When Ina arrived on that first morning after the long, weary journey, she was surprised to see that there were women of seventy and more still following the herring, mostly from the Western Isles, where Gaelic was the first language, the language from Ireland that hadn’t reached Shetland and would probably have been run out of town if it had. The others were by then old hands and had everything well organised, even down to the purchase of a portable gramophone, a pricey item in those times, and when they had to stop at a station for a couple of hours for a connecting train, the gramophone was set up and the lassies danced with the porters on the platform. Someone had managed to lay hands on a songsheet of some current favourite for a couple of pennies, and the lassies would sing as they waited; there was always a lot of singing. At the stations a woman came along with a trolley selling sandwiches and tea, but to cut costs they brought their own sandwiches from home and just bought her tea – tuppence it cost, tuppence a cup. The trains were filthy, though, if you banged on the seat dust flew up in clouds, and they were so slow that you could lean out of the window and carry on a conversation with people working in the fields as the steam engine painfully pulled its clanking carriages along the track.
Every season they stayed in lodgings, three or six to a room. They slept three to a bed and used their kists to sit on because there was no space for chairs. For washing there was a ewer and a basin, and the landlady lifted all her carpets off the floor before they came, putting down old mats instead, keeping her carpets for the summer visitors, who did not routinely drop fish scales on them. Before the fishing started in Lerwick each spring, the lassies would work on the big stock boats that arrived with barrels of salt for the curers whose stations were all around the harbour. Every curer had a wooden stage jutting out into the harbour where the fish would be landed, and the stock boats would go from one to another first, delivering their orders. As the stevedores brought them out of the hold the lassies would roll them up to the station using putters, implements like shovels, only with a point at the end, where the coopers waited to stack them up three or four deep, ready for use once the herring arrived. When Ina started working on the stock boats in Lerwick before leaving for Lowestoft that first year, they were paid fourpence per barrel, so they waited till the stock boats arrived next time and went on strike. The bosses called them Communists and Bolsheviks, every bad name under the sun, but they had to pay up another tuppence a barrel. It was one of her proudest moments; it made her feel that she had some power, and it made her laugh, too, to see the bosses so enraged and so beaten by a bunch of lassies.
There was no time for training and Ina found herself thrown straight in to work that first morning. Watching the speed of the lassies she was instantly frozen with fear – she would never be able to work at that rate – and felt like catching the next train back to the safety of home. Then she thought again: the boredom of home, and just got stuck in. The trouble was, she thought helplessly, that everything was happening at once and so quickly that it was hard to pick up one part of the job because another was taking place while you were still trying to absorb the first part. She watched the drifters deliver fish in baskets to the edge of Bloomfields’ quay, where they were dumped into a long, sloping, communal farlin, or trough.
As she worked, Edie, the other gutter, gave her a running commentary. ‘First you have to rouse them, Ina,’ she said, turning the fish in salt, ‘then you gut them.’
Ina watched Edie’s hands move but it was so fast that she couldn’t see what she was actually doing. She had learned to gut fish when she was a child, everyone in her community did, but Edie’s hands were no more than a blur so Ina couldn’t see the technique she would have to learn.
‘See?’ Edie asked.
Ina was horrified, suddenly realising that Edie had deliberately gone slowly with her demonstration and she had still missed it. Looking up at her, Edie laughed out loud, then the other lassies round about looked up, hands still flying, and the laughter spread through the yard like a breeze. Ina blushed red with embarrassment, but she knew they were laughing because they all knew how she was feeling, they had all once been in the same position.
‘Look,’ Edie smiled, going as slowly as she could, ‘you just put your knife in at the throat there.’ She stopped to pick up a fish and position it in Ina’s hands, which made her feel even more of a fool. ‘Then you nick it under the throat – no! Not from throat to belly!’ Once again laugher rang out. ‘Just a wee nick, that’s it, and pull the guts and gills out through that, then you throw the fish into the tub.’
Ina nodded and picked up another fish.
‘You’ll learn to do it quicker, of course,’ Edie murmured meaningfully; the slower she was to pick it up the less wages the crew would have to split between them. ‘But before you throw it in the tub you have to learn which tub.’
Ina nodded as though she had known this all along, instead of assuming you filled one then another.
‘There’s one tub for matties, one for mattfuls and one for fulls. That’s small, medium and large, see?’
Ina nodded again, conscious that, like the others, she was already covered in blood, guts and scales and was glad she had listened to them when she was getting dressed in her working clothes. Under her oilskin apron she had three jumpers and a skirt that she had been told to keep shorter than the apron to protect the hem from the mess, and it was best if the apron overhung her rubber boots, so that when it was washed down before meals or at the end of the working day, the filthy water wouldn’t run inside and swamp her seaboot stockings; not, of course that any plan was foolproof, as she would learn from experience, water, blood, guts and scales could find their way into every crevice. Oilskin jackets with hoods were provided for wet weather, when the herring catch was always heavier, but in summer they could do nothing more to keep cool than roll-up their sleeves and accept the inevitable sunburn.
‘You’re in for a hard time, Ina,’ Edie mused, looking at her and shaking her head. ‘You’re like the rest of God’s chosen, white skin and red hair, Shetland lassies always burn worse because we’re fairer.’
From further along came a cheerful shout from another lassie. ‘Aye, well, you’re that proud that you’re Vikings, serves you right!’
‘I’d rather burn as a Viking than be a black-hearted Gael like some folk!’ Edie shouted back, and the others laughed out loud, but even as the teasing insults flew, Ina noted, their hands never missed a beat, the work went on at breakneck speed as usual, and she wondered if she would ever be as good as them.
At her side Edie glanced at her. ‘Don’t worry, Ina,’ she whispered. ‘We all have to start somewhere, you’ll pick it up in no time.’ Then she raised her voice, addressing the ‘black-hearted Gael’ contingent more than Ina. ‘You’re a Shetland Viking,’ she said loudly, ‘you’re already better than any of these other folk!’
In time, experience would teach Ina all the other problems faced by herring lassies. Salt sores were a constant bugbear, caused by the salt rubbing into the skin on their fingers, so they tried to protect them with ‘cloots’, strips of unbleached linen wrapped around the fingers and tied with other strips of rags or cotton. Not that it worked perfectly. The forefinger was the worst; if you got cut with a gutting knife it was most likely to be there, so you always wore a thicker cloot on that finger, and there was always a Red Cross or Church of Scotland dressing and first-aid station nearby to tend to the ulcers, sores, splinters from the wooden barrels and frequent cuts that were part of normal working life. Sometimes she would be standing there, her hands working with a life of their own but stinging with the pain of ulcers and cuts that would leave scars on her hands for the rest of her life, and she would wonder if this was really all that freedom from home could offer. There were moments when dragging the peats home in a kilshie, her back aching and raw, seemed like heaven compared to gutting fish, but they soon passed, because she knew this was only the first step away from home, so it was all worth it.
T
he first year that she went away they had lodgings with Mrs Christmas in Nelson Road, down by the seafront, ordering groceries from the shop at the corner and paying for them when they got their wages, and the butcher boys and baker boys were prepared to deliver orders to their digs while they were working.
Mrs Christmas, like all the landladies, took up her good carpets while the herring lassies were with her, putting down old mats and only replacing the carpets when the summer visitor part of her trade arrived. The funny thing was that Ina and the others could smell the unwelcome evidence of her cat everywhere in the house, yet they couldn’t smell the fish off themselves that made the cat follow them around.
They were content enough with Mrs Christmas, even with her disgusting cat, but the following year she couldn’t take them, and their search for other digs brought them to King Street, where Mrs Brown opened the door. There were few tall people in those days, but Mrs Brown was smaller than most, so tiny that as she opened the door they almost asked to speak to her mother. She had fading, short fair hair in tight curls that made her look as though she was wearing a judge’s wig, a small wrinkled face and kindly bright blue eyes. Her mouth moved constantly, whether from unspoken thoughts or an attempt to keep her teeth in, it was never clear. That day she was wearing a brown skirt to her ankles so that her feet were hidden and she seemed to glide along on castors, a brown cardigan that fell past her hips and swallowed her wrists and a blue blouse underneath that was the exact shade of her eyes. Everything looked too big for her, which it undoubtedly was, but they were never to see her wearing anything else, and her hair was always perfectly in place, though it would be many years before Ina discovered that Mrs Brown did indeed wear a wig.
‘How does she have time to get it like that?’ she would wonder, and the other lassies would giggle. ‘I mean, first thing in the morning to last thing at night, it never changes.’ It would be a long time after the herring industry had gone before her sister, Ella, told her that they had all been giggling at her and how she never saw things in front of her nose.
They struck it lucky with Mrs Brown, because the tiny landlady was a kindly soul who helped them in any way she could, whereas there were others who did no more than take the money. She saw them as ‘her lassies’, and did them little kindnesses like helping them with their washing, and she made their meals too, though that had unfortunate consequences on one occasion. Usually their meals comprised of the groceries they had ordered, but one lunchtime Ina had taken home some salt herring, and that night they arrived back at King Street, tired and hungry, to be met as usual by Mrs Brown.
‘I’ve made your tea,’ she smiled, her blue eyes twinkling.
Ella and Edie exchanged glances.
‘I thought you took some salt herring back?’ Ella whispered to Ina.
‘I did,’ Ina replied gently.
‘Did you order anything else from the shop then?’
Ina shook her head.
‘Just you go on up to your room and I’ll bring it up,’ Mrs Brown said, and when she did their worst fears were realised. Mrs Brown, knowing nothing about fish other than how to cook it, had been unaware that salt herring had to be soaked first to remove the salt, so she had fried it as it was. Ella, Edie and Ina glanced at each other in horror. Mrs Brown was kind to them, she looked after them better than anyone else would, the other crews were always asking them to let them know if a room became free in the King Street house. They were fond of her and couldn’t bear to hurt her feelings, but just as surely they couldn’t eat the poisonous dish. All they could do was accept the inedible offering with every indication of gratitude and lots of ‘Yum yum’ noises till the door closed behind Mrs Brown, then they collapsed in a giggling heap, each one trying to stifle the noise of the other in case nice Mrs Brown heard them.
‘What’ll we do?’ Ina asked, gazing aghast at the fried herring.
‘We’ll just have to get rid of it without her knowing,’ Ella laughed, lying across the bed and holding her sides.
‘But we’ve got nothing else, and I’m hungry,’ Ina complained.
‘Well, you eat it. You can have my share as well,’ Edie giggled, sending Ella into another spasm of laughter. ‘Ssh!’ Edie said, trying to stifle her own laughter.
‘I’m not eating that,’ Ina replied. ‘Nobody could eat that, but I’m hungry.’
‘So you said,’ Edie said tartly. ‘You keep saying that as though there was a way out. Do you think a great big cooked ham will appear before us if you keep telling us you’re hungry? We’re all hungry.’
‘Well, what’ll we do?’ Ina persisted.
‘We’ll have to smuggle the fish out and do without anything to eat tonight,’ Edie said.
‘But—’
Edie held a hand in the air. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered with feeling, ‘tell us again that you’re hungry, Ina, we know!’
All this time Ella was rolling about on the bed laughing.
‘And you,’ Edie said, ‘put a sock in it.’
So they wrapped the fried fish in paper and told Mrs Brown they were going for a walk, then they dumped their meal in a bin and returned, going to bed still hungry rather than hurt their landlady’s feelings. For the rest of their time working together they stayed at the King Street house, but never again did they bring home salt herring for their tea.
And there were those cold, cold times in Yarmouth when nothing could protect you from black frost and your clothes were frozen stiff when you put them on. You had to break the ice on top of the barrels before you could fill up after the pickle had been drained off, then you had to stand with your hands inside the freezing barrels to get them used to the cold so that you could work, the tears running down your face. There were times, too, when it rained, and the herring catch was heavier and so you had to work longer and faster to keep up, and your clothes got soaked, no matter how hard you tried to keep them dry, and with nowhere to dry them and no heat either, the next day you just had to put them on wet again. And strangely enough they never had colds: despite the weather and the lack of even basic comforts, they stayed healthy. They were a hardy breed, the herring lassies.
At Bloomfield’s in Yarmouth the packer in the crew worked outside, but the gutters were protected from the elements by a roof, and the farlins had shutters built up on one side that were opened and tied up so that the herring could be dumped in. Across the top was slung a string of electric bulbs so that the long line of lassies could see what they were doing, and as they threw the roused and gutted herring into the five tubs they worked with, a cooper would come round every now and again with a measuring stick to check that they had got it right. They usually had, though: sizing fish correctly was born of experience they had gathered in their families and communities all of their lives.
As soon as one tub was full, the crew of three would carry it out to the packer’s box, where she would pack the fish into barrels holding a cran, a thousand herring, calling the cooper after the first row to make sure it was tight enough. They would be packed in alternate rows with a scoop of salt between, first belly down, then belly up, finishing with a row belly up, so that no matter which end the barrel was opened there would be a row of gleaming silver bellies on show.
When the Russians were buying at the end of the year it meant even more work, because they liked their herring packed in a certain way. They would walk along the barrels, sticking a hand in and bringing out a herring from the middle, and if there was any trace of gut remaining they would disqualify the whole barrel. Once they had made their choice the barrels they wanted had to be repacked in the design they liked, with the bellies of the top fish squeezed into a diamond shape, so that when the lid was lifted they would see a layer of silver diamonds. Forty-eight hours after the coopers had put lids on the finished barrels, a hole would be drilled in the side to drain off the dissolved salt and fish juices, the pickle being greatly prized by the Russians as a sauce to dip bread in. This process also resulted in the herring shrinking, so it would
be refilled with fish barrelled at the same time, some pickle would be poured back in, and the barrel would be resealed and stacked in the yard.
The end of the working day came when there was no more fish to barrel, and that could mean working from 6 a.m. till 9 p.m., depending on the catch. Then everything they had worked with had to be washed down with buckets of water – tubs, boxes, cloths, oilies and boots – and the yard hosed down; but the last thing each gutter did before leaving was to hide her knife somewhere other people couldn’t find it. For all of this Ina’s crew earned a basic wage of fifteen shillings a week, plus three shillings a barrel between them. Half their basic wage went to their landlady for their digs, leaving them the other half to spend on food, with their barrel money collected at the end of the season to take home to their families. So there wasn’t much left for spending – not that they had time, anyway.
She enjoyed the life, though; it got her away from Shetland. She was always one of the last to go home at the end of the season, along with Ella. Everyone knew that Ina and Ella could always be counted on to take odd jobs to stave off the return journey to Lerwick a little longer, and for her part the absence of Danny was one reason for that, especially once he had gone for good in what was regarded as the scandal of Lerwick. He had been doing well in the Merchant Marine, seeing foreign parts that Ina hankered to see. Much as she liked being a herring lassie, she would have loved to travel further afield, but knew Yarmouth was likely to be the limit of travel for a Lerwick lassie. Danny wrote to her faithfully, describing the different sights he had seen, the things he had done, sharing all his new experiences and adventures, but it wasn’t the same as being there herself and she still envied him. Then came a letter from her brother, Sandy, with news that Danny had returned on leave, collected Isobel Carnegie, and the two had run off together. The place was in turmoil, apparently, the ministers of all the local kirks calling down God’s damnation on them both, while Dolina threatened that he would never darken her doorstep again, and blamed Magnus for filling his head with wild stories of his family.
The Last Wanderer Page 4