Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Seafood Matters, and thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us again today. I'm delighted to welcome Linda Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: curator of the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. The Museum
Speaker 1: is one of the great guardians of Scotland's fishing heritage,
Speaker 1: preserving the boats, the gear, took, photographs, and above all
Speaker 1: else the stories of the men and women who built
Speaker 1: our coastal communities. Linda joins me to explore what that
Speaker 1: heritage can teach us about the past, the present and
Speaker 1: the future of Scottish fishing. Hello Linda, and welcome to
Speaker 1: Seafood Matters.
Speaker 2: Hi Jim, it's great to be here, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you. I've really looked forward to this conversation.
Speaker 1: I've got huge it's beg for what you do down there,
Speaker 1: and can you please explain to our listeners just pick
Speaker 1: off the importance of the Scottish Fisheries Museum and what
Speaker 1: makes it unique and such a special place.
Speaker 2: Well, that's quite a big question to start off with,
Speaker 2: and it's quite a big museum. If you've visited, you'll
Speaker 2: know that it's grown from a very small start, founded
Speaker 2: by members of the fishing community themselves back in nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: and it started off just as a wee museum and
Speaker 2: it's grown and grown and grown because the story of
Speaker 2: the fishing industry in Scotland is such a big and
Speaker 2: complicated story. If you're talking about all the different roles
Speaker 2: that the fishing members of the fishing community had catching
Speaker 2: the fish obviously, and then all the work that was
Speaker 2: done on shore to process the cat, to prepare the gear,
Speaker 2: to sell it on to market it take it all
Speaker 2: around the world, and then all the equipment and the
Speaker 2: tools that people had, and the communities that grew up
Speaker 2: around that and around the coasts. It's a really big
Speaker 2: story to tell. And I think Scotland without I mean,
Speaker 2: it's inconceivable to think of Scotland without a fishing industry.
Speaker 2: So it's a really important story that people needed to
Speaker 2: capture when they captured it because it was changing really
Speaker 2: fast in the nineteen sixties, and need to keep capturing
Speaker 2: it and keep telling it because as we all know,
Speaker 2: the numbers of people who are employed in the fishing
Speaker 2: industry now has declined, but it's still an important industry
Speaker 2: within Scotland and it's still we still got that really
Speaker 2: long coastline and all of those communities that owe so
Speaker 2: much of their heritage and their culture to fishing. We
Speaker 2: need to keep telling that story. And I think the
Speaker 2: museum is a unique place. It's in a unique set
Speaker 2: of buildings, it's right by the harbor, it's grown, as
Speaker 2: I say, over the years, so it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: got that kind of hand made feel to it, which
Speaker 2: obviously fishing was was hand crafted for so much of
Speaker 2: its time, and that real community feel, and I think
Speaker 2: that's really important to preserve.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. If I could ask you, sitting in the
Speaker 1: museum looking over the harbor, what like this the sunrise.
Speaker 2: Sunrise or sunset sunset?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Amazing, Yeah, I'm just picture that. Yeah, yes, Yeah, we're
Speaker 2: right on the on the mouth of the first and fourth,
Speaker 2: so the sunrises right over the over the mouth of
Speaker 2: the firth, and then you know, obviously sets sets over
Speaker 2: over Edinburgh Way. Yeah, it's a great a great view.
Speaker 1: What attracted you to the world of fisheries, heritage and
Speaker 1: museum work before? Before joining your museum, where did your
Speaker 1: career did you.
Speaker 2: Well? I have to confess at this point that I
Speaker 2: don't have a background in fishing, myself at all. I
Speaker 2: grew up near next to the sea in East Lothian,
Speaker 2: but my family are not a fishing family, so I
Speaker 2: am a total newcomer to this, or I was a
Speaker 2: newcomer to this when I when I came to the museum,
Speaker 2: my passion was always history, and mainly I would say
Speaker 2: the history of people and how people lived their lives
Speaker 2: and how how they in the past solved the same
Speaker 2: problems that we're trying to solve in our own lives today.
Speaker 2: And I find it fascinating to find out how people
Speaker 2: lived in the past, how very different they were from us,
Speaker 2: and how very much the same they were from us now.
Speaker 2: So I studied history at university up in Aberdeen, and
Speaker 2: then I took a couple of years out and I
Speaker 2: went abroad and I did some teaching and discovered that
Speaker 2: teaching was not for me, and then I did some
Speaker 2: office work and bits and pieces and decided actually what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do was share my passionate history with
Speaker 2: people through working in a museum. And I think coming
Speaker 2: to the Fisheries Museum, that's the museum that has given
Speaker 2: me all of those aspects that I wanted to bring
Speaker 2: into a working career of doing the research, telling the stories,
Speaker 2: connecting with people, and yes, doing a bit of the
Speaker 2: teaching element as well, but not in a classroom. That's
Speaker 2: that's where I am. And I commend very much as
Speaker 2: somebody who didn't have a clue about the industry. But
Speaker 2: I'd rely very heavily on our volunteers and our community
Speaker 2: here to keep me right on that side of things.
Speaker 1: That's a great story and really and that, Okay, everybody
Speaker 1: doesn't know, there's no well we maybe come across a
Speaker 1: few people in our days who know everything. There are
Speaker 1: just a chosen few, so you but but I redout
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, okay, there's parts that you were low on.
Speaker 1: You've taken something to the Musicum, yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's it's being interested. I think I
Speaker 2: do find history and the past inherently fascinating and I
Speaker 2: really would like to share that with people and people
Speaker 2: who say that hits the history is not important or
Speaker 2: you know, why do I need to know about the
Speaker 2: history where we're living here and now? Well, how can
Speaker 2: you understand the hero and now if you don't know
Speaker 2: where it's come from? How do you how can you
Speaker 2: solve the problems you're facing if you don't know how
Speaker 2: people in the past have approached the same things, and
Speaker 2: you might be missing a trick if you don't look
Speaker 2: to the past just to see how things were done
Speaker 2: back then.
Speaker 1: And you're you're very fortunate to be in a position
Speaker 1: or a situation I should say, where you're now doing
Speaker 1: what you've wanted to do. That's lovely, it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do most days feel very lucky to
Speaker 2: be doing the job that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent. Are there memorials or stories in the
Speaker 1: museum that particularly affect you personally?
Speaker 2: It's striking you use the word memorial because we do
Speaker 2: have a memorial room within the museum, and that is
Speaker 2: dedicated to fishermen and lifeboatmen who have lost their lives
Speaker 2: at sea. And to me, one of the most poignant
Speaker 2: things in the museum is where you get a brass
Speaker 2: plaque up on the wall and you see the names
Speaker 2: of every member of a crew who's gone down with
Speaker 2: a vessel, and then you look a bit closer and
Speaker 2: you realize that a lot of the surnames are the same,
Speaker 2: and you realize that that's members of the one family,
Speaker 2: and that, to me, is that shows the impact that
Speaker 2: the fishing industry can have on families and communities because
Speaker 2: the men went on the boats together with their family,
Speaker 2: and they owned the boats together, and it was that
Speaker 2: shared endeavor. And of course then you've got the families
Speaker 2: waiting at home waiting for them to come back safe,
Speaker 2: and that crew didn't come back safe. And I think
Speaker 2: that particularly when you've got people who actually come, which
Speaker 2: they do fairly regularly, come to pay their respects to
Speaker 2: their relatives. And we've got plaques from from all over,
Speaker 2: so people do come from all over.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Just being able to well be a being able to
Speaker 2: provide that service of somewhere where they can come and
Speaker 2: pay their respects, whether that's an individual visit or whether
Speaker 2: it's we have an annual memorial service as well. But
Speaker 2: then just seeing that, you know, even a couple of
Speaker 2: generations on that tragedy is still having an impact on
Speaker 2: that family. And I do find that very affecting.
Speaker 1: But it must be for that families that have the
Speaker 1: plaques there in that room, what a special place it
Speaker 1: is for them.
Speaker 2: I hope, so, I hope, so, I mean we will
Speaker 2: we keep it, We keep it going, and we keep
Speaker 2: the memorial service going every year because it is important
Speaker 2: to honor that. Yeah, fishing is a very dangerous job.
Speaker 1: Still, Yeah, I'm not wanting to take anything away from
Speaker 1: the memorial room. But when you mentioned same names in it,
Speaker 1: there's two it brings to mind two things. One, I
Speaker 1: remember a woman from the Seafish organization. She went up
Speaker 1: to Peterhead to do some she had some meetings and
Speaker 1: things to do. I was speaking to her after that
Speaker 1: and she says that the funny thing she says she
Speaker 1: had a brilliant day she met over twenty people. But
Speaker 1: the funny thing about it, they were all buck uns
Speaker 1: and strakings.
Speaker 2: Yes here they're all Muars and Watson's.
Speaker 1: But yes, and my own situation a small fishing village
Speaker 1: at Helmstell. I'm from Cowey's Jim Cowey's my name, James
Speaker 1: is my as I call my son. The name, as
Speaker 1: you know, Jim and Scotland is short for James. When
Speaker 1: we were in school, there was only twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pupils in the class in the school. My
Speaker 1: older brother was David Kowe. Now I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's the same goes in it now, but the older
Speaker 1: brother was called after the father's on the father's side,
Speaker 1: and then the next was called on the mother's side.
Speaker 1: So I'm David's called after his father's father. I'm called
Speaker 1: after my mother's father. So he's David koe I'm James Kowey.
Speaker 1: When we were in school, there was nine David Kowie's
Speaker 1: and seven James Kowey's.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's either very traditional or a severe lack of imagination.
Speaker 2: I would say, have.
Speaker 1: You any hidden games in the collection that it's overlooked?
Speaker 1: What's the oldest or most unusual object in your museum?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if it's the oldest object in
Speaker 2: the museum. It's certainly the oldest piece of fish I've
Speaker 2: ever seen. We have a piece of dried fish hanging
Speaker 2: up in one of our galleries, just showing how fish
Speaker 2: was dried. That has been there certainly as long as
Speaker 2: I've been at the museum, which is over twenty years now,
Speaker 2: and it was reputed to be about twenty years old
Speaker 2: at that point. Wow, So I wouldn't like to sample
Speaker 2: it now, but it's still it's still hanging on the wall. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's quite an unusual one. My favorite object in the
Speaker 2: museum is actually slightly tangential to fishing. It's actually a harpoon.
Speaker 2: It's the head of a cast iron or wrought iron
Speaker 2: harpoon head from the nineteenth century and it was used
Speaker 2: for whaling. And before you say, I know, a whale
Speaker 2: is not a fish, but the Fishery Board for Scotland
Speaker 2: actually that was set up in the nineteenth century to
Speaker 2: superintend fisheries. They covered whaling as well, so I think
Speaker 2: when the museum was set up, it was decided that
Speaker 2: the museum would cover whaling as well. And one of
Speaker 2: our buildings actually was owned by a whaling company, so
Speaker 2: there's a connection there. But the object itself, it's the
Speaker 2: shaft that the iron shaft of the harpoon with the
Speaker 2: barb point and it's been twisted into our corkscrew shape
Speaker 2: and that was done while it was stuck in the
Speaker 2: side of a whale. And to me, it's a rather
Speaker 2: gruesome object when you think about it, but it's just
Speaker 2: to think of. On the one end of that was
Speaker 2: a creature fighting for its life, twisting and turning in
Speaker 2: the water. On the other end, on the end of
Speaker 2: a piece of rope, was a small boat with four
Speaker 2: or five men in it, clinging on for grim death
Speaker 2: up in the Arctic seas, and just as an object
Speaker 2: that tells, as a single object that tells a story,
Speaker 2: I think it's a really powerful object. You've got this
Speaker 2: what's the one piece of twisted metal and suddenly this
Speaker 2: whole tailed wow comes out of it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, that's fantastic. The funny when you mentioned the
Speaker 1: dried fish, Linda. Anytime bridefish is mentioned, it takes me
Speaker 1: back to a situation I had. I did a lot
Speaker 1: of business in the fair O Islands and used to
Speaker 1: go there a lot. Loved going there, great people, and
Speaker 1: it's I think, to my dying days, I'll take the
Speaker 1: memory with me. I'm a skipper, an owner of a boat.
Speaker 1: Go and see him, visit him. I'm sitting in the
Speaker 1: city room. You can just picture it. I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: the sitting room, his citing room. His family are there,
Speaker 1: their children and some of the children's friends. We had
Speaker 1: a like you can imagine a coffee table with bites
Speaker 1: for like biscuits or cake, and that with our coffee
Speaker 1: and plates of suits. They were crazy for every time
Speaker 1: they were fishing, one of their boats would come to scrabster.
Speaker 1: We would be putting on board hundreds, literally hundreds of
Speaker 1: tens of Macintosh chocolates, Quality Street all that tins of
Speaker 1: hundreds of tons of them, and they were all spread
Speaker 1: out on the coffee table, and there was dried fish
Speaker 1: on plates as well. All this was a spread in
Speaker 1: the coffee tables. I kid you not, Linda. The children
Speaker 1: were taking their dried fish, not the sweets. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine that in this country?
Speaker 2: No, in a word, No.
Speaker 1: I've never I've never got my head round that.
Speaker 2: No. No, it's it's interesting that you're You've just reminded
Speaker 2: me that one of the the things that's great about
Speaker 2: working behind the scenes at the museum, because obviously we've
Speaker 2: got a much bigger collection than we can actually show
Speaker 2: at any one time, and we've got lots of books
Speaker 2: from ships chandlers and the suppliers who supplied the boats.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that always amazes me is
Speaker 2: the number of tins of condensed milk that went aboard
Speaker 2: these boats. Yeah, yeah, just to keep the crew going.
Speaker 2: Just all the condensed milk, so sweet tooth.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you a story about I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: story about condemnsed mild my experience, that's a bit of different.
Speaker 1: My experience was condemnsed milk. All I ever wanted to
Speaker 1: do is that child. It'd be out in my father's
Speaker 1: boat was a family board be out at sea, and
Speaker 1: when we were out there fishing between the halls, they
Speaker 1: would have a muggy tea and I was getting the
Speaker 1: carnation milk and my tea, and my uncle was obviously
Speaker 1: it was all brothers, father and his brothers that had
Speaker 1: the boat, and one of them, my uncles, was he
Speaker 1: had a small bottle of milk. He took a piece
Speaker 1: with him every day and he had a small bottle
Speaker 1: of milk. So, I sister, when I saw it picture,
Speaker 1: I'm maybe up ten would be the oldest I was then,
Speaker 1: and assist him. Oh, uncle Jim, you're you don't use
Speaker 1: you use cow's milk. No, no, no, no, he says,
Speaker 1: I don't think cow's milk. I use bull's milk. And
Speaker 1: look at home. We landed at home. I an't landed.
Speaker 1: I was home in the house, and next morning my
Speaker 1: mother sent to me at the breakfast table, and how
Speaker 1: did it go? Oh, it's great, Michael jumped and I
Speaker 1: told her and I often wondered, which although I never
Speaker 1: ever never would any further. I often wondered if there
Speaker 1: was through the pongo drums, what do you saying to
Speaker 1: our children? So anyway, moving on the True Price of Fish.
Speaker 1: The title of the book exclusively available your book, sorry,
Speaker 1: exclusively available in the museum. That takes me back as
Speaker 1: well to my childhood. The very title. It's mean so
Speaker 1: much to me, Linda, And I'll tell you why. When
Speaker 1: we were kids, you know, the ship to shore or
Speaker 1: the radio. We could put on the radio on the
Speaker 1: long wave and listen to the boat talk on the
Speaker 1: big sets and we just loved that. And then may
Speaker 1: be news it would come to man overboard, boat sank,
Speaker 1: all hands whatever. My mother still from from a todt
Speaker 1: right up. My mother would always say, that's a true
Speaker 1: price of us. Mh. So when I see the title
Speaker 1: of your book, I just wow, it just takes me
Speaker 1: back to that and what a fantastic book it is.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you. I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's such a rich story to try and encapsulate, and
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to do even within a museum of
Speaker 2: this size, and even more so within a book. But
Speaker 2: we're just so lucky with the collections that we have
Speaker 2: and the generosity of people over the more than fifty
Speaker 2: years that the museum has been around, just you know,
Speaker 2: because the vast majority of our collections are donated, so
Speaker 2: we're reliant on the generosity of people bringing those things
Speaker 2: in and sharing them with us, and then we can
Speaker 2: share them with our visitors of course.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's fantastic the way that goes all
Speaker 1: the different methods of fish in different boats. Now I've
Speaker 1: going right back with a sale. Just amazing. So the
Speaker 1: photos are fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love our photo photo collection. Actually, it's one
Speaker 2: of my favorites. There's always there's always new things to
Speaker 2: discover within it, whether it's whether it's I mean it's
Speaker 2: quite difficult to photograph men actually at work out at
Speaker 2: sea because they're busy working. They're not they're not going
Speaker 2: to take the camera out and start taking photographs. But
Speaker 2: some of the community aspects and how even the children
Speaker 2: are involved. As you were talking, you know, as you
Speaker 2: were saying, going down to the harbor and helping get
Speaker 2: the get the catch on onto the onto the quayside
Speaker 2: and getting the boat's bakes as the the steamers went
Speaker 2: down to Yarmouth, and all of these things are captured
Speaker 2: in the photograph I.
Speaker 1: Mean, and then I mean remember coming across one of
Speaker 1: them with the motor power page and there's a the
Speaker 1: note in about kelvin petrol or paraffin and it says
Speaker 1: sixty sixty horse power. Well, my going back to our
Speaker 1: family board, it was it was fifty four foot, which
Speaker 1: is it would go into the fishing room. Of some
Speaker 1: of the modern boats, they's so much bigger. But as
Speaker 1: far as we were concerned, we thought she was a
Speaker 1: battleship and it had a kelvin eighty eight eighty eight
Speaker 1: horse power kelvin. So that's taken me back to that.
Speaker 1: And when you think of you know, I've spoken to
Speaker 1: some bettermen with the modern boats and they're into the
Speaker 1: the two thousand and.
Speaker 2: I know, I know some of the sizes of these
Speaker 2: these old engines. You know, we've got an old Gardener
Speaker 2: engine and it's it's it's two meters long, and I
Speaker 2: don't know what the horsepower is, but it's it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's less than eighty eight. It's just crazy how things
Speaker 2: have moved on in the technology and the and the mechanization.
Speaker 1: That's well well done in the book. I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you spoke along with there
Speaker 1: with some of the other museums, but I've got one
Speaker 1: helm still, which obviously where I'm from. And they've got
Speaker 1: the time Span Museum, Yes, yeah, and they've got a
Speaker 1: book out now, Poetry of People and the Sea. And
Speaker 1: I have to have a confession to make Linda. I've
Speaker 1: I've gone over and over the most stunning photos. I
Speaker 1: haven't read a poem yet. That's a terrible admission. But
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the one from Lossy Mouth Andrew
Speaker 1: Campbell just a lossy loon.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 1: No, it's brilliant. It's brilliant because Andrew Campbell was such
Speaker 1: a successful fisherman in his day. I can remember Andrew's
Speaker 1: book in term. In fact, i'll tell you this story
Speaker 1: about him. I was back at night. I can tell
Speaker 1: you exactly when it was. Nineteen seventy one. We got married, Marian.
Speaker 1: I were now fifty five years married. We were in
Speaker 1: honeymoon in Oban. Now a lot of the we call
Speaker 1: them I n s, becaise the register you know, the
Speaker 1: letters for lossy boats was i ns and barns we
Speaker 1: used to say, I n s was I never sleep.
Speaker 2: And that's a good one.
Speaker 1: So our honeymoon was in Oban and a lot of
Speaker 1: the Lossy boats then, I mean LOSSI Mouth had the
Speaker 1: biggest seenor fleet in the country and a lot of
Speaker 1: them fished out of Oban, and so yes, think of
Speaker 1: the out here's the situation, first or second night of
Speaker 1: her honeymoon in bed and I hear I'm out of
Speaker 1: bed out the window binocular and I see the I
Speaker 1: NS sixty, I think sixty six, I think, And here's
Speaker 1: me watching the boat. One of the first nights of
Speaker 1: bed of her honeymoon. And a number of years later
Speaker 1: Andrew is up. But another fisherman's funeral, Norny Bremner, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know of the boy Andre. He passed
Speaker 1: away and we're at his funeral. And I spoke to
Speaker 1: Andrew and I told him that story and he and
Speaker 1: he's broad Lossy accent. Ay ay, that's my boat. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be Do the museums speak together, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're quite. All museums are different, they're all they're all,
Speaker 2: you know, there's all manner of different ways of setting
Speaker 2: up a museum. But we're pretty good at getting together.
Speaker 2: We've also got for heritage heritage vessels, there's an organization well,
Speaker 2: there's National Historic Ships UK down in London and they
Speaker 2: have a kind of a network of ship shape they
Speaker 2: call it ship Shape Hubs and we are the the
Speaker 2: ship Shape hub for Scotland and so through that we
Speaker 2: try to connect with all the historic vessel operators. So
Speaker 2: there's kind of there's kind of museum networks and then
Speaker 2: there's the historic vessel networks. So we try to be
Speaker 2: quite quite well connected and swap stories and you know,
Speaker 2: for example, there might be a museum that's going through
Speaker 2: its collection and finds that there's something that it's got
Speaker 2: that it doesn't feel that sits very well with us
Speaker 2: with it, so they might offer it to us. Or
Speaker 2: we might have something that we think actually we've got
Speaker 2: duplicates of that would another museum, would it be better
Speaker 2: in another museum, So there's that kind of conversation goes
Speaker 2: on a fair bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Good to collaborate and cooperate where we can.
Speaker 1: Totally question in industry and coastal communities, you know, do
Speaker 1: sometimes feelly ignored. How do you find the importance of
Speaker 1: preserving their history. Even although they feel that they're ignored,
Speaker 1: you obviously make it. I think a great job of
Speaker 1: showing that they're important.
Speaker 2: Well, we try to. I mean, as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: I think the history of I can't imagine Scotland without fishing.
Speaker 2: There's there's so many there's so much coastline for a start,
Speaker 2: there's so many fishing harbors. But I think it is
Speaker 2: quite easy to overlook. I think somebody has called it
Speaker 2: sea blindness. People don't even they see the sea as
Speaker 2: a kind of just a blue expanse on the horizon.
Speaker 2: They don't actually think of it as an environment where
Speaker 2: people have their livelihoods and work, whether that's in fishing
Speaker 2: or in all the other industries that utilize the sea
Speaker 2: and its resources. So I think I think that's changing.
Speaker 2: For example, the city of Dundee, which we're quite close to,
Speaker 2: for years and years there was no development along the waterfront.
Speaker 2: The waterfront was just used as a motorway, as kind
Speaker 2: of a road network just to get in or out
Speaker 2: of Dundee. And I think they've over recent decades they've thought, actually,
Speaker 2: we need to make much more of the waterfront. It's
Speaker 2: a great immunity it's a great resource. So they're developing
Speaker 2: that and trying to make more of the fact that
Speaker 2: they are a city that's on the banks of the
Speaker 2: River Tay. And I think for people just in general,
Speaker 2: there is a reawakening of awareness of the importance of
Speaker 2: the coast and the sea, whether that's for health and
Speaker 2: well being, whether it's for generating money, if it's the
Speaker 2: insure fisheries industry and you know that kind of luxury
Speaker 2: seafood market that is so much of the story that
Speaker 2: Scotland tells to the rest of the world. Visit us.
Speaker 2: We've got all this wonderful seafood, and then you've got
Speaker 2: other people who are farming seaweed or farming shellfish and
Speaker 2: trying to kind of sit look at new ways of
Speaker 2: exploiting coastal waters and coastal habitats. So it's yes, it's
Speaker 2: a difficult one because the fishing industry. I think it's
Speaker 2: because the boats are our way out at sea and
Speaker 2: they're beyond the horizon. People don't see it. They don't
Speaker 2: they don't see that work that goes on. They just
Speaker 2: see the end result. And also it's a lot less
Speaker 2: visible than it used to be in the past, because
Speaker 2: the boats are much bigger, so and everything's enclosed, and
Speaker 2: then they'll come into harbor and the factories of processing
Speaker 2: is all done in enclosed buildings where it used to
Speaker 2: be done outside or you know, in people's own own
Speaker 2: homes or in the in the yards outside their homes
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's easier to ignore it, but I think
Speaker 2: it is still so much of a part of who
Speaker 2: we are as a country and as a culture. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a difficult one. It's a difficult one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then everybody goes for their fish and chips,
Speaker 2: don't they. Everybody still still loves to eat their fish
Speaker 2: and chips, but maybe not to think about too much
Speaker 2: about where that's come from. So it's bridging that gap
Speaker 2: between you know, that the end product and how it's
Speaker 2: actually got there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they were better in the past that
Speaker 1: that accepted acknowledging where their fish was coming from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel that anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were more people employed in the industry as well,
Speaker 2: because as you were saying, you know, the boats were smaller,
Speaker 2: so there were more of them, and so maybe it
Speaker 2: was it was just a bit more visible.
Speaker 1: But before yeah, as the boats were yeah, they're always
Speaker 1: maybe in some bigger than that. But one of the
Speaker 1: converse stations, Linda, another conversation I'll never ever forget. I'm
Speaker 1: on the pear and scrubs the skipper. The boat just landed,
Speaker 1: a really well known, well known and well well respected
Speaker 1: Orkney fisherman, and Albert read standing there after he landed.
Speaker 1: We've sorted everything out, chat in a way we'd hear
Speaker 1: this one. He says to me, Well, Jim, it's all
Speaker 1: very well for you. We could stand here in the
Speaker 1: harbor here and chat for the rest of the day,
Speaker 1: but he says, there's a bad forecast and I want
Speaker 1: to get out to see because I don't want to
Speaker 1: get stuck in here. So the boats may have been
Speaker 1: made a steel but sore the man. Yes, that's a
Speaker 1: lasting memory for me. Well that what can museums gather
Speaker 1: and protect better than statistics and government reports.
Speaker 2: I think that has to be the personal stories that
Speaker 2: people bring. Just this afternoon, actually we had a chap
Speaker 2: come in and he was he was ninety and he
Speaker 2: handed in to me the ganzy that his grandmother, who
Speaker 2: died in nineteen forty nine, had knitted for him for
Speaker 2: his first trip to the sea, and he was going
Speaker 2: to see from Port Seaton. He would have worn that
Speaker 2: ganzi when he was seventeen years old, and he wore it,
Speaker 2: you know, on a string of fishing boats, which I
Speaker 2: can't remember the names of now, but I scribbled them
Speaker 2: down as a bit of as I talking to me.
Speaker 2: And it's it's absolutely beautiful. I mean, it's it's exquisite
Speaker 2: that the fine detail of the stitching. He said, he leanded,
Speaker 2: loaned it to a friend who probably washed it a
Speaker 2: bit too hot and it shrunk a wee bit, so
Speaker 2: it's a little bit feltered, but it's still it's pristine.
Speaker 2: And it's that kind of story behind that ganzy that
Speaker 2: no book will tell you that. And that was a
Speaker 2: fisher roam fishing family and likewise, you know, the names
Speaker 2: had cone down the generations. And he also had his
Speaker 2: grandfather's seaboot stockings that that she had also knitted. And
Speaker 2: you know, if if you don't, if you don't, if
Speaker 2: you don't get the story, it's a pair of socks.
Speaker 2: If you get the story, then you know, then then
Speaker 2: there's a story you can tell. And you can you know,
Speaker 2: you can see where the heels have been mended, and
Speaker 2: you know she's been, you know, in between his trips
Speaker 2: to see she's been quickly darning the heels of his
Speaker 2: socks to get him out, back out again and keep
Speaker 2: him dry and warm. And that's from a conversation. And
Speaker 2: that's the kind of story or bit of information that
Speaker 2: you won't find in any of the reports. And the
Speaker 2: reports are are important because you know the number of
Speaker 2: boats that there are, a number of boats that there were,
Speaker 2: and the catches and how they were processed and where
Speaker 2: they all went to. That's that's really important when you're
Speaker 2: getting a picture of the national industry and how it's
Speaker 2: ebbed and flowed and the different ups and downs of
Speaker 2: the pelagic versus the commercial. You know, all of that
Speaker 2: is important to understand, but it's the it's the stories
Speaker 2: that people bring that bring it to life. And I
Speaker 2: think museums can do that and we do that by
Speaker 2: obviously by telling those stories on labels, but we also
Speaker 2: have recordings that people can listen to as they go
Speaker 2: around the museum, so you know, they can pick up
Speaker 2: a headset and listen to somebody in their own words,
Speaker 2: talking about what it was like to be out there
Speaker 2: on those boats, you know, using the equipment that people
Speaker 2: can see as they go around.
Speaker 1: I'll quote you this verse, pull the tread at the
Speaker 1: bottom and ravel a fisher's tale, a scratchy yet soft
Speaker 1: reminder of when boys were grown at sea. That's a poem,
Speaker 1: a gansy behind glass. It's the book from that I
Speaker 1: mentioned to your Poetry of People and the Sea from
Speaker 1: Timespan Museum. I spoke to them today, Linda. I've got
Speaker 1: a copy to send to you.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, fantastic, and there's.
Speaker 1: A poem and photo of three guys in their galzies.
Speaker 1: But they all had ghanzis. We all had ghanzis and
Speaker 1: that's not to be forgotten. I think it's fantastic. You
Speaker 1: haven't museum acknowledged the importance of fishing in Scotland's history.
Speaker 2: I think by trying to show all those different aspects.
Speaker 2: I think by trying to show it's not just the
Speaker 2: guys out on the butt, not that that's not important,
Speaker 2: the guys on the boats actually catching the fish, but
Speaker 2: it's it's much wider than that, and it's the fact
Speaker 2: that there were women involved, there were children involved, there
Speaker 2: were men, there were people on shore and offshore, there
Speaker 2: were the guys, the factories making the oil skins and
Speaker 2: the nets, and the boys and the sails and building
Speaker 2: the boats, and it was a whole, you know, industry
Speaker 2: and then concentric circles of industry that came out of that.
Speaker 2: And we don't try and tell a simple story, and
Speaker 2: we don't try to answer all the questions either, because
Speaker 2: the more you look into it, as with anything, I imagine,
Speaker 2: but the more you look into it, the more complex
Speaker 2: and interesting and nuanced a story it is. And we
Speaker 2: try to do that justice within our displays and also
Speaker 2: within our temporary exhibitions. So as I said, we've got
Speaker 2: many more things in our collection that we can show
Speaker 2: any one time. So we have a program of temporary exhibitions,
Speaker 2: and within that program we'll try to have a focus,
Speaker 2: for example, on Ganzi's or on artwork, or on some
Speaker 2: of the technical aspects. We had a recent one on
Speaker 2: the impact of steam power and the railways because it
Speaker 2: was the an story of the railways in Britain, and
Speaker 2: these looking at the stories from different angles and picking
Speaker 2: out different aspects means you can delve into things in
Speaker 2: a little bit more detail and bring out another kind
Speaker 2: of aspect of the nuance and also maybe interest people
Speaker 2: who have an interest in nitwear, so they'll come for that,
Speaker 2: and then they get interested in the story of the
Speaker 2: fishing industry. Or they've got an interest in steam engines
Speaker 2: and steam locomotives and trains, so they'll come for that,
Speaker 2: and then they'll get an interest in the fishing industry
Speaker 2: because they haven't realized that, you know, the two two
Speaker 2: go together. So I think it's trying to show the
Speaker 2: entirety of it well, knowing that we'll never quite manage it.
Speaker 1: The thing that I like, I see it in your book,
Speaker 1: which I'm pleased about, and as part of that story,
Speaker 1: and it's the woman as well as the man. Although
Speaker 1: they had hard they had hard lives, hard work. That
Speaker 1: has my own granny has told me in the past.
Speaker 1: They had something great times and they were so happy.
Speaker 1: That's so much fun as well. And I see that
Speaker 1: some of your photos there's fishermen smiling, which I think
Speaker 1: is you know what, holding a big hall, a bit
Speaker 1: or something like that, something special.
Speaker 2: So exactly, Yeah, I think, Well, it's it's any it's
Speaker 2: any job or any kind of occupation or situation where
Speaker 2: things are tough. You've got to find the humor, haven't you.
Speaker 2: It's like that kind of it's almost like gallows humor.
Speaker 2: But you know, if if if you've got a hard
Speaker 2: working life, then you find you find you take the
Speaker 2: opportunities to have a bit of a laugh. And there's
Speaker 2: a fantastic photograph that we've got of one of the
Speaker 2: boats with Brighter Hope that we've we've got we've got
Speaker 2: objects that relate to that boat, and there's a there's
Speaker 2: a photograph of the crew and they're just holding up
Speaker 2: things that they had to hand, and they're they're posing
Speaker 2: like a skiffle group on board the boat with like
Speaker 2: you know, a barrel lid for a banjo, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's just it's just mad. But they're obviously just
Speaker 2: taking a two minute break from hauling on the lines,
Speaker 2: just to be daft for a minute. And I think
Speaker 2: that the women as well. It is such a contradiction
Speaker 2: because they worked so hard and yet you hear the
Speaker 2: stories about the the herring gutters who would go down
Speaker 2: to Yarmouth and they say, oh, but it was so
Speaker 2: much fun and we would go to the pictures and
Speaker 2: we would we would, you know, hang out with our
Speaker 2: friends and and I think I think we forget now
Speaker 2: that how unusual that was for, you know, a gang
Speaker 2: of young women to go off together, traveling halfway down
Speaker 2: the country, you know, staying in lodgings or you know,
Speaker 2: together wherever they were working, earning their own money, having
Speaker 2: their free time, being able to go to the pictures,
Speaker 2: being able to you know, go to the fishermen's mission,
Speaker 2: or going window shop in the in the great resort
Speaker 2: town of Great Yarmouth, and then have their earnings at
Speaker 2: the end of the season to take back on the
Speaker 2: train with them. And you know, they did have that freedom,
Speaker 2: and they had that independence as well as working very
Speaker 2: very hard for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And obviously it's been a as you say,
Speaker 1: it's been. Fishings has always been a very dangerous profession.
Speaker 1: But I think museum with what you mentioned earlier memorial
Speaker 1: room a great way of acknowledging losses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I.
Speaker 1: Say, I hope.
Speaker 2: So the visitors book is quite interesting to read because
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of our visitors do comment and say, well,
Speaker 2: they bring up those two points. They bring up the
Speaker 2: point that you know, they now realize the value of
Speaker 2: the fish that they're eating and the what a hard
Speaker 2: life people had. And they also really welcome the fact
Speaker 2: that we do highlight the role of the women in
Speaker 2: the industry and the vital role that they played.
Speaker 1: That should never be forgotten. My goodness, my grandmother, my
Speaker 1: old grandmother on my father's side, he was, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can just picture or my goodness, you would be
Speaker 1: and a boot in the harbor and doing all the
Speaker 1: work things they would do with no rubber gloves, no protection,
Speaker 1: just bare hands, and about salt when they were saltings,
Speaker 1: and about beating m hm boks and stuff like that. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's part well, is there, Ralph? Feeling that you feel
Speaker 1: that you or you hope that visitors will leave with
Speaker 1: after walking through the museum.
Speaker 2: But if you said it, I hope that I hope
Speaker 2: they'll they'll understand more about the industry and and the
Speaker 2: fact that it's not the fishing industry. It's it's many
Speaker 2: different fishing industries, and you know obviously the change over time.
Speaker 2: But I hope that they would they would have a
Speaker 2: respect for the people who built the industry and who
Speaker 2: under underpin it to this day. But I also hope
Speaker 2: that they would they would also see that the kind
Speaker 2: of the positives of the industry and how it's inspired
Speaker 2: people as well, because a lot of what we have
Speaker 2: on display are things like, well, we've spoken about poetry,
Speaker 2: and you know, we have examples of poetry on display.
Speaker 2: We have wonderful artworks on display, and people who have
Speaker 2: really taken inspiration from the fishing community and the fishing
Speaker 2: industry and its culture and then use that to as
Speaker 2: a as a support for creativity. So it's it's it's not.
Speaker 2: It's not you know, we're not We're not trying to
Speaker 2: batter people over the head with all the doom and
Speaker 2: gloom behind the it's it's it's also a story of innovation, adaptation,
Speaker 2: two economic changes, environmental changes, industrial changes. It's a story
Speaker 2: of entrepreneurship and resilience, I suppose, and also of that
Speaker 2: strong community culture and traditions that are then inspiring for
Speaker 2: other people.
Speaker 1: I always thought as well, when the thinking back, for sure,
Speaker 1: when maybe on this one only particularly skippers when they
Speaker 1: were in I mean they had anything between five and
Speaker 1: maybe seven men that they were responsible for, and they were,
Speaker 1: you know, how to be mindful of looking after and
Speaker 1: if they got in a situation with bad weather or
Speaker 1: something gone wrong or that what ann bull confidence they
Speaker 1: must have had and strength to come through anything like that.
Speaker 2: I think so, Yes, I think so, although I mean
Speaker 2: you'll know this better than me. But probably they would
Speaker 2: be the last to admit it, and they would have
Speaker 2: just said, oh, yeah, well that's just the job, you know.
Speaker 2: I just got on with it.
Speaker 1: But I asked. I remember asking that there was a
Speaker 1: particular bad weather, now Helmsdale or my home village there were.
Speaker 1: It was on the east coast, so any one that
Speaker 1: gales anything bad weather easterly or southeasterly or that was
Speaker 1: really bad. And then I've seen the water, white water
Speaker 1: just breaking from end to end in the bay. And
Speaker 1: here our boat come in one day. Girl was sp
Speaker 1: I says, how a nurse did you manage to get
Speaker 1: in with that weather? And he says, no bother, no bother.
Speaker 1: He says, we hadn't a bother. He says, I had
Speaker 1: the coal shovel. I was able to keep the water.
Speaker 1: I would say, just breaking over them.
Speaker 2: There you go, resourcefulness, that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How would within the all it's like your artifacts
Speaker 1: and your what you've come you've got there, how would
Speaker 1: you would you say you could see in the exhibit
Speaker 1: not sorry, it not exhibition. The museum life and fishing
Speaker 1: communities has changed over this sense, over the past essentially,
Speaker 1: I would say.
Speaker 2: That the biggest change has been the increase in mechanization
Speaker 2: and the increases in technology, because yeah, I mean the
Speaker 2: last century were going back to the nineteen twenties, So
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties, you still had sailing boats, you know, and
Speaker 2: obviously there were steam drifters, and there was steam liner,
Speaker 2: steam trawlers and motor boats as well coming in. But
Speaker 2: it was all very much powered by human hand, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean there were some winches and haulers and so on.
Speaker 2: But compared with you know, modern vessels with all the
Speaker 2: hydraulics and the power blocks and all of that and
Speaker 2: the sheltered decks, and you know, it's much more physical,
Speaker 2: much more physical, and much more to do with reading
Speaker 2: charts and reading you know, rather than you know, a
Speaker 2: GPS system that does it all for you. And so
Speaker 2: it's the same, it's always it's the same techniques that
Speaker 2: are being used that it's the same or very similar.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously net technology has changed as well, but
Speaker 2: you know, you're still putting a net around some fish
Speaker 2: and hauling them out of the sea one way or another.
Speaker 2: But that's the same, but it's how that is done.
Speaker 2: It's very different. And I think that's really interesting because
Speaker 2: just thinking for myself, I think it's much easier for
Speaker 2: people to get a grasp of and maybe going back
Speaker 2: to your earlier point about people not understanding what fishing is,
Speaker 2: nowadays it's much easier to get a grasp of things
Speaker 2: if they can see how they work. So if you
Speaker 2: look at like an old fashioned hauler or something like that,
Speaker 2: you can see the gear wheels, you can see, or
Speaker 2: the rope goes through that way and you pull it
Speaker 2: and that's how it works. Or you know, even if
Speaker 2: somebody's got an engine in their car, you know, if
Speaker 2: you can see the bits that are moving, you can
Speaker 2: see how it works together and what it's for and
Speaker 2: how it does what it's meant to do, whereas now
Speaker 2: everything's all enclosed and it's all hidden away and you
Speaker 2: plug it into a computer and the computer diagnoses the
Speaker 2: problem for you. Or you know, if you're trying to
Speaker 2: plot a course, you put the coordinates into your GPS
Speaker 2: and it gets you where you're going to go, rather
Speaker 2: than have I got the map the right way up?
Speaker 1: When? How what's that?
Speaker 2: So I think it's much more difficult to kind of
Speaker 2: get a handle on things when it's when it's all electronic.
Speaker 2: But actually showing people those older methods that were in
Speaker 2: use one hundred years ago, fifty years ago, they can
Speaker 2: actually see the workings, and I think that's really that
Speaker 2: really helps people to understand what's going on and why
Speaker 2: it's important, why it needs to be done, and also
Speaker 2: why these guys who were doing it were so good
Speaker 2: at what they did and and needed to be because
Speaker 2: they had to. They had to they had to run
Speaker 2: a business as a as a fishing vessel, and they
Speaker 2: needed to be good at navigating, and they needed to
Speaker 2: be good at all the mechanical stuff, and they needed
Speaker 2: to be good at finding the fish and also reading
Speaker 2: the markets and all of that side of things. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's so multifaceted.
Speaker 1: You know when you talk about when you were talking there,
Speaker 1: remember exact words, but you were talking about wheels, and
Speaker 1: it's reminded me of what I class, what I would
Speaker 1: say and our family was a real funny story. Linda,
Speaker 1: it's good back, Well, it was good back to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about. I said earlier, the Kelvin eighty
Speaker 1: eight and they were in. We have problem. It's a
Speaker 1: gearbox problem, and you know the wheel, the the there's
Speaker 1: teeth on them and that and that engages them. And
Speaker 1: dogs called them and they had a problem with this.
Speaker 1: So they're looking at it and no, no, we're going
Speaker 1: to need to get an engineer. So they got my
Speaker 1: Father's there their their father, so that's it was my grandfather.
Speaker 1: They got him and says Luke go up and phone
Speaker 1: Shepherd's engineers, who are the engineering company, and whick who.
Speaker 1: He says, we're needing to get them down because and
Speaker 1: he says, just tell them the big dog is going
Speaker 1: over the small dog and it's just smashing its teeth
Speaker 1: and it's just breaking his teeth. So it's no engaging.
Speaker 1: So my grandfather goes up. He gets up to the house.
Speaker 1: You'll you'll remember, I'm sure you're you'll remember. That's the
Speaker 1: So he dials hello. She says hello, can I help? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says, the big mysodas he says in Helmsdale. He says,
Speaker 1: we're needing yet. Have a look. He says, the big
Speaker 1: dogs are getting over the top of the small dogs
Speaker 1: and smashing their teeth. The woman came back and system,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry about your dogs, but can you tell
Speaker 1: me what's number or what?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: It was the open. Has any of our traditions survived
Speaker 1: and do you feel maybe some of them have disappeared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a that's quite a sweek broad sweeping question. Undoubtedly,
Speaker 2: there's traditions that have disappeared, but yeah, some of them,
Speaker 2: some of them survived.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's.
Speaker 2: Quite a lot of well you'll know this as well,
Speaker 2: superstitions within the fishing community. Things words that are not
Speaker 2: to be said, and and things that are not to
Speaker 2: be the right the wrong color aboard a boat. And
Speaker 2: I think there is still some of that. We are
Speaker 2: restored five feet the Reaper. There are certainly words that
Speaker 2: are not to be said aboard the Reaper, and wobatide
Speaker 2: anyone who starts whistling a tune, which I think is
Speaker 2: a is a very old tradition to avoid whistling up
Speaker 2: a wind while you're at sea. I mean, looking at looking,
Speaker 2: looking at more more more recent traditions. That there was
Speaker 2: a time when all the harbors had their their gala days,
Speaker 2: and I think there some of them are struggling now.
Speaker 2: And it was really lovely a few years back that
Speaker 2: Cellardyke Sea Queen was revived, So that was quite quite
Speaker 2: an interesting one because it had fallen out of of
Speaker 2: kind of current use, but it was revived. So I think,
Speaker 2: I think it depends. I mean, each each small community
Speaker 2: has its own its own practices and traditions, and it's
Speaker 2: again difficult to say what what is a tradition that
Speaker 2: belongs to the fishing industry and what is a local.
Speaker 1: Did you find with that superstitions? And sometimes you didn't.
Speaker 1: It was okay to mention to speak the word as
Speaker 1: long as you weren't on board the boat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard that, I've heard I've heard of that.
Speaker 2: I've heard of that. But I've also heard of places
Speaker 2: where you just weren't allowed to say the words at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah.
Speaker 2: Other other words were used. We have a we have
Speaker 2: a room in the museum with a it's a it's
Speaker 2: got a small window in it that's got a design
Speaker 2: made out of sea glass, and it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it she was a salmon, But that was never called
Speaker 2: the salmon room. It was always called the redfish room. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, that's a common a common translation
Speaker 2: for for the term.
Speaker 1: I heard a coal iron. I've heard a pink fish,
Speaker 1: red fish yeah, h never never salmon no.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we've got I mean, we've got some some
Speaker 2: really quite interesting objects in the collection. Talking thinking about
Speaker 2: customs and traditions and superstitions, we've got a small child's
Speaker 2: leather shoe that was hidden in the in the chimney
Speaker 2: of a house and that was to keep the witches
Speaker 2: out because it was it was used as a decoy.
Speaker 2: And that's that's quite a common thing, not just in
Speaker 2: fishing communities, but kind of late eighteenth nineteenth century, where
Speaker 2: you would if bad spirits or witches were looking for
Speaker 2: the people in the house, if you hid an item
Speaker 2: of clothing in a chimney where they might get in,
Speaker 2: or by a window or a door, they would they
Speaker 2: would enchant that instead of going for the person, they
Speaker 2: would be decoyed. So that's that's quite an interesting item
Speaker 2: in the collection.
Speaker 1: Did we use a real strong tradition with us if
Speaker 1: somebody passed away and there was a came to the funeral,
Speaker 1: woman would never go to the graveyard. Yeah. Ever, in fact,
Speaker 1: my own sister says we still with not that she's
Speaker 1: wanting to keep with the tradition, but she's frightening to
Speaker 1: think that her father would think of her if she
Speaker 1: did go. So she'll she'll go to the service, she'll
Speaker 1: go to the house and things like that, but she'll
Speaker 1: just no go to the graveyard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I've heard of that one as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And a woman he never never, never would
Speaker 1: there be allowed on a boat on the boat. I
Speaker 1: was in Scrubster one day not that long ago, and
Speaker 1: there was a young lad and board and his girlfriend
Speaker 1: and her pal. They were down and the and Scrubster
Speaker 1: on the boat and I was just standing in the
Speaker 1: thinking back, Thank goodness, my father's no seeing that.
Speaker 2: But you see these these things go around because you
Speaker 2: know there's going way back. It was the boats that
Speaker 2: used to take the women to go and get the
Speaker 2: herring before they went by train or you know, other
Speaker 2: ways of traveling. Have you ever read the Christian Watt
Speaker 2: Papers That was written by a woman called Christian Watch.
Speaker 2: She lived in Broadsea up near Fraserburgh, and she was
Speaker 2: remembering the eighteen forties and she's got some fantastic stories
Speaker 2: and she's got some really strong opinions on many things,
Speaker 2: but absolutely fascinating character and fascinating life and a really
Speaker 2: hard life. She lost a lot of her relatives at sea.
Speaker 2: They were all all fishing, but she remembered going on
Speaker 2: her father's boat to the west coast to catch I
Speaker 2: think it was odd. They were catching in the season
Speaker 2: and the women went on the boat and then they
Speaker 2: stayed in huts by the shore and they would cure
Speaker 2: the fish that the men caught, you know, lay them
Speaker 2: out on the shingle and dry them, and then they
Speaker 2: would they would go on the boat back. And then
Speaker 2: as I said later on, it was when the when
Speaker 2: the first boats from the from Cellardyke actually that went
Speaker 2: down to Great Yarmouth and started off that that East
Speaker 2: Anglian kind of herring trip, and the women went on
Speaker 2: the boats before before they started chartering trains and things
Speaker 2: like that. And of course now you get you know,
Speaker 2: female fishers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think, yeah, just yeah, there were I
Speaker 1: think maybe the fishermen in the past by like my
Speaker 1: father's era and before that, and that there were just
Speaker 1: men of their time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was very though, because you know, we
Speaker 2: tell the story of how important that the women were
Speaker 2: to the fishing industry, but they had their distinct roles.
Speaker 2: You know, they were preparing the gear and they were
Speaker 2: processing the catch and they were sometimes they were selling
Speaker 2: the catches fish wives as well. But you know, in
Speaker 2: that period kind of nineteenth century period was it was
Speaker 2: very gender. They wouldn't have caught them actually fishing on
Speaker 2: board the boat.
Speaker 1: But even then, when I'm thinking, I mean would have
Speaker 1: seen made many a time thinking a lottery load of
Speaker 1: fish to the Lake Aberdeen and my goodness, just some factories.
Speaker 1: There would just be rose and rose women, filets and
Speaker 1: real characters, brilliant characters, you know, of any misconceptions have
Speaker 1: a bit of Scottish fishing heritage.
Speaker 2: I think people don't realize how much goes into it.
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, it's it's an easy mistake to make.
Speaker 2: If if you don't know, then how why would why
Speaker 2: would you know that there was a difference between the
Speaker 2: inshore fishing industry and the boats and the different fishing
Speaker 2: methods that people use, and you know, the the offshore
Speaker 2: with the large scale fishing industry.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's getting back to that that story of
Speaker 2: complexity and nuance, and I don't think that that's that's
Speaker 2: widely understood and the fact that you know you've got
Speaker 2: some fishermen who they have a boat and it's just
Speaker 2: them and they go out on a daily basis or whatever,
Speaker 2: and they're fishing from their home port. And then you've
Speaker 2: got you know, these vast logic trawlers of the workout
Speaker 2: of Shetland and just you know, are a completely different
Speaker 2: scale and then everything in between. And I think that
Speaker 2: that's maybe not quite understood by people outside of the industry,
Speaker 2: just how how many different aspects there are and how
Speaker 2: complex it can be, and the fact that that you
Speaker 2: know that a lot of the fishing is done by people,
Speaker 2: you know, running their own business and owning their own
Speaker 2: boat and fishing and doing it all themselves, and it's
Speaker 2: not all big, big companies.
Speaker 1: Is there any single artifacts in the museum that perhab
Speaker 1: the attention of most visitors.
Speaker 2: I think that would have to be the largest object
Speaker 2: that we have on show, which is our Zulu the Research,
Speaker 2: and that's that's a full sized vessel that's within the museum.
Speaker 2: We have a number of full sized vessels in the museum,
Speaker 2: but most of them are you know, smaller kind of
Speaker 2: in shore boats or or even smaller than that creole boats.
Speaker 2: But the Research is a massive, a massive vessel built
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh three and fished till nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: and built as a sailing Zulu and then later motorized,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately all that we have left is the hull.
Speaker 2: We have some of the equipment that came off her.
Speaker 2: But in some ways that makes her even more impressive
Speaker 2: for people because you can when you come in the gallery,
Speaker 2: you come in at ground level and you're kind of
Speaker 2: walking outside the outside, the outside of the hull of
Speaker 2: the boat, and then the route takes you up and
Speaker 2: around until you're kind of standing looking down inside the
Speaker 2: hull and you can see the construction. And I always
Speaker 2: think it's absolutely astonishing to think that those massive oak
Speaker 2: frames were shaped by hand tools, you know, and because
Speaker 2: when she was built, that's that's how they would have
Speaker 2: built her with hand tools, and then obviously the planking.
Speaker 2: And as curator, I have had the opportunity to go
Speaker 2: down inside the hull, which the visitors unfortunately don't, and
Speaker 2: when you're standing on the keel and you're looking up
Speaker 2: just the sheer scale of it, it's just absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, brilliant, that's brilliant. Are their stories told behind the exhibit?
Speaker 2: We always try and tell stories. So with the research,
Speaker 2: we were lucky enough that her last crew, because she
Speaker 2: was built in the Northeast and then she went up
Speaker 2: to Shetland and spent most of her working life in Shetland,
Speaker 2: we were lucky that some of her last crew were
Speaker 2: still alive when she was donated to the museum, so
Speaker 2: we got their stories, and her engineer, Gibbey Williamson in particular,
Speaker 2: left a good amount of stories of you know, fishing
Speaker 2: trips in her and so we try and share those
Speaker 2: with the visitors because, as I say, that's what brings
Speaker 2: the boat to life. Without without that, she's I mean,
Speaker 2: she's still an amazing object, but it's difficult to picture
Speaker 2: when she's sitting inside the museum how she would have
Speaker 2: behaved out at sea. And I think that that human
Speaker 2: element is important to give that flavor.
Speaker 1: Is there any artifacts that best show the skills and
Speaker 1: ingenuity of Scottish fisher men?
Speaker 2: Again, that's a really difficult one because there's because there's
Speaker 2: so many.
Speaker 1: It's maybe the one you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe the one I just mentioned, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? It's such a silly, simple thing, but
Speaker 2: the nets are kind of little works of art in themselves,
Speaker 2: I find. And if again, if you watch somebody mending
Speaker 2: a net and you're from a fishing community, you'll be
Speaker 2: thinking what she's talking about, Well that obviously people can
Speaker 2: mend nets. But if you're not from a fishing community
Speaker 2: and you see somebody just you know, they take some
Speaker 2: twine and they've got their their net needle, and their
Speaker 2: hands move so fast you cann't you can't even see
Speaker 2: what they're doing. And suddenly there's a hole where there
Speaker 2: was a hole, there's no hole, and then you can't
Speaker 2: even see where the mend was because they've they've got
Speaker 2: the gauge completely right, the mesh size is completely right,
Speaker 2: the knots are as neat as anything, and you think,
Speaker 2: that's that's just skill, you know, that's that's just hand
Speaker 2: and eye and years of practice. It's it's it's muscle memory,
Speaker 2: and it's just you know, again what we were talking
Speaker 2: about before, here's a problem I need to solve it.
Speaker 2: I'll just get on and do it. And they just
Speaker 2: do it. But to anybody looking outside, you think, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's something that I wouldn't know how to do.
Speaker 2: And there's just so many different little almost silly examples
Speaker 2: like that that just come from those years of working
Speaker 2: within an industry from that individual and also the generations
Speaker 2: stretching back that mean that you know that was just
Speaker 2: around in their kind of family DNA almost to to
Speaker 2: kind of pick up and run with.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, let's face fishing was central to places
Speaker 1: said like Anstruther, pitting waym and the East UK villages. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean Mornons by that. The boat I've been talking about,
Speaker 1: our family boat that came from that was Builtons and
Speaker 1: Mornans mm hmm. Yeah. And what a great reputation Miller's
Speaker 1: a you know, if it was a Miller, if it
Speaker 1: was if it was a Miller's boat, it was a
Speaker 1: good one.
Speaker 2: And they sent boats all over the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then even even more recently than that, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of that were I was lucky and luckily
Speaker 2: enough to know and we're here as trustees, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you one of the names David Todd and David Smith.
Speaker 2: And they were both real innovators in the fishing industry
Speaker 2: as regards machinery and the design of the boats and
Speaker 2: adopting new technology and new ways of fishing because they
Speaker 2: were you know, entrepreneurs and mechanically minded and wanting to
Speaker 2: see how they could advance things.
Speaker 1: My response to that, Linda would be, do you mean
Speaker 1: the navy smith? I do, I do Argueraut Argonaut, My goodness,
Speaker 1: what a name he made for himself. Good good fishermen.
Speaker 1: But in fairness to that guys as well, a good fisherman.
Speaker 1: I mentioned good fishermen there, not Ebrahim. There up years
Speaker 1: of the same character with the boy Andre, and that
Speaker 1: story goes on. Now his son Andrew and his grandson
Speaker 1: are now just as successful that. When I say that,
Speaker 1: I don't mean because they caught the boats fish. There's
Speaker 1: more to it than that. They were mindful of the future,
Speaker 1: and no wouldn't they just didn't want to catch everything.
Speaker 1: In fact, I would elaborate on that. I would say,
Speaker 1: I'm in my sevenies now, been in the fishing and
Speaker 1: just pray much all my life. I've never yet met
Speaker 1: the fisherman who goes to see to catch the last
Speaker 1: of any species.
Speaker 2: Now, I think the fishman that I have met have
Speaker 2: all come from generations of fishermen, and they would wish
Speaker 2: for there to be generations going forward as well. I
Speaker 2: don't think I mean there aren't as many people going
Speaker 2: into the fishing, and that's that's a really complicated story
Speaker 2: about regulation and resources and technology and all sorts of
Speaker 2: different factors, and that's that's where it's it's quite a
Speaker 2: challenge and it's also but it's also quite a good
Speaker 2: thing to be a museum of a living industry, and
Speaker 2: you know, long may we be a museum of a
Speaker 2: living industry. But it does mean that, you know, things
Speaker 2: are changing now and we have to try and keep
Speaker 2: up with that as well as you know, preserving the
Speaker 2: history of the past. But it is a period of change.
Speaker 2: Was probably anybody at any point in history would tell
Speaker 2: you it's a period of change, to be fair, But no,
Speaker 2: I agree the fishermen that I speak to would all
Speaker 2: want to see a future for the industry as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but even with the different styles, as you say,
Speaker 1: just what you mentioned there. I remember my father used
Speaker 1: to tell me and how when they were still steam
Speaker 1: and they would have coal, you know, on board. He said,
Speaker 1: there were fantastic seaboats and they were always great ballasts
Speaker 1: because the way he put it, he would be sailing
Speaker 1: out the fishing grounds with coal and they would be
Speaker 1: coming back full of fish, so the stability and were
Speaker 1: great seaboats and you know they used what they had.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you feel younger visitors appreciate who demanding and dangerous
Speaker 1: a shan once was.
Speaker 2: I think it's difficult because it's changed so much, and
Speaker 2: life has changed so much, you know, even between my
Speaker 2: childhood and my children's childhood, it's just so many things
Speaker 2: have changed and it's difficult to get a grasp of.
Speaker 2: We try to convey some of these things, and we
Speaker 2: try to tell the stories and convey the information in
Speaker 2: different ways at different levels so that the kids can
Speaker 2: who come, either either with their families or with school
Speaker 2: groups or whatever, can take away a bit more of
Speaker 2: an understanding. And we've we've actually worked on a couple
Speaker 2: of projects specifically around you know, how hard life was
Speaker 2: at sea, and we've got we've got some interactives that
Speaker 2: we that we use. We've got it's our version of
Speaker 2: being resourceful and using the things to hand. We have
Speaker 2: a waste paper but arts. Basically, it's like a laundry
Speaker 2: basket that we've rigged up with straps and we get
Speaker 2: the kids to carry a load of bean bags as
Speaker 2: if they were as if they were fish. Wives carrying
Speaker 2: a load of fish, and we kind of adjust the
Speaker 2: weight of the bean bags to be proportionate to the
Speaker 2: child's weight and just kind of say, right, okay, we'll
Speaker 2: load you up with bean bags. Now you walk along
Speaker 2: there and see how it would have been to carry
Speaker 2: that load. And it's just you know, daft examples like that,
Speaker 2: but just to try and convey some of the physicality
Speaker 2: of it all. I mean, one of the great things
Speaker 2: that we can do with the school groups actually is
Speaker 2: if they can get aboard the Reaper either an answer
Speaker 2: other or if she's able to get up to she
Speaker 2: was at McDuff earlier this year, and we get the
Speaker 2: school groups on board, and then you know, they get
Speaker 2: the experience of going down the ladder into the hold
Speaker 2: and getting into the cabin and climbing into the bunks,
Speaker 2: and they'll they'll all get on the end of a
Speaker 2: rope and raise the sails up, and that I think
Speaker 2: is much more immersive experience and they do get a
Speaker 2: bit more of an insight that way. So that's that's
Speaker 2: that's really useful because I think it's difficult otherwise to
Speaker 2: get to just get an understanding of the physical aspects
Speaker 2: of that hard way of life, and how.
Speaker 1: Much of the muniums not it comes from oral history
Speaker 1: or people telling their own stories, must be brilliant. And
Speaker 1: then when you get people like that, it is it is.
Speaker 2: And we are very lucky that we did have volunteers
Speaker 2: in the past who would interview people, and obviously we
Speaker 2: can do the same now, but it's great to have
Speaker 2: those stories captured from the past. And actually one of
Speaker 2: the combinations that we found really worked well was we
Speaker 2: had a couple of volunteers who would go and do
Speaker 2: interviews together, and one of them was a member of
Speaker 2: the fishing community and had been a skipper and a fisherman,
Speaker 2: and the other one was not. So the fishermen could
Speaker 2: speak to whoever they were interviewing about the fishing aspects,
Speaker 2: and he knew which questions to ask, and he knew
Speaker 2: what they were talking about and could understand where they
Speaker 2: were going, and you know, that side of things. But
Speaker 2: the person who didn't know what the volunteer who didn't
Speaker 2: wasn't from the fishing community could say, hang on a minute,
Speaker 2: what do you mean by that? And and you can
Speaker 2: you go over that bit a bit more form it,
Speaker 2: because the danger is that you've got people who know
Speaker 2: what they're talking about speaking to somebody else who knows
Speaker 2: exactly what they're talking about, and there's a lot of
Speaker 2: assumptions made about what people know, and then people like
Speaker 2: me come in twenty years later and think I have
Speaker 2: no idea what they're talking about, because they know what
Speaker 2: they're talking about, but they haven't explained it for somebody
Speaker 2: coming from outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, from a non fishing background.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, I mean, yeah, so yeah, it's great to
Speaker 2: have the stories, but you have to ask the right
Speaker 2: questions as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic. What does the most memorable would you say,
Speaker 1: a conversation you've had with, say, an old fisherman or
Speaker 1: a family member.
Speaker 2: Again, that's a difficult one because well, as I was saying,
Speaker 2: just this afternoon, I had a really fantastic conversation with
Speaker 2: a chap who brought his Ghanzi in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll do. That's good. I don't say too high bar.
Speaker 1: And I'm fortunate, or maybe we're fortunate here because I'm
Speaker 1: old enough to remember just how important ghanzhi is wet.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, and all the different variations.
Speaker 1: My goodness, there were some weight in them.
Speaker 2: Ay, yes, yeah, I imagine when they got wet, they
Speaker 2: weren't quite so comfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, that's for sure and unfortunate. That's what was
Speaker 1: a problem for them if they did just say they
Speaker 1: went overboard or that. Yeah, that didn't help them the
Speaker 1: way the way of their ganzis and things like that. Blena,
Speaker 1: what are there stories that would have been lost forever
Speaker 1: if they hadn't been recorded in time you feel in
Speaker 1: the museum.
Speaker 2: Definitely. So speaking about our two volunteers, a lot of
Speaker 2: the interviews that they did were around the time of
Speaker 2: the you know, we've had recently, over the recent decades
Speaker 2: or so, we've had quite a lot of big anniversaries
Speaker 2: of World War One and World War Two. So obviously
Speaker 2: the people that they were interviewing didn't have memories of
Speaker 2: World War One, but they did have a lot of
Speaker 2: memories of World War Two, and that was something that
Speaker 2: are earlier interviewees hadn't asked about. And whether that was
Speaker 2: because they didn't think to ask about it, or whether
Speaker 2: it was because there was still people were still sensitive
Speaker 2: about talking about it then when when they were speaking
Speaker 2: to them, so we got managed to get quite a
Speaker 2: lot of details, interesting details about people's wartime experience. And
Speaker 2: you know, obviously since then a number of our interviewees
Speaker 2: have passed away and we would have completely missed those
Speaker 2: stories had we not captured them at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic you have. And how do you feel
Speaker 1: from your research that the importance are How important were they?
Speaker 1: Like things like gutting yards, securing yards, markets, family businesses,
Speaker 1: success of the industry and the fleet.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'd say that the onshore aspect of the
Speaker 2: industry is as important as the boats themselves, because you know,
Speaker 2: there's no point in catching the fish if you then
Speaker 2: can't get the fish to market and in the you know,
Speaker 2: pre refrigeration and freezing, the only way you were going
Speaker 2: to do that was either to get it to your
Speaker 2: local markets by physically taking it there as fresh as possible,
Speaker 2: or by curing it. And so you know, the vast
Speaker 2: majority of people who had tasted fish it would have
Speaker 2: been cured fish, you know, if they weren't living by
Speaker 2: the coast themselves. So all of that infrastructure was vital,
Speaker 2: and not just for the fish processing, the gutting yards
Speaker 2: as you say, and the and the factories and the
Speaker 2: transport infrastructure, but also things like the oil skin manufacturers,
Speaker 2: and then netmakers and the boat builders and rope walks
Speaker 2: as well. It's it's interesting how little of that architecture
Speaker 2: survives now and it has all been centralized. You've got
Speaker 2: it's all. It's all mass produced now and quite often
Speaker 2: not not in the UK as well. So's that again,
Speaker 2: that's another aspect of the industry which is much more
Speaker 2: hidden away than it used to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Do you see a role for museums to
Speaker 1: help bridge the gap between fishing communities and the wader public.
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely, And I think that's what I seem my
Speaker 2: own role as because as somebody coming in from outside
Speaker 2: and I can kind of be that bridge between the
Speaker 2: industry where people have lived it and know it absolutely intimately,
Speaker 2: and then the vast majority of our visitors whose interaction
Speaker 2: with fish is either you know, a fish finger of
Speaker 2: the freezer or their fish supper, or it might be
Speaker 2: a tin of tuna or something like that, and they
Speaker 2: haven't really thought about it. So that's where the museum
Speaker 2: is I think, really important in communicating and finding those
Speaker 2: those little stories that will bring people in and draw
Speaker 2: them in and really to realize, oh, actually there's a
Speaker 2: whole aspect of this industry that I wasn't even thinking about.
Speaker 2: And it's because they've they've fallen in love with the
Speaker 2: art of a particular artist who painted the fishing industry,
Speaker 2: or because of their interest in ganzies, or because of
Speaker 2: their interest in engines and engineering, and that's what's drawn
Speaker 2: them in. And then and you know, because of that
Speaker 2: that translation piece that we can do as a museum,
Speaker 2: we can give them the context and say, well, all
Speaker 2: of this is part of a really important industry and
Speaker 2: culture that was really vibrant in Scotland and still is
Speaker 2: really important with in Scotland. But you didn't know it
Speaker 2: was here. But now we can tell you about it.
Speaker 2: And then hopefully when they leave the museum, they're going
Speaker 2: out with a new appreciation and also maybe not with
Speaker 2: more well hopefully with a few more answers, but maybe
Speaker 2: also with a few more questions and thinking, oh, I've
Speaker 2: never thought about that before. I'm going to find out
Speaker 2: about that a little bit more and just just you know,
Speaker 2: awaken their curiosity. I mean, some of our visitors obviously
Speaker 2: are incredibly knowledgeable, and we get a lot of visitors
Speaker 2: who have a personal connection to some of the objects
Speaker 2: and the items on display. So that's where you know,
Speaker 2: the research is a great example because we get a
Speaker 2: lot of visitors from Shetland who come specifically because we
Speaker 2: have that boat and they have a family connection with
Speaker 2: that boat. We have another boat in the in the museum,
Speaker 2: the Lively Hope who was based in Kenzie, and again
Speaker 2: we get people who come to visit that boat. I
Speaker 2: mean it was almost like visiting a family member. And
Speaker 2: Fraserburgh as well with the links to the Reaper, so
Speaker 2: you know there are people who come to the museum
Speaker 2: who know an awful lot and bring that knowledge with
Speaker 2: them and then you hear the family groups going around
Speaker 2: and saying, oh, well, that's the sort of thing that
Speaker 2: your granny used to do and that's what your granddad
Speaker 2: used to do, so they've got that knowledge. So it's
Speaker 2: it's it's also looking after their interests, but being understandable
Speaker 2: to visitors who've got no background in it whatsoever and
Speaker 2: who are coming to it all fresh.
Speaker 1: Thinking of a story another story my father told me
Speaker 1: Linda about museum. It's we've going way way back. It
Speaker 1: was just after the war and they were fishing in
Speaker 1: the Murray Firth supposed to hear and they were listening
Speaker 1: to two boats from lossy Mouth. Now, if you could
Speaker 1: put helmstill is in the north side of the Murray Firth,
Speaker 1: lossy Mouth is out. So they fished close to each
Speaker 1: other a lot, and he told me the story about
Speaker 1: who's there were haddock at that time. It's very scarce,
Speaker 1: really scarce. Obviously the boats weren't catching them. And one
Speaker 1: boat called the other saying, if you hold yet? Have
Speaker 1: you hold the net yet? Yes, they've hold. He says
Speaker 1: you see any haddack and skipberk back to them and said,
Speaker 1: the next haddock you'll see is in a glass case
Speaker 1: in a museum.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's a haddock, but it's not
Speaker 2: in a glass case. The the dried fish hanging up,
Speaker 2: it's lost its head.
Speaker 1: Well, thankfully they are still catching in abundance. But that
Speaker 1: just shows how cyclical Whish it is that it can
Speaker 1: take off. And come on, are you working on any
Speaker 1: future projects now that have be excited?
Speaker 2: Well, we've got our exhibition program is always changing, so
Speaker 2: we've got planning for our autumn exhibition at the moment,
Speaker 2: which is actually quite exciting. We're partnering with the Royal
Speaker 2: Scottish Academy. It's their two hundredth anniversary, so they've got
Speaker 2: museums around the country or are borrowing items from them
Speaker 2: to display. So we've got an art exhibition on the
Speaker 2: works of John Bellanie, who obviously grew up in a
Speaker 2: fishing community in ports Eaton, and we've got two of
Speaker 2: his works in our collection, one of which has never
Speaker 2: been displayed and we're borrowing some more from the RSA.
Speaker 2: Another one has never been to our knowledge publicly displayed,
Speaker 2: so that'll be that will be quite interesting for folk
Speaker 2: to see and something a bit different. And alongside of that,
Speaker 2: we've just had our Safety at Sea Gallery repainted, so
Speaker 2: I will be updating the displays in there, and that's
Speaker 2: where we talk about, obviously, you know, the dangers of
Speaker 2: fishing and how fishermen can and have kept themselves safe
Speaker 2: over the years, and going back to our earlier conversation,
Speaker 2: looking at some of the superstition and the way that
Speaker 2: that people used to keep themselves safe at sea before
Speaker 2: they had all the technological advances. So that will be
Speaker 2: that will be being changed over the over the Ottoman
Speaker 2: winter period as well.
Speaker 1: What sort of timing is there, you know for fishing
Speaker 1: year modern what we call modern year modern boats. Stuff
Speaker 1: you have collection, you have just now, when when do
Speaker 1: you does you start feeling well, that's for the museum
Speaker 1: and the next generation. When does that sort of kick in.
Speaker 2: It's it's a difficult one. I mean, some of the
Speaker 2: things that we have are actual, you know, prototypes, like
Speaker 2: we've got the lobster creole that there was a new
Speaker 2: design and it you know, it was we got it
Speaker 2: when it was new kind of thing. So we do
Speaker 2: try to keep up with things, but a lot of
Speaker 2: the boats are a lot bigger than we've got based
Speaker 2: to collect. So the way we get around that is that, well,
Speaker 2: we've got models on display, so we'll kind of talk
Speaker 2: about the evolution of the design of boats and the
Speaker 2: equipment and you know, the safety features and the the
Speaker 2: mechanical and the navigation equipment and communication equipment, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And we'll use model boats to talk about that, because
Speaker 2: you know, you can't really collect fishing boats forever otherwise
Speaker 2: we'll start to take over the entire harbor. But no,
Speaker 2: it's it's a tricky one. And obviously when things are happening,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're in the midst of things happening.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to see what things are going to stand
Speaker 2: the test of time and what things are going to
Speaker 2: be historically important in the future. So it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a little bit harder to know what to what to
Speaker 2: hang on to, but it is something that we try
Speaker 2: to keep an eye.
Speaker 1: On, and you are very much a special as mum
Speaker 1: m that must be pretty much an endless challenge. There
Speaker 1: are meriting collections in the long term.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean I'm not quite sure how we're
Speaker 2: going to collect things like some of the software that's
Speaker 2: used on board now. I mean some of that they're
Speaker 2: really high tech stuff and hopefully that will be a
Speaker 2: problem for my successors to deal with, but hopefully there
Speaker 2: As I say, there's challenges, but it's also interesting because
Speaker 2: it keeps the story fresh and it keeps it relevant
Speaker 2: to people, and it's it's a good position to be
Speaker 2: in to be a museum of a living industry, and.
Speaker 1: You know, we we.
Speaker 2: Try to keep our connections and try to to keep
Speaker 2: oral history. For example, interviewing people who are working in
Speaker 2: the industry now is a way of capturing that as
Speaker 2: well as the physical objects.
Speaker 1: And as a museum piece got to be study got
Speaker 1: to be old, no or not necessarily no. No.
Speaker 2: We had for our fiftieth anniversary that was in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: we had an exhibition and we spent we divided the
Speaker 2: year in two and the first half of the year
Speaker 2: we looked back fifty years to all the changes that
Speaker 2: had happened in the lifetime of the museum to that point.
Speaker 2: And in the second half of the year we had
Speaker 2: an exhibition that was looking forward fifty years and seeing well,
Speaker 2: what are the challenges going to be to the fishing
Speaker 2: industry in the next fifty years. And that was really
Speaker 2: really interesting, and we spoke to some people who work
Speaker 2: in the industry, people fisheries, scientists, some of the people
Speaker 2: behind the kind of the new fishing gear, latest fishing
Speaker 2: gear and technology, and that was really interesting to try
Speaker 2: and predict, well, what are the issues going to be,
Speaker 2: and what are the challenges going to be, and how
Speaker 2: are they going to be resolved? What are the trends
Speaker 2: that people there are seeing. It's not quite so easy
Speaker 2: because you can't you haven't got that luxury of distance
Speaker 2: from the subject matter, but it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: If I could ask you personally, after spending this time
Speaker 1: immersed and the fishing Scotland's fishing hereded. What is what
Speaker 1: a surprised you and as your view of fishermen seeing
Speaker 1: since becoming curator, Well.
Speaker 2: I didn't have much knowledge of fishermen before I became curators,
Speaker 2: so that's an easy one to answer. Yes, yeah, yes,
Speaker 2: I mean obviously I grew up on the east coast
Speaker 2: of Scotland, so you know I did encounter the fishing
Speaker 2: community and people who worked within it, but it was Yeah,
Speaker 2: my knowledge, as I imagine many of our visitors knowledge
Speaker 2: is still was very basic. And I think the more
Speaker 2: the more I get to learn about it, and the
Speaker 2: more I get to know how the industry worked and
Speaker 2: still works, I think it's just an admiration for the
Speaker 2: people who make it happen because a lot of them
Speaker 2: are just doing it themselves. I mean, obviously part of
Speaker 2: a community and part of a and and the fishing
Speaker 2: support organizations have a big role to play, but a
Speaker 2: lot of them are working for and by themselves. And
Speaker 2: you know, as a consumer going to the supermarket, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't you wouldn't realize that, you wouldn't think it's there's
Speaker 2: all these complicated links in a chain that that reach
Speaker 2: back to that point. Yeah, and then yes, it's how
Speaker 2: how do you convey that to other people? I think
Speaker 2: I think people who visit the museum do do gain
Speaker 2: an understanding of that? And do you think it's difficult.
Speaker 1: Anything in our industry has that question? In industry has
Speaker 1: contributed to Scotland that is still not maybe fully recognized.
Speaker 2: Again with the big questions, Yeah, I mean there's so
Speaker 2: many different ways to answer that that question. The economics,
Speaker 2: you know, the the importance of fishing. Well, going back
Speaker 2: to talking about the wartime, you know, fishing fish was
Speaker 2: not rationed during the war, and the fishermen kept fishing.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously some of them were called up for
Speaker 2: service and made a huge impact to you know, defending
Speaker 2: the coasts through mind sweeping and all of all of
Speaker 2: the duties that they took on, one for the the
Speaker 2: the Royal Naval Reserve, but also they kept fishing, and
Speaker 2: you know, in those in those straightened times, I think
Speaker 2: that was a key contribution to the war effort. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's widely understood or or even
Speaker 2: thought about.
Speaker 1: For younger is listening today to us who knows really
Speaker 1: nothing about the fishing industry, What one thing would you
Speaker 1: want him to remember. You know, funny when I say that, Linda,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to make it sounded if I'm
Speaker 1: jumping in and answering my own question. I think I
Speaker 1: think you have the answer in your book that title
Speaker 1: your book. Yes, feel paish, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's the it's the human endeavor that goes
Speaker 2: into putting the fish on on people's plates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If just say our listeners, some of
Speaker 1: our listeners today have never visited the museum, what experience
Speaker 1: do you hope they would they will come forward and
Speaker 1: what feelings would you like them to leave with.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I would tell them it's a
Speaker 2: lot bigger than it looks from the outside, So give
Speaker 2: yourself enough time. Because as there's a lot to see
Speaker 2: and lots of interesting things to see, and lots of
Speaker 2: interactive things for kids to do as they go around
Speaker 2: as well, because we do, as I said before, we
Speaker 2: do think it's it's quite good for children to learn
Speaker 2: through doing things as well as you know, just reading
Speaker 2: text panels and looking looking at things. I would hope
Speaker 2: that people would come in looking for a good day
Speaker 2: out and a good family day out lots of lots
Speaker 2: of things that they will find that will be talking
Speaker 2: points that will surprise them, that will tell them more
Speaker 2: about an industry that they maybe didn't know so much about,
Speaker 2: or if they're if they've got a history of the
Speaker 2: fishing industry, there'll be things that they that they recognize
Speaker 2: and they can they can point to, you know, similar
Speaker 2: things being in their own homes or their their their
Speaker 2: grandparents' homes or whatever. And when they leave the museum,
Speaker 2: I hope that they would leave with some answers to
Speaker 2: some questions and maybe some more some more curiosity about
Speaker 2: other things that they can they can explore a little
Speaker 2: bit further. We've we've got we've got displays that cover
Speaker 2: the technical aspects of of how how fish are actually
Speaker 2: caught out of the sea, that the fish themselves, and
Speaker 2: how they live, the culture, the traditions, the people who
Speaker 2: made up the fishing community. There's lots of different strands
Speaker 2: to it. We can't possibly exhaust all of those strands
Speaker 2: within a single museum visit. So I would hope that
Speaker 2: there will be something there that any visitor would find
Speaker 2: that would peak their interest and that they could go
Speaker 2: and explore further. Once they've once they've left us, and
Speaker 2: they can they can do that. We've got lots of
Speaker 2: resources on our website, and we've got our photographic library
Speaker 2: on our website, which is fantastic. We're adding to that
Speaker 2: with the help of volunteers. We've got learning resources, little
Speaker 2: summaries of our exhibitions, our events programs and so on.
Speaker 2: So there's lots for people to look at once they've
Speaker 2: once they've been to the museum as well if they
Speaker 2: want to follow up on various things.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent. You know one of the stories when you
Speaker 1: were talking about wartime and that I just remember. I
Speaker 1: just thought back my own family. I just thought that
Speaker 1: that's my old My cousin is quite a bit older
Speaker 1: than me, ninety and I often said, it must have
Speaker 1: been such an exciting place just after the war, and
Speaker 1: that's when the father and his brothers they got the
Speaker 1: boat from incident from Saint Mornan's. What an exciting village
Speaker 1: it must have been. And thinking from my granny and
Speaker 1: grandest point of view, they had five sons volunteered, went off,
Speaker 1: spent their time in the navy, and five of them
Speaker 1: came back WoT got a boat and started fishing. That
Speaker 1: must be fantastic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: Where can our listeners follow the museum activities online.
Speaker 2: We've got our website www. Dot Scottfish Museum dot org
Speaker 2: and we're also on Facebook X and Instagram and LinkedIn
Speaker 2: as well, so that's that's where to keep up the
Speaker 2: Facebook and Instagram or where we publish all of our
Speaker 2: activity programs or exhibitions and any details of things that
Speaker 2: are coming up. So that's that's where to look for
Speaker 2: that up to date information.
Speaker 1: Brilliant, fantastic, and I'd just like to say thanks for
Speaker 1: your time today. It's been a real pleasure. I've loved it.
Speaker 2: No, thank you, it's been it's been interesting to hear
Speaker 2: your stories as well.