Nae fish again!'

Margaret Wood (b. 1933, daughter of George and Janet [Christie]) recollects some memories of her childhood, growing up in Wood Street, in the fishing community of Torry (Aberdeen) of the 1930s and early 1940s

It was our turn to scrub the 'backie' and close, so I had to carry pails of water. 'Can I nae scrub for a change, Ma?' 'No, you're too little.' 'But it's hard work carrying these pails of water.  Why do we have to do this every month?' 'To keep it clean, of course. 'Fisher folk are affae clean, aren't they ma?' 'Down on yer knees, scrubbing outside stone stairs and outside toilet.'  Sixteen stairs there were up to our three room flat in Wood Street, Old Torry, and more time was spent on cleaning and washing than anything else.
'Go down to Jeannie Leiper's' - she lived in Ferry Road, near the Torry Dock. 'Ask if she's heard any word if your Da's boat's coming in today.'  Down past Whitie's shoppie and along by Walker's boatyard, the latest word from the office is that they were off Peterhead an hour ago so Da would be home by evening.  Ma had time to catch the butcher's to buy a nice pork fillet for his tea.  After twenty-eight days at the line-fishing in hard, inhuman, underprivileged conditions his first priorities were for a good wash and a tasty meal.  Grilled pork fillet in oatmeal and butter was one of his favourites and a special treat in the era of ration books.

Our next stop was down Baxter Street to the 'Sannies' to look for the boat coming up the channel, making for the harbour.  We could see Da looking out for us on Greyhope Road and we'd all wave a welcome.

Back up to the bust stop in Victoria Road to wait impatiently and to keep hoping he'd be on the next bus. It was a highlight in our lives when Da came home.  For us children it held a special significance. He saved us his chocolate and sweetie ration - cakes of Cadbury's chocolate and a tin of Mackintosh's Quality Street!

Once the black shiny kit bag was opened, the dirty washing was extracted  (flannel sarks, long johns, thick woollen hose and jerseys), all with the familiar smell of the sea.
'Had a good trip?' would be one of the first questions, meaning 'Have you a good catch of fish?' rather than 'was the weather nice?'

Early next morning Da was off to the market to help land the catch and usually he was 'home with his "fry"' by breakfast-time, or sometimes later if there was a 'big' market. The 'fry' was emptied into the sink and given a good wash and always friends and neighbours got a 'bittie fish' which my sister or I would deliver.

Meanwhile, Ma had been up at the crack of dawn lighting the boiler fire in the washhouse to wash the sea clothes.  Washing day was a major event in households in those days and we children knew we had to be on our best behaviour - or else, especially if the weather was wet and miserable, which added greatly to the stress of washing day.

An inevitable consequence of Da being home was that we had to partake of a fish diet oftener than we appreciated. 'Oh, nae fish again!' was heard frequently in our house at meal times.  My mother's retort to that was 'The Queen's not getting that for her tea tonight'. This remark usually referred to a halibut dish.  We answered that the Queen could have our share.  Indeed, I doubt if the Queen had access to such a dish at that time. Da said the fish was 'living', meaning it was so fresh it was hardly dead.

Around lunchtime Da would dress smartly and off he would set for the 'Office' to settle up, with a reminder from Ma to come straight home.  Of course, he never actually came straight home - a month at sea makes men thirsty and Tommy Summer's Bar would be his port of call, where some old cronies and fishing friends would be gathered to share in the stories and tribulations of the trip, and where they would relate to one another their experiences since they last met.  One can understand the anxiety for Da coming 'straight home' when we realise that in those days fishermen were not given to dealing in cheques and the like, so they had all their pay in cash in their pocket.  If Da wasn't home in what was thought to be a reasonable time, then down my sister had to go to Tommy Summers.  A very loud knock at the partition, which concealed the inner sanctum from view ('No women or children allowed'), summoned Cyril the barman in long white apron and cheery grin.  'Tell my Da that Ma says he's to come home at once.'  Back came Cyril 'He'll be up in 10 minutes'.  Woe betide Da if he wasn't home in twenty minutes as off my sister had to scurry again. 'If my Da doesn't come home immediately, Ma won't go out with him tonight.'  This brought him sheepishly home - always in a good humour - the settling up envelope intact apart from the little he'd spent to treat his cronies.  Who could deny them the companionship of their friends for an hour or so when the life was so hard and unpredictable. 

It was, indeed, a treacherous and worrying period during the war years. Although too young to realise the sadness in their lives at this time, it is little wonder that my recollections of my Da's homecomings were joyous occasions because of lives lost at sea.  Two of my mother's brothers - James and John (Christie) and my father's brother James never returned from fishing trips.  Their boats had been blown up by German mines - or torpedoed.  Both my parents were from the fishing fraternity and their forebears had been touched by their greatest fishing disasters known to the Northeast coast between Stonehaven and Aberdeen during the eighteen hundreds.  They knew at first hand the sorrow and the tragedy with which the sea had ruthlessly robbed them of their menfolk.
My grandfather had been left an orphan at a very tender age when his mother died of a broken heart soon after witnessing, from the shore, the loss of her husband, two brothers, father and two cousins (Moses Wood) who all perished in the Great Storm of 1880, within sight of the Downies shore.

It was the days when schoolbooks and education had to be paid for, thus Granddad and his brothers and sisters had no schooling and he could neither read nor write. Latterly, my Grandmother taught him to sign his name.  They raised a family of 14 very healthy and robust children, nine sons and five daughters of which my mother was one.
Of course, families of this size were not uncommon in those days, but it was unusual and rare not to have one mortality in this number of births.  Good, healthy stock.  Seven of the brothers were fishermen and we would get visits from some of them when they were in the vicinity of Torry Dock. If they visited when Dad was at home, of course, the conversation always related to the previous trip's fishing.  They were very God-fearing.  Uncle Albert was a regular visitor and kept us amused and interested with his stories and anecdotes.  After a particularly frightening experience at sea on one occasion, I'll always remember his words - 'The Mannie up there was watchin' o'er us.'

Weekends Da was home he took us to Nigg Kirk in our Sunday best.  He had a great sense of humour and fun.  One Communion Sunday, my sister and I sat in the back pew as observers.  A large goblet of wine was being passed round.  On the way home Da jibed to us that the Minister had said 'Drink ye all of it' and as he was the first in the pew, he had - but wondered what the rest had got.  When my brother was born, Da was determined he would be called Moses (an old family name), but my mother would have none of it and tried to humour him out of it.  When he took something into his head he was difficult to shift.  Off he went to register the birth, and mother was on tenterhooks till he came home.  She looked at the certificate with apprehension; he had compromised and called him Joseph.  Seafarers were partial to biblical names; some of my uncles were Andrew, James, John, Peter, Thomas and Joseph.

 My father's generation discouraged their sons from going to sea.  In fact, very few of my cousins - if any - followed the tradition.  Dad had known nothing else since the age of twelve, apart from four years in the army in the First World War, when he saw service in the Dardanelles.  He bore a scar of that campaign.  The second finger of his left hand was permanently bent and useless and he had no power in it.  When we were small he told us that the Germans had shot it.  Actually, he had cut it while opening a tin of 'bully beef' in the trenches and through neglect it had become septic.  The army hospital advised him to have it amputated, but Da wanted to keep it - something he later regretted as it hampered him at work with the lines; wearing a glove on that
t hand proved awkward - a great inconvenience in the icy perils of winter in the North Sea.