Went to Whalsay today, very windy and after my last experience at sea slightly apprehensive, it is only a 40 minute ferry crossing, but the sea was looking pretty choppy, in the end it was fine, what was all the fuss about! Whalsay is a separate island to the east of the Shetland mainland and is home to a strong fishing community, we were going to meet a lady called Margie an ex- herring gutter married to a fisherman and daughter of a former gutter. She has very kindly offered to gather together a group of Whalsay ex-gutter ladies for me to meet at a later point. Margie was a delightful and amusing lady, full of stories and hospitality.
We were also visiting the school to discuss a workshop in 2 weeks time and then the days’ finale was spent in the heritage centre meeting some more lovely people and looking at the artifacts, photos and documentation in the small collection of treasures, all donated and meticulously cataloged. To be able to see herring nets, gutting knives, smookies, baskets and many other objects was very inspiring. They also had albums full of diary’s, aural history accounts and photos. We were running short of time to get our return ferry so I need to go back, I shall be going back, it was a wealth of source material. A favourite thing was the work diary kept by Mrs Agnes Shearer during her years at the gutting 1957-1961, which listed all the names of the boats, the catch and their wages. At last I know what a gutting knife looks like something I have been wondering about, there were many gems. These fine fellows are the crew of the ‘Willie Bruce’.
