1870
SUDDEN DEATHs. —Two very affecting and striking instances of the uncertainty of life occurred in Cellardyke on Thursday last. Christian Black, wife of Mr Anderson Lothian, was attending a religious meeting in the Town Hall, when, as Mr Martin, an evangelist from Glasgow, was engaged in prayer, she fell down in a fit of palsy. She was carried to the house below the hall, where she died about ten hours afterwards. The other case was that of Helen Henderson, wife of Mr Andrew Ringan, shoemaker, who was found dead in bed by her son in the morning. Her partner, who is about eighty, was sleeping by her side, and his feelings on wakening may be conceived but never described, Both of the deceased were about seventy years of age.
1871
PROPOSAL TO RAISE A COMPANY OF VOLUNTEERS.—A proposal has this week been made to raise a company of artillery volunteers here, and a canvass is at present going on to ascertain the amount of support likely to be obtained. A large number of persons in Anstruther and Cellardyke, have it is said promised to become members, so that we have the prospect of there being a second company of volunteers in the district. It is doubtful, however, whether two companies will be able to receive sufficient support, so as to keep them in a prosperous condition as regards funds, &c
The greater part of the Cellardyke boats are still at the haddock fishing, but several crews are nightly at the drift, though with very trifling success. Tuesday seventeen boats arrived in Anstruther harbour, but the entire produce of the fishing was only about seven crans; and on Monday about the same number of boats landed ten crans, the highest take being crans. In consequence of so small a supply there is very close demand, prices rule as high as 40s per cran.
Fatal Effects of an Accident. —At an early hour on Saturday morning, Skipper Charles Anderson, of Cellardyke, who was so cruelly crushed by the fall of the boat’s masts during the sea storm of Friday week, died of his injuries after an interval of the most intense suffering and agony. He was about 47 years of age, and leaves seven children, five of the orphans being still unable to provide for themselves. Seldom, indeed, has the pathos and mystery of life been so sadly illustrated as in the case of this stricken household. About three years ago, and within a fortnight of each other, two fine daughters were swiftly cut down in the bloom of early womanhood ; and a few months ago, the mother also passed to the “narrow house,” in whose cold embrace five of her twelve children had been already laid. Skipper Anderson was one of the most extensive and successful fishermen of his native town, and his melancholy and untimely fate has elicited on all sides the deepest expression of sympathy and regret.
1872
HERRING LIFE; OR A NIGHT AT THE FISHING. (By a Cellardyke Skipper.) I remember being on Anst’er pier one summer afternoon about the time the Union Harbour Bill passed through “the little storm” raised against it by my old friend, Mr Diston, in the House of Lords, when some townsfolks came by, talking amongst themselves over “the glorious news,” as they called it; and to have seen them laughing and rubbing their hands, you would have supposed they had just come to a fortune of five thousand a-year. One old gentleman, whose enthusiasm was as fiery red as his whiskers, twirled his walking-stick in the air, and declared with the air of a fervent believer
“Oh, yes; only let the new harbour be built, and less than ten years will bring it all about. Baltic steamers and big three masted ships will be lying at our pier ; and instead of fishing boats, we will have smacks and luggers, as they have at Grimsby, and Anst’er will be a great place, and—and—
“Blethers,” snapped in Maggie Wilson, who had overheard the grand oration as she was giving jack a lift down with some lines on a hand barrow. And I will never forget the look of contempt, or rather disgust, on the faces of the party as they turned their backs on honest Maggie and went up the quay. This was more than eleven years ago when not a few individuals only went mad with joy , but all Anst’er lighted bonfires, and drank healths and drowned common sense in porter barrels at Cross, over the golden prospects of the new harbour, just as our grandfathers did when Lord Nelson gained a victory. All the world knows, however, that a stormy winter or two has swept the “cobweb” project to wreck and ruin ; though, I believe, as our Parliamenter, Mr Ellice, told us the other year in the Town Hall, that so many thousands of pounds cannot be thrown into the sea, but must in the end prove a material good to the fishing and general trade of the district; but, in the meantime, instead of the seven acres of deep water that long ere this the fishermen of Cellardyke had a right to expect, we have to be contented, nolens colens, with the old shallow harbour and its tumble down piers, that long before the days of big boats ad railroads, poor old Bailie Greig, with one of his curious oaths, was ‘‘as unfit for the fishing traffic as a laddie’s jacket for a man’s back
I hate a grumbler ; but let any stranger visit Anst’er shore this week, and he will see that the want of a proper harbour is nothing less than the sacrifice of one of the most valuable fisheries on the Scottish coast. Any day he may see the boats hurrying in to catch the ebbing tide, or to take shelter from the gathering storm, when one of the crew, who is keeping a lookout below the clue of the foresail, cries aft, “Mind your helm—there’s a mess at the pierhead,” and the steersman can see for himself the horn shaped stern of the “Skaffie” boats of the Moray firth or the well varnished quarters of our own sea nymphs glistening in the sun like sheet-glass, sticking outside the grim tangle-grown bulwark, but you must find a berth as best you can, and in this way a fleet of perhaps 200 boats are literally wedged and packed like herrings in a barrel. And, then, what a scene of confusion and uproar may follow if the wind shifts round to the southward. The boats are creaking and heaving like forest trees in a storm, and a thousand men are scrambling from thwart to thwart, and from gunwale to gunwale with anchors and moorings, when high above the rush of wind and the rattle of chains you hear a sharp snap, and you turn round perhaps in time to catch the look of wild despair on the face of some luckless skipper who bewails, as another would do his wife, the loss of a “timberhead;” or your ear is again drawn away to yonder crash, where a low Buckie gunwale is splintering the sides of the Cockenzie boat, whose sharp-voiced crew are launching all sorts of maledictions against their north county neighbours, who, on the other hand, are as loudly entreating them not to give way to their temper, and the unchristian sin of blasphemy; or in the middle of a hubbub a Broughty skipper goes frantic over the loss of a rudder, though his plight seems by no means half so awkward as the little Arbroath man who has drifted broadside on to the sharp stem of a Fife boat, which threatens to cut him down to the water’s edge, and so the babel like strife of tongues goes on, while the property, if not the lives of the poor men are lying at the mercy of wind and waves, so that it is not at the open sea only, but in the very harbour that our fishermen are exposed and often sustain serious loss and injury. We have all seen, in fact, the beach strewn with wreck, and the gains of a season lost by the disasters of a night, and scarcely a week passes but some accident resulting from the want of sufficient harbour accommodation, which, as will be seen. I only consider in a fisherman’s point of view, that is without estimating the hazards or losses that the buyer must experience from the same cause.
Even in calm weather there is often great inconvenience, and sometimes much mischief sustained by the overcrowded state of the harbour ; and when I see the damage that is constantly overtaking my neighbours, I confess to a feeling of thankfulness every time we get safe away to the fishing ground. We were all proud last summer when we read the noble speeches in Parliament of Sir Robert Anstruther and Mr Ellice on Anstruther harbour, and with such friends to give us a pull we all hope soon to be on the windward side of our difficulties ; and in penning these humble remarks my only ambition has been to show how well such clear-headed pilots can be trusted at the helm of our affairs. But let me now proceed to give some description of fisher life at sea. Pushing out as best we could through the labyrinth of boats we at length hoisted sail at the beacon, and with the last turn given to the sheet we stood away to the fishing ground, one of the men stopped a gleeful whistle to congratulate his boatmate, “We’re all right now, no fear of prices after this. I saw young Maister Broon and they smairt little chaps the Craigs, and that guide faced chiel Morell, an’ they tell me a whole host of the ither English buyers will be here this week. I only wish we had the herring noo.”
The rest of the crew appeared to participate in the same jubilant feelings, for each and all lighted “the pipe of peace” and began to smoke like men happy with themselves and all the world besides. “They tell me,” said another, ‘‘there is not a little a little town or village in all England but is supplied with herrings from “Anster at this season, and that if there is a secret about the success of the English buyers, it all lies with their large connection with the country fish-dealers whom they supply just as a wholesale grocer would do the retail trade that is with one package or ten just as they may be needed.” “l think, however,” interrupted a third, “our own curers show a good deal of spirit A few years ago it was thought that winter herrings could only sell as reds ; but you see thousands of bloater boxes every week going to the London market, and they tell me that their fine cure is greatly relished by the cockneys, who ought to know what is good for the stomach”
“That may very true,” rejoined the first speaker, “but, I’ve heard that droll old chiel Dave Mellin often say at Sharp and Murray’s gyle that when they began the winter herring fishing on this part of the coast, about fifty years ago, the fishers might have sung for many a day
“Cauld Carnbee
Muckle wark, an’ little meat,
An ill paid fee.
And what with stormy weather and low prices, there was only too good reason for grumbling; and so it continued til that memorable February some twenty years ago, when these twin pioneers of the Englishj Herring trade George Toby and Bill Smith, took the sleep out of the curers’ eyes by the bright sovereigns they set afloat amongst the fishermen”
Chatting together in this way, or now and then, discussing the events on shore, our gallant little bark darted over the swelling waters, till midway between the Island of may and North Berwick Law, when one of our crew leaped excitedly to his feet and pointing leeward, cried eagerly aft – “Skipper do you see that?” TBC
1873
CATTLE WASHED ASHORE Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the carcases of several cattle were found on the beach at different parts of the coast. One was found at the back of the east pier here, two at Cellardyke, and two at Pittenweem, one of which had floated into the new basin. Those found to the eastward were taken charge of by Mr Keay, receiver of wrecks, and at Pittenweem by the sanitary Inspector, who got them buried. It is supposed that they formed part of those thrown overboard from the steamer Gothland, from Copenhagen to Leith, while caught in a gale in the North Sea.
The Cellardyke Steam Bootmaking Works.— That pressing question of the day as to how light and healthful employment can be provided for women, is nowhere, we presume, finding a more unobtrusive but satisfactory answer than in the interesting Steam Bootmaking Factory of Mr John Gilchrist, Cellardyke. There are about half-a-score of nimble fingered bright-eyed daughters of Eve—busy at work all day long amongst the grasshopper-like music of the sewing machines—making up all sorts of uppers, from the elegant drawingroom boot down to the homely slipper or housewife’s shoe; but besides these Gilchrist has just introduced another department of female labour, which in his judicious hands has every prospect of success. In a large and cheerful gallery, the west side of the sunny seaside coast, some thirteen or fourteen strapping damsels are now work as shoemakers on the riveting process, and a single glance at the earnest faces bent over the ingeniously planted benches, or the merry shower-like clanking of the riveting hammers is alone needed to convince you how thoroughly at home the fair operatives already find themselves with their light and congenial task. In developing his establishment into one of the largest in Scotland, Mr Gilchrist has shown ordinary strength of purpose and facility of invention.
1874
WANTED, an APPRENTICE to the Grocery Business. Apply to Alex. Marr, Cellardyke.
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