1870
Coals for the Poor. – At a meeting of the Parochial Board of Kilrenny held Wednesday last, it was agreed to distribute half ton of coals to each of the registered poor of the parish, about the end of the year.
The Fishing.- Our boats have all except four returned from the Yarmouth fishing, twenty-five in number, and although the success has been varied upon the whole, our fishermen have made very good thing of it. A good many have grossed £350 or upwards, and perhaps £250 may be taken as an average. It is likely that the result will induce good many more to try their luck, in that quarter next season.
Discussion over water in Anstruther –
….Mr Graham, in speaking of the well at the foot of Haddfoot Wynd, said a good deal of money had been expended and trouble taken in regard to it both by the people in the neighbourhood and the Cellardyke fishermen. About 22 or 23 years ago Mr Peebles’ father and Mr Donaldson started a subscription for laying down that pipe, and ever since that time no public body had taken any interest in it. He did not believe in boring for water in the front street, because if their fishing seasons were to come back as they were some 15 or 20 years ago, the ground would get saturated with salt and brine, and the water would be certain to get contaminated by surface impurities.
1871
WANTED immediately, as a SAWMILLER, an Active, Steady Workman, who thoroughly understands his Business. Apply to, T. CORMACK, Cellardyke Sawmills.
From what we hear, there seems to have been some dispute between the Scotch and English fishermen. The Englishmen are in the habit of not hauling their nets until daylight, while the Cellardyke and other Scotch fishermen haul them as soon as they ascertain there are herrings in the nets. As the helms of the Scotch boats are made straight down, a slight space being left between it and the stern of the boat, they caught the nets of the English boats, and sometimes tore them. This led, it is said, to some retaliation on the part of the Englishmen, and hence the dispute. The most of the boats that have returned will prosecute the haddock fishing for a month or six weeks previous to the commencement of the winter herring fishing.
HERRINGS FROM THE CLYDE.—A large quantity of herrings have arrived per rail from the Clyde this week, several of the curers, including Provost Todd, Bailie J. T. Darsie, Bailie Bonthron, and Mr Cormack of Cellardyke, having had agents through at Greenock. The fishing there in the beginning of the week was very successful, and prices one day were as low as 14s. per cran. The herrings, which are large in size and of excellent quality, are being made into reds.
A very sudden death took place here on Wednesday. Mrs George Barclay, after going about as usual all day, complained of a pain in her side. Shortly after eight o’clock, and on the advice of her husband, she went to bed. About ten o’clock Mr Barclay thought he heard a groan, and on going to the bedside he found his wife dead. Medical assistance was at once called in, but life was quite extinct. The cause is said to have been paralysis. Mrs Barclay, who was a very exemplary wife and mother, was about 62 years of age, and has left a large family who are all grown up.
THE MORTALITY. —The cold raw weather we have experienced during the past fortnight is telling severely on persons in delicate health, and the ” Shadow fear’d of man,” as death has been called, has been making its appearance in our midst this week oftener than usual, and filling the air with ” farewells to the dying and mournings for the dead.” The death of Miss Christian F. Marr, youngest daughter of Mr John Marr, is a peculiarly affliction, and has called forth the sympathy of the community. The ruthless hand of death has been busy in Mr Mars’s family during the past few years. First, his second son, a very promising young man, died three years ago; then followed a daughter in the beginning of the year ; and now another daughter has been taken away, leaving to their bereaved parents only the consolation that
“These same afflictions
Not from the ground arise.
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.”
1873
HADDOCK FISHING Cellardyke,. Sir, -As the “Wick Fisher” in yesterday’s Scotsman thanks us for information anent haddock fishing, and asks other questions, we, with your permission, beg to reply. But, to begin with, we have a strong suspicion that he is not a “thorough-bred, ” as his lingo betrays him – for whoever heard, from Tweed to John o’ Groat’s, any fisher speak of a “haddock voyage.” No, Sir, he smells strongly of leather, and he seems more a theorist than a practical fisherman, as he dives too much for us into the long-talked-of theory of over-fishing, a subject that we will not discuss with him.
“All of us,” he says, gives us credit for being crack fishermen. Well, this is something even from him; but we are not proud of it, as our grandfathers earned this in old Wick, when they used to go there in very small open boats, carrying only 15 nets, while 20 to 30 crans of herrings was quite their cargo. This was what he likely calls the olden time, and before he or Pulteney harbour was made. The only harbour then was up the Burn. and where likely he and his brethren wish it was still; from then to this we have slowly, but surely, been making progress, advancing with the times, stepping from boat to boat – not jumping – until we have reached (now ten years ago) the large decked boat. Correspondingly, we have added to our lengths of line, but not ten times more as he supposes, but only three times more; and as to going out forty to sixty miles for haddocks we have done so thirty years previous to the decked boat era in open boats, but only in the summer season; and now, following up, we venture there in the winter season, and find haddocks as plentiful as we did in the summer season.
We are glad that the “Wick Fisher” admits his ignorance in being willing to learn to haul lines on rough ground, but that is a small part in successful haddock fishing. The wives and families are also to train in line baiting – a most essential part. And we know that Wick Is poor indeed in line baiters, and we venture an opinion that it will be some time yet before successful haddock fishing will be carried on as here, notwithstanding their costly £100, 000 breakwater. And now, to finish up, would it surprise him to know that as all our boats are home from the Yarmouth herring fishing, making our haddock fleet now of sixty decked boats, we could, with our combined lengths of line, stretch from the Isle of May to the Naze of Norway-there? Well might he exclaim, ” Och …. boy , that’s ‘ prodigious . ‘ “—I am, &c. A CELLARDYKE FISHER ?
1874
Two of the Cellardyke fishing boats, belonging to Skippers Alex. Brown and David Wilson, left Yarmouth on Saturday, and considerable anxiety was felt as to the safety of the crews. On Monday, however, a telegram was received that the former had taken refuge in Hartlepool, and on Tuesday morning Skipper David Wilson entered the harbour, having been out during the whole of the gale. The storm had overtaken them on Sunday, and deeming it impossible to gain any harbour, the crew determined to face it out. Their boat is fortunately a full-decked one, or it would undoubtedly have been swamped; but even with this protection it is marvellous that they were able to escape without damage. Frequently they were compelled to lay the boat to, and on one occasion one of the crew was swept overboard by a heavy sea. Providentially he caught hold of some of the halyards as he was carried away, and his companions at once pulled him on board again. The attention of the whole of the crew was continually devoted to securing their safety, until they were not far from the May Island, by which time the weather had moderated.
There would appear to obvious improvement day by day in the sanitary condition of the neighbourhood. Scarlatina, there reason to trust, is on the eve taking its departure, but three fatal cases have been reported in Cellardyke during the last nine days. One of these was a fine girl of three summers, the child of Mr James Dick, fisherman, Cellardyke, who died on Friday; another was a son of Robert Thomson’s, whose sufferings closed on the following day in his sixth year; and the third victim was a promising boy about thirteen years age, who was reft from the household of John Dickson. But while the young blossoms are falling thus thickly as the green leaves are withered in a night in the beauty of the spring time, the old familiar faces who have been with us like the ancient trees by the wayside, are also fast yielding to the inevitable autumn. On Tuesday evening a venerable widow, Alison Brown, the relict of John Smith, died at West Anstruther, in her eighty-fourth year, and on Thursday morning Mr Robert Cunningham, the oldest fisherman in Cellardyke, breathed his last at the ripe old age of eighty-nine.