Da lasses in 1958, Agnes’s diary started in 1957 the first season, recording their wages and the amount of herring from each boat, and she has listed all the boats in the back. A precious little book.
Da Lasses……Agnes Kay, Joan Sutherland, Elisha Simpson, Ruby Williamson, 1957. The herring gutters from Whalsay, the crew of 4, worked together, lived together, 3 to gut and 1 to pack, still friends.
Today at Mareel, the arts centre in Lerwick, we had a special meeting
with five lovely ladies from Symbister. They were all former gutters the last of the hand gutters, said to do 60 fish a minute before machinery made an appearance. They brought many photographs and a beautifully handwritten diary by Agnes, detailing the boats, names, numbers, the catch and their wages, a real piece of history. We spent the afternoon together and they shared with me their memories and experiences. After nearly 60 years the details were still vivid, as they talked the more they remembered it was being brought alive. It was living history they are the last of this moment in time and the way of life they have also been witness to so much change.
8.15am waiting at Laxo for my ferry to Whalsay, it arrived on time, calm crossing.
A workshop with the secondary school this morning, 6 S1 pupils made sculptures, all had family members who were fishermen, such is Whalsay, a fishing community. 2 large pelagic trawlers moored in the harbour. The afternoon in the heritage centre looking at their collection of photographs, records and objects such as this cotton herring net and photograph of the herring station at Lowestoft, Suffolk, with its strong connections to Shetland, gutters would travel down south to East Anglia, to work, following the fish.
After a light snow fall comes a bonny day. Walking up the hills behind Hoswick, over crunchy frozen ground and icy tracks, the clear light picking out the contours of the land, and finally from the top of the hill a stunning view back over the village and beyond.
Workshop at the Shetland college with a group of adults with learning difficulties, we made plaster casts of found ‘sea+fishing’ objects.
Demonstrating making an impression into the clay of a piece of knotted fishing nets.
