The Herring is King !
I have been lucky enough to be given another set of the most amazing photographs today, they are a valuable historical record as well as being very good images, packed full of information. It is interesting that I can read accounts and listen to people telling me facts and information about fishing however it is not until I see an image that it starts to make sense. Over the last week I have learnt a lot about driftnets and how they work – probably just scratched the surface really- but seems a lot bearing in mind the extent of my knowledge before the project began. When I saw this photo and the sheer volume of these nets it became more real and could begin to understand the extent of the work involved in the setting out of so many nets and then hauling them in.
This morning was spent in the company of Magnie Shearer in his house in Levenwick, once again I spent a very enjoyable few hours listening to first hand accounts of the history of the Herring/Pelagic industry and what it means to Shetland. Magnie has worked in the business all his life, his family owned J&M Shearers one of the main Shetland curing yards. The photographs were taken by his father, also Magnie, and date from the 1960’s and 70’s. They have a wonderful quality because they were originally in slide format which gives them that luminosity and sharpness. This is just a taster of them, there are many more and they will also go into the Fish Van Collection. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the process of curing the fish and the particular specifications of the barrels, it is amazing to see the extent of the business with the huge numbers of barrels piled up, this was in the 1960’s, I can only imagine how it was in the boom period of pre WW1. Magnie gave a vivid description of how the herring season months of May/June/July/August brought this great flurry of activity,work and socialising, Shetland came alive with everybody involved in some way, from the women arriving to be gutters, the fishermen, the buyers, the curers, the coopers, the grocers selling his food to the boats and even a man to scare away the gulls, it then quietened down for the winter months which is when the barrels were made….I would like to find out more about the coopers, so now for some more images……
All photographs by Magnie Shearer
