The speaker for our meeting of 14th March, Rotarian David Smith MBE has been compiling and researching his recollections of a lifetime working as a fisherman and skipper spanning nearly 50 years. We were therefore honoured to be listening to his experiences and of those many generations before who have sailed the seas around our coasts to bring home the catch for our consumption.
David’s extended family from St Monans have a long connection with the sea, with strong ties to fishing and he is now among the very last of a disappearing breed from the East Neuk which has seen many dramatic changes within a few decades. He is the eldest of a family of four boys and a girl who all always took the name of either paternal family, maternal family or other close relatives. David has noticed this tradition is no longer so popular as ‘anything goes’ these days. ‘Getting their names’ was always very important as it traced their lineage back over many generations.
David brought us back to his schooldays before and during the second world war. He recalled taking the train every day to Waid Academy, which still has a similar catchment area. Before 1965 you could travel throughout the length of Fife and up to St Andrews and beyond by rail. The station at St Monans was well cared for with flower beds in summer running the whole length of the platform and in winter the waiting room had a big coal fire for keeping warm waiting for the school train. It was a time when more young people were being urged to go on to further education by parents who could only remember all the lean times and hard work for very little reward. It was no longer inevitable that they should follow in others footsteps, however David was determined he was going to become a fisherman. At the end of the war most of the traditional fishing infrastructure was still firmly in place in all the small harbours throughout Scotland and with so many of his immediate family still actively involved in fishing he left school at fifteen to become a boy cook on a herring drifter. His father had already carved out a successful career as a skipper and part owner so he gave David plenty encouragement from a very young age.
Before talking about his own career he gave a potted version of the history of fishing which he gleaned during his research from many local details and records. The earliest mention was for herring fishing in the North Sea in 1177 when the Dutch and North Germans were sailing from Shetland down to Great Yarmouth. They had drawn up rules which permitted fishing to start on the 24th June and also a standardised method for the salting of herring, which is all quite remarkable having taken place more than 800 years ago. Within the East Neuk there is an early record of a pier at Cellardyke in 1452 with herring fishing reported in 1580 using boats called Creers as far afield as the Outer Hebrides. Crail is also mentioned in 1580 with apprenticeships for young men being supplied with gear after completion of their contracts. By 1642 a scarcity of fish was reported along the east coast to ‘the hurt and hunger of the poor and the beggaring of fishermen’. This occurred again in 1657/8 and 1662/3 which may have been due to natural cycles.
Thirty years later there was a plentiful supply with many boats ‘flocking from other shores’. By 1707 local ports were branding herring barrels with contents being inspected as an early form of quality control and in 1710 the first detailed accounts of boats and crew were documented with 12 boats from St Monans on the summer herring ‘drave’ and 10 boats for whitefish. This was a similar pattern from each of the other harbours at Pittenweem, Anstruther Easter, Cellardyke and Crail all with 6 or 7 crew. This increase in activity during the 18th century recorded the abundant and lean cycles of herring and haddock which also brought tragedy to many boats and crew lost at sea, very often at the mouths of harbours in stormy seas heavily laden with catch.
Most boats were about 30 feet or less in length which restricted them to fishing for winter herring shoals within the Forth estuary with longlining for white fish providing limited income during poor herring seasons. It was a boom and bust scenario which often brought hardship and severe poverty to these fishermen and their families. One particular recorder noted ‘the industry of man was ruining the shoals’ a phrase which has relevance today. However during summer as far back as 1832 it was not uncommon to see these completely undecked boats venture as far north as Wick to attend the herring fishing with men living onshore and sometimes a local girl or female relative would go with them to take care of cooking. Some would even venture onto the west coast. During the 1836/7 summer seasons herring was unpredictable with August of 36 having the local word around the piers telling of Gannets each with a herring in their bills like ’clouds in the sky’. 1837 also brought tragedy when a local trip from Cellardyke when wives and families of local fisherman made their annual summer visit to the Isle of May for a picnic. Five boats laden with happy people set sail to land on the island when the Johns 33ft long with 65 people on board ran onto a skerry while entering the small harbour on the east side. The overloaded boat foundered and 13 people mostly young children were drowned.
There were many more records during this time of lost boats which had a devastating effect on families who were very often inter-related. By the mid 19th century the buying and shipment of herring had been transformed with English merchants landed in the East Neuk by steamer to ship barrels to the railway link in Edinburgh taking 80 -100 waggons of ‘caller herring’ every day to every town in England and across the Channel to Paris. In August of 1855 130 boats attended the Lammas ‘drave’ all laden to the gunwhales. During the next 3 decades there was a huge upsurge in the number and size of boats all half decked to provide shelter and stability. The 1883 statistics for Cellardyke recorded 203 boats manned by 650 crew making it second only to Buckie. By this time boats were sailing south to Lowestoft following the herring which must have been an impressive sight seeing all these boats leaving local harbours with their tanned brown sails. 120 left for the south that year with average earnings of £280 per boat. The following year saw landings double the average of the last 20 years with boats now being built up to 50ft in length and fully decked which reduced fatalities at sea. During the 1860’s railways were connecting Fife to the national network for transporting catches to the centres of population and lighthouses were making navigation safer in treacherous waters. Anstruther now had 70 fully decked boats with some over 60 feet long and steam power allowed them to venture as far as 200 miles to the east of the May Island ‘half o’er to Norrawa’. In 1887 62 boats arrived in Anstruther with the magnificent haul of 1000 halibut, 3000 ling, 18000 cod and 1900 saithe. These boats are the same type as the Reaper built in 1902 now restored and berthed in the harbour next to Anstruther Fisheries Museum.
David was now approaching the 20th century when he called time to save his own story for another eagerly awaited talk. The vote of thanks was given by Andrew Lindsay who urged David to have his remarkable story published as a book to record for posterity all his invaluable anecdotes on the history of the East Neuk fishing industry and his own experiences over 50 years as a fisherman and skipper
