A fishy tale...

The very first time we ever came to Lewis, was on a trip over from the Isle of Skye where we were on holiday. It was October and the nights draw in fast at that time of year.

I was sitting in our car, in the car park pictured in this post, eating the most wonderful fish and chips. DH peered through the darkness and pouring rain and said "Oh look at that poor old guy over there going through a dustbin..." I looked too and could just make out the dark shape of someone leaning over into a bin. I was horrified and pleaded with him to go and buy this poor unfortunate some fish and chips.

When he'd dried his tears of laughter, DH confessed that the 'down and out' was a statue of a Herring Girl, leaning over her Herring Barrel. I can never look at her now without thinking of that night! Here she is - a rather beautiful statue in honour of some extremely strong women.

And here's a closer look so that you can appreciate the wonderful details of her.

Up until the 1930's, the herring industry was very strong and provided a welcome income for many grateful Hebridean families. The main UK curing stations were found in the ports of Yarmouth, Galston, Lowestoft, Lerwick, Stronsay, Wick, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Ardglass and, of course, Stornoway.

During the months of May and June the herring girls or clann nighean an iasgaich, as they were affectionately known, would travel to find work in the busy herring yards, often going as far as Shetland. In late September they would return home for a short while before travelling to the southern ports of England for the winter fishing.

In 1913 the Fishery Officer based in Stornoway reported that in May and June of that year, 2,400 women had left for the herring ports of Shetland and the east coast of Scotland, with 1,613 of them later travelling on down to Yarmouth and Lowestoft. They were usually referred to as girls as many of them left home when they were sixteen years old.

The women worked in teams of three, two to gut and one to pack the fish into the barrels of salt. When they came off the fishing boats, the herring were unloaded into large wooden troughs called farlans.

The gutters could gut a fish with just one stroke of their knife. Most women could gut around 40 fish every minute but some were much faster! The women wrapped strips of cotton or sacking around their fingers and thumbs to protect them from their knives. The fish was then packed into barrels and the guts used as fertilizer by local farmers.

Living and working conditions were harsh. A team of girls would travel, work and live together for the entire season. The working day was long, usually out on quays exposed to the weather. I love this picture of a rather beautiful girl topping up a barrel with brine.

The women would usually begin work at 6 am and keep going until the day's catch had been processed. This sometimes meant that they did not finish work until 11 o'clock in the evening. There were breaks, for meals - with breakfast between 8am and 9pm and dinner from 1 pm to 2 pm. The working week finally finished at 6 pm on Saturday. On Mondays they would usually be given a half a day off to do their laundry and to clean the huts where they lodged.

I can't imagine what life as a Herring Girl must have been like. The conditions must have been awful - working in all weathers, gales, wind, sleet, rain; stinking of fish all the time; being covered in scales and slime; the constant danger of being badly cut by a gutting knife and the subsequent infection without benefit of antibiotics or the chance of being crushed by a fall of barrels...those girls were tough and brave - and poor, God bless them.