew would spot
a schooner or coal-boat making for Balintore. They would
immediately close with it and persuade the captain to take one of
them on as pilot. It was an unwritten law that then the rest of the
crew would get taken on at the unloading, a good way of ensuring
labour and not causing hard feelings about choosing labour on shore.
There was no apprenticeship for fishermen. When survival
depended on quick thinking and efficiency young lads learnt fast and
became skilful seamen, and because of this many remarkable escapes
took place after Balintore harbour was built as it is difficult to enter
in rough weather. If the weather turned very nasty while at sea boats

were forced to take refuge in Cromarty or Portmahomack. It was
always for skill alone that the skipper was chosen.
When the boats came in on the shore, the catch was brought
ashore where it was divided evenly into heaps. Each member of the
crew gave a token such as a knife or a pebble to an independent
person who put the token on each heap and that heap became that
man's share. Very often the youngest child there got the job of
putting out the tokens while the men looked the other way. The only
exception to this was the Jerusalem haddock, reckoned to be a holy
fish, and whoever got one on his line was entitled to keep it. It is a
large and striking looking fish, not really a haddock27 and in fact it
does not taste as good as ordinary haddock.
There was a time when factors and farmers considered the shore
was theirs and they claimed the best haddock out of every creel - an
unpleasant custom which was finally stopped when fish-merchants
took a hand and insisted that they should pay for what they took like
everyone else.
There is little record of how fish was sold in the early days but a
certain amount probably went away by sea, as with no railway and
poor roads sales overland were very limited. Even so, fisher folk from
here were carrying a plentiful supply of haddock, cod, skate, flounders
and cuddies in baskets to Kilmuir Easter in 1793.6" In 1763 twenty
haddies sold for 1d, but by 1793 during a scarcity the price rose to
one for 1d.6d About 1830 the fishers of Shandwick and Fearn (the
villages) sailed to Dingwall, moored Peter's Bridge and there sold
home-made fish oil direct from the boats, and carried their smoked
haddock and salt cod into the town to sell at the Feil Maree (fair.)11
The opening of the railway line north of Invergordon in June 1864
caused the tempo of life to quicken on the Seaboard and the fishwife
really came into her own as she could get much further afield with
her burden of fish. On certain days cadgers (carters) went 'into the
country' with a load of fish, often going quite far afield with a spring
cart. With the railway they became very busy also carrying passengers,
luggage and goods to and from Fearn Station.
The fishermen were utterly dependent on cadgers and fishwives to
buy their catch and the price rose or fell as demand indicated. Cadger
and fishwife would haggle over what price to pay per hundredweight
while the fishermen waited, and it sometimes happened that if a boat
was late in coming ashore there would be no sale for the catch as
fishwives and cadgers had gone to catch the morning train. Naturally
maximum profit came to the man married to a fishwife.
When fish-merchants (curers) began to operate after the First
World War, the fortunes of the fishermen started to mend. The first

of these was Mackay the Curer, who lived in the Old Police Station
at Hilton. He began buying surplus fish when there was a glut and
sold it elsewhere, thus keeping the price up so the fishermen were no
longer at the mercy of fishwife and cadger and were more secure.
Mackay the Curer, who was also a butcher, is said to have had
women smoking for him and part-time fishwives selling the speldings.
After the herring yard closed as such, a man named Mitchell
bought fish for a short while and smoked it there; and John and
Willie Strachan, salmon managers, Main Street, Balintore, began to
sell white fish also. They also dried cod up on the bank behind
Balintore.
Gradually others became interested and in addition to acting as
fish-merchants they advanced money for new boats. Such was Mr. J.
Paterson, Hilton, who had five or six boats engaged, undertaking to
sell their fish, after which the catch from other boats might be
accepted. A small charge was imposed for weighing. They used a
Model T. Ford to carry the fish from the harbour to their yard at
Hilton where twenty to thirty Gaelic-speaking cadgers and fishwives
would be ready waiting for it to be auctioned. When scarce it went to
the highest bidder, and when plentiful the price of the first box was
the price for the day so that the late boat did not suffer as formerly.
The buyers had to take a proportion of small as well as large
haddocks and what was left over was taken by cart, later lorry, to
Fearn Station and loaded on the train for Glasgow. If they were
especially large, however, they might be sent to Billingsgate, the
London fish market. There was always a ready market for small
haddies at 6d. a basin in Inver as they were very short of boats there.
Hugh Mackay, a cadger from Hilton, had one boat supplying him
and he, as well as the Patersons, delivered the fish to the fishwives'
homes so that they no longer had to carry it all the way from the
harbour.
The fisherman's only break from this routine was when all fishing
stopped for almost a week during the twice-yearly Sacraments
(Communion) Boats were beached on Wednesday night and did not
go out again till after the Thanksgiving service which ended at
10 p.m. on the Monday, and usually that afternoon was spent baiting
ready to go out on Tuesday morning.
After selling the fish the fishermen were free to go home to
breakfast and to start all over again the round of redding and
baiting. Meanwhile the fishwife began the task of preparing the fish
for sale.
Each fishwife owned a bothan (smoking shed), usually near her
house, made of wood although later on a few were covered with

corrugated iron. The floor was earthen, later causeyed with stones
and later still cemented. In the centre was a hollow where the fire was
laid and as there was no chimney the smoke filled the bothan,
escaping through any chink it could find. A small sliding door at the
top allowed the fishwife to see how the smoking progressed.
The split haddocks were hung on speights (spits) - these were
round wooden rods, 1 inch in diameter, sometimes sand-papered
smooth. The sharp point was pushed through the 'ears' of successive
fish and they were hung in rows from side to side resting on runners
at each side of the bothan so that the smoke swirled about them.
There were two to three levels of runners so that from time to time
the lower speights could be changed over with those above, just like
cakes in an oven. About six speights hung on each runner. In this
way the fish was smoked evenly and when a lovely golden yellow,
they were taken and packed ready for sale. Moray Firth speldings
had a very wide reputation, some even being sent fortnightly from
Hilton to New York as a special order for Sir Charles Ross of
Balnagown.
Before the 'speldings,' as they were called, reached this happy stage
a great deal of expert work went into their preparation. After getting
them home, the haddocks were gutted and decapitated with a very
sharp knife and flung into a shallow tub of fresh water. Sometimes
on her knees beside the tub and sometimes seated on a low stool, the
fishwife, with young helpers if she was lucky, scrubbed the fish clean,
removing all the blood from around the backbone with a double-
ended scrubber and put them into a tub of fresh water. Finally they
they were returned to the first tub, now emptied and rinsed, where they
were salted for about thirty minutes. Some fishwives added a little
brown sugar to this pickle - usually provided by their customers - to
improve the flavour and colour, but not everyone thought this
necessary and did quite well without. Salt was bought at the local
shops very cheaply for a penny a pound or even sixpence for a
bolster full. The fish guts, thrown on the shore, vanished in the
twinkling of an eye down the throats of hungry scavengers waiting
patiently on the rocks near by or on the roofs and chimneys of the
houses around. They needed no gong to call them to dinner.
At the end of thirty minutes the fish were allowed to drip for a
short time on the speights hung between two chairs or on the croick,
and they were then put in the smoking shed. The fire had been
prepared and lit shortly before and the smoking process got under
way. Hardwood blocks, bought from a man at the door for around
3/- a bag, formed the fireplace and some dry tourkens (fir cones) were
laid in the hollow thus formed to start the fire. When it really got

going, on went a good supply of wet tourkens and dry sawdust from
the sawmills. The tourkens were soaked purposely to produce the
needed smoke.
The fishwife watched the fire carefully to keep it smoking properly
and changed the speights around so that the fish did not become
semi-cooked and fall off. Another hazard in one case was children
who also kept an eye on proceedings and when they knew the
speldings were almost ready they nipped in and took one or two to
eat in the privacy of the herring yard.
Later on the speight of the older generation was replaced by the
tinter, a flat piece of wood about two inches wide and two inches
thick and about four feet long, with hooks along both sides sometimes
made from turned-up nails. The tinter was better than the speight
because it made a smaller hole in the 'ears' of the fish. About six fish
hung on each side of the tinter.
Tourkens for smoking were gathered in various fir woods within
convenient distance. Hilton fishwives got theirs in the Little Woodie
at Cadboll (cut down during the First World War) and in the Beltan,
near Cadboll mount, as well as at Calrossie and Balnagown. Balintore
and Shandwick fishwives went there also and to Castlecraig,
Altnadavan and Pitcalzean. Fir cones had top priority for flavouring
the fish but sawdust was used by itself if tourkens were scarce, and
they could even be smoked in the praze fireplace described further
on. One person, a very Epicurean for speldings, would not touch a
fish unless it had that choice tourken flavour and the merest soupcon
of salt.
Gathering tourkens was a matter of knowing where to go and
getting there first, especially after a gale. The women gathered them
in bags and then hired a cart, and later Patersons' lorry, to take them
home to be stored in their sheds. An adequate supply had to be
collected for winter use as 'You can't get tourkens from under the
snow,' as one wise woman observed wrily.
A fishwife did not, of course, go 'to the country' every day. Her
weekly schedule might be something like this: Monday, smoking fish
and doing the household washing; Tuesday and Wednesday, out to
the country; Thursday, smoking and household duties; Friday, out to
the country.
The night before she was going out with the fish, she lined her creel
with fresh paper and filled it up with layers of sweet-smelling
speldings, perhaps a hundredweight or so, and covered them with a
white cloth, fastening it under the rim. Her hand-baskets might
contain fresh haddocks caught that morning or prepared the day
before. When the haddocks were picked up fresh from the boats that

morning she usually cleaned them for her customers at their houses,
while a welcome cup of tea was being prepared for her.
Some fishwives took out only fresh fish, some took mainly speldings
and others took a variety of fish in which case they were carried
separately so as not to spoil each other. In addition to speldings they
prepared smokies which were exactly the same so far as smoking was
concerned, but they were not beheaded or split. Kippered herrings
were smoked like speldings but the head was split and left on. Cod
was usually cut up ready for orders and the roe was sold separately.
Salmon fresh or smoked, was only taken for orders. For smoking it
was split right down the back, salted and a stick pushed through
front and back to hold it open and be sure it was well smoked. Flat i
fish was sold whole, or else filletted and skinned. Whiting was sold ~
fresh, and sea-cat fresh, dried or salted. Crabs and lobsters were only
taken for orders. Sometimes fishwives took out fish smoked for them
by neighbours who could not go themselves because of having small
children. About fifty years ago a fishwife would be very pleased if she
could report a profit of half a crown at the end of the day's journey
round the country.
The Seaboard fishwife, thought not so picturesque as her opposite
number in Newhaven and elsewhere, was a familiar figure on our
town streets and country roads. Into the beginning of this century she
wore a mutch, a white bonnet tying below the chin with a frill
framing the face. These needed careful ironing with goffering irons
but the fishwife's mutch was always as immaculate as her white
apron. Her skirts was of navy worsted with two horizontal rows of
tucks just above the hem, and she wore a cotton blouse or a jersey
and a cardigan. She did not seem to need a shawl or coat, although
later on the mutch was replaced by a little woollen head shawl and
later still by a headscarf. Her skirt was usually maxi-length but when
she was ready to set out she hitched it up with string until it was
higher and the bunched-up skirt and petticoat formed a pad which
took the weight of the creel, and she could walk for miles carrying a
heavy load of fish without much apparent effort. Seventy to eighty
years ago her footwear was sometimes dark blue leather boots to the
knee or strong boots or shoes, and black woollen stockings. She
carried her purse or canvas pouch in the fold of her hitched-up
apron, inside her blouse or tied round her waist with tape.
Fishwives who went to nearby places like Cadboll and Nigg walked
the whole way. The rest walked to Fearn Station and took the train
there, so they must have been very glad to see transport of one kind
or another gradually being put into service during the first twenty-
five years of this century. A horse-brake was put on the road by

 Kennedy Vass, Shandwick. This was a box-cart with a driving seat in
front and fitted with two parallel seats running lengthwise where the
women sat six aside with the creels in the middle. They availed
themselves of this and the cadgers' carts until a bus service was
started in 1918 by the late Mr. Dan Mackay. This bus left
Portmahomack in the morning, picking up school children en route,
and also the fishwives from the Seaboard. All and sundry travelled by
it to Tain and it was only when the majority of the women got off at
Fearn Station that the other younger and more restless passengers
got sufficient leg and elbow room to make the rest of the journey to
Tain Academy in comfort.
The fishwives got a hand from the porters at the station to heave
their creels into the van as they were not allowed to take them in the
carriages. Each fishwife had her own area and got off at the
appropriate station to walk round her district. They went as far as
Invergordon, Alness, Dingwall, Strathpeffer, and even Beauly, and
northwards to Tain and Bonar Bridge.
The return journey on the bus after 4.00 p.m. saw the same
extreme over-crowding with fishwives piling in at the station, shoving

creels and hand baskets in before them to the detriment of schoolboy
and schoolgirl legs and arms. The old and the young most certainly
did not see eye to eye on these occasions and 'What I have, I hold',
was demonstrated if not by voice by action with regard to the few
cubic centimetres of space occupied by the sitter. The gossip of the
countryside circulated as each fishwife told of her day's experiences.
Time was money to these hardy women and the return journey
often saw the creel nearly as heavy as when they set out that morning.
The country people, who had meal but little money, often bartered
meal for fish, and often there was a gift of meal, vegetables, a piece
of venison, fruit such as apples, pears and plums, a few eggs, butter
and crowdie. If the creel was fairly empty the fishwife filled it with
tourkens on her return route. At least two of these intrepid fishwives
still survive - Mrs. B. A. MacAngus, Shore Street, Hilton, and Mrs.
Ross, Bank Street, Balintore.
White fish prices have often fluctuated but they were high just after
the First World War and an era of prosperity followed. In 1925 the
white fishing in the Moray Firth was the best way for many years12
but recession set in quickly causing great hardship and many
fishermen sought work on the land or went into the Merchant Navy.
In the 1930's seine net boats were introduced, the first local one
belonging to the Woods, 'First', and then 'Euphemia' belonging to
William Sutherland. For a few years seine-netting by boats here and
elsewhere in the Moray Firth was very profitable, then their
depredation of the spawn emptied the Firth and white fishing died
away on the Seaboard. The days when it was possible to sit on
Cinneach Rock beyond Hilton and catch a hundredweight of good
cod on a handline do not seem likely to reappear.