A Fishy Tale

An old friend of mine John Jones who lived in Great Yarmouth in the 1930's passed on this tale to me:

"I remember the fisher girls who used to come down from Scotland" he states, "they came down by train from Edinburgh and Glasgow following the East Coast line and would finish their trail at Lowestoft. They would normally arrive in Yarmouth the day before the boats were due in. I remember there were hundreds of herring boats on either side of the river as there were two quays on both sides back then. The fish were mainly taken off the boats on the Yarmouth side but the boats had to berth on the opposite side.
The boats that were berthed then just tipped the herring straight into the holds which then were filled full of herring -the basket was called a CRAN of herring - (a weight or measure), would be placed down in the Hold on top of the fish. The men were down there shovelling, how they shovelled them in I don't know, however, I believe it would have been some sort of implement that wouldn't damage the fish. They then filled the CRAN which would come swinging out as another was coming in on some sort of hoist thing, it would swing across the quay and then it was tipped into a skip.
The skip was a thing shaped like a dogs bone, a basket and a handle and when it lifted up it appeared as a long piece with a big bump on both ends. Then they were swung across to the fish market and were sold as far as I know in the skips. If any fish fell off they were not allowed to touch them and that's where we kids used to go in and get them. When the fish went across and sold they were moved further along out of what they called the Sheds into the gutting area and there were these long tables with some form of cover over, they were not permanent things, they used to erect them as far as I know for the girls. They would then gut the fish and throw the fish into the barrels. If I remember rightly, they put in the fish first and then the salt; fish then salt; fish then salt; I know at the end they used to put the last layer of salt on and then they were moved, you weren't allowed that close to actually see what was going on.
Some smart person decided either that they weren't putting enough in, or, they weren't layering them in the right direction. He complained so a dispute came about, either over money or how the job was being done, or, over the time they were taking to carry out the job. I was too young at the time to remember the exact details. I cannot understand why there was never anything recorded about the strike though.

This particular Scottish lady, she was about the biggest one they could ever send to represent the group. She decided she'd had enough; she stood up chucked down her knife and said "come on girls we'll go and sort this out, follow me" which they did. They all dropped herrings, dropped knives and they all marched down to the quay. The story goes that they were off to the Town Hall to see someone in authority!
The police came to hear about what was happening and decided they must not let them get that far - Well, they got as far as the market place, the market place is the road beyond the Town Hall. They went down the back road where they had been working and in doing that, they didn't turn off to go to the quay but turned down and went straight to the market. Now, whether the police had stopped all the others roads I don't know but she appeared as the leader as she walked away. There was this great big Cod that had been caught, it had landed amongst the herring, she grabbed hold of it and I can remember this as plain as I can see you now. She was a very tall lady and she grabbed this thing by the tail, the mouth of it was just touching the cobbles on the road as she bounced along swaying from side to side - I'd never seen a bigger fish in all my life! I was playing down near the quay when I heard all this commotion. I was either 9 or 10 and I ran with the other boys who I was with at the time. We caught sight of this huge woman and the cod coming down the road with all these ladies behind her, there might have been 20,30, 40 or even a hundred. All the traffic was moving out of the way and traffic stopped - the police sergeant walked into the middle of the road and said "Stop you go no further", she boomed……… "Out a ma wae laddie" swung the huge cod and beat him across the head and his helmet went flying, us kids thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen. What happened after that I don't know? They were not arrested.
They were such a rough and ready sort of people, they were often heavy drinkers and most of the boarding houses would close when they arrived in town as they didn't want the damage bestowed upon their homes. They were an unusual sort, such as, if you were walking around the quay and they felt you looked a bit poor and unkempt they would flick a fish behind them so that you would at least eat something for that day - a kind hearted lot I think! "

Original story by John Jones