1890
Accident to a Fisherman at Aberdeen.—On Friday a somewhat serious accident occurred to Robert Murray, skipper the herring fishing boat Morning Star, of Cellardyke, KY 9. The crew were proceeding to the fishing ground, and while going down the channel the boat was run into by one of the local craft returning to the harbour. Murray was standing on the bow of his own boat with cork fender in his hand to lessen the force of the blow, and while doing so his left leg got entangled with a rope hanging from the boom of the colliding boat. He tried to extricate himself, but this could not be done in time to prevent the limb being broken. The Morning Star returned to the harbour, and Murray’s injuries were attended to.
Arbroath
FISHING BOAT STRANDED. While the fishing boat, Gem of the Ocean KY 1953. Cellardyke, (David Reid, skipper), was leaving the harbour on Friday morning last for the herring fishing, she drifted the rocks at Danger Point. Several other boats went to her assistance and endeavoured to pull her off, but the tide was receding and they were unsuccessful. She remained fast for number of hours, and her nets and fishing gear were brought ashore as to lighten her. The boat was successfully floated with the afternoon tide, and it was then found that she had sustained little or no damage.
1891
DEATH OF MR GEORGE GOURLAY THE HISTORIAN OF THE EAST ‘ NEUK OF FIFE.
By the death of Mr George Gourlay, stationer Anstruther, which took place at his residence, High Street, East Anstruther, on Wednesday, the East Neuk of Fife has lost one of its best known and most respected inhabitants. Though moving in a humble sphere of life, Mr Gourlay attained to great local fame as an author, and his name has become pretty well known in the literary world. He w born in Pittenweem on 12th January, 1832, and at his death was in the sixtieth year of his age.
His father. Mr Andrew Gourlay, was a bookseller and bookbinder, and carried on business tor upwards of sixty years in Shore Street, Anstruther. George was the eldest son of the family, and when as a lad he was much about his father’s shop, where he acquired a taste for reading. After finishing his education, he was apprenticed to the trade of a shoemaker. His own inclinations lay in a different direction; he would have preferred to have followed his father’s business, but in a fishing town on the coast of Fife at that time the book trade was far from being a lucrative business. He was never well adapted for following the trade of shoemaker, as he suffered from infancy from defective vision. He served his apprenticeship, however, and worked for a time as a journeyman, and also partly on his own account. Getting tired of a sedentary life, he obtained a situation as supercargo on board a small vessel, the James Bain, which plied between Elie and Leitb. Though these voyages were short, and the vessel never ventured beyond the Firth of Forth, yet the experience he gained of the sea and seafaring life were of practical value to him in after life. He continued in this situation for two years or thereby, when he returned to Anstruther, and sat down to the shoe- maker’s stool once more. Shoemaking was but a poorly paid industry, and with the physical defect under which be laboured his earnings were but small. The trade was not congenial to his tastes, although the quiet sedentary nature of the occupation was very favourable for mental reflection. While working at his trade he began to contribute to the press, and the weekly penny newspapers then beginning to grow popular, the idea struck him that he might add a little to his income by retailing them. Meeting with good encouragement in that line, he conceived a novel idea. He had a small wooden house constructed, and set on wheels. This he fitted up as a book and newspaper stall. Every morning he took up his position at the pier, and vended his literary wares amongst the fishermen, and at night the stall was wheeled back to his house and stored safely away. He was now in his real element. He found ample leisure to read and think, and, besides mingling daily amongst the fishermen, he became familiar with their habits of life and peculiar traits of character. Old salts whose life-voyage was drawing to a close would come down to the pier and sit in the sun, and there they would spin their yarns, and recount the adventures and hardships they had experienced. Mr Gourlay was an attentive listener to the ” old sailors’ yarns, and these he stored up in his memory, which was remarkably retentive. About this time he began to contribute to the local press. His first essay in literature was a series of stories and traditions of the Fife coast. A sympathetic paragraph on the death of Dr Black, a much-respected medical practitioner of Anstruther, which Mr Gourlay wrote for one of the Fifeshire newspapers, attracted considerable attention. He afterwards became a local correspondent for the Dundee Courier and the Weekly News, a position he filled with painstaking ability up to his death. The business carried on in the house on wheels never rose to be a very paying concern. After two years he took a shop in the High Street, and about this time also he got married, and the necessity for pushing business became more urgent. His wife proved a true helpmeet. She thoroughly sympathised with his tastes for reading, and proved very helpful in his literary labours. In early life he read much but as years wore on his sight became weaker and weaker, till he could only read and write with difficulty. Reading was a necessity, and his wife had a taste in that way, and she always read whatever book her husband wished. Mr Gourlay was a keen antiquary and a lover of history, and in regard to all that pertained to the history of his native county he was looked up to as an authority. In the course of his life he collected a splendid library, comprising many valuable and rare works. What was read to him he never forgot, and if anyone wanted a reference or a quotation they had only to ask Mr Gourlay, and he would recite the passage, and tell them the title and page of the book where it was to be found. Dr Rogers, of London, obtained much valuable information from Mr Gourlay, and they often corresponded together, but they never met but once.
In 1879 Mr Gourlay published his first work “Fisher Life, or the Memorials of Cellardyke ad the Fife Coast.” The book was well received of the public and the press. At the Edinburgh. Fisheries Exhibition Mrs Gourlay had a stall, on which she sold what remained of the edition. The fisher people crowded round the stall, crying to one another, ”Here’s Geordie Gourlay’s book, man, we maun buy it.” The book is now out of print, and much sought after by collectors, A series of papers entitled “People and Places about the East Neuk ” were contributed by Mr Gourlay to the columns of the Weekly News. These he afterwards collected and published by Messrs W. & D. C. Thomson, Dundee, under the title of “Old Neighbours, or Folk Lore of the East Neuk ” His last work, ” Anstruther, or Illustrations of Scottish Burgh Life,” was published in 1888. All these works are highly interesting, and are full of quaint and pawky stories, old legends, and the reminiscences of the hardships and dangers of life, to which the hardy fishermen of our coasts are subjected. The last mentioned works are still on sale. One great peculiarity of Mr Gourlay’s mental capacities was his memory. While acting as local re-porter he took no notes. He listened, and so gifted was his power of concentration that he would return from even a stormy Town Council meeting and dictate to his daughter, who acted as his amanuensis, a full and correct report of the proceedings. It was his habit when he heard a good story to come home and get it written down at once, and then the copy was laid aside so carefully and methodically that he could lay his hand on it at any time.
His love of antiquarian research amounted to a passion. In the course of his life he has collected copies of the inscriptions and epitaphs on nearly every tombstone in every kirkyard in Fife, from Burntisland on the south to Newburgh on the north, and all along the coasts. This may appear to some to have been a mere “hobby,” but there is a purpose in it notwithstanding. The work was laboriously and carefully performed. He made pedestrian excursions to the various kirkyards, accompanied by some of his family or friends, whom he employed to do the copying. Latterly, his eldest son, William, was his companion in these excursions. With an exercise book in his pocket, a few biscuits for luncheon, they would start off on long pilgrimages to distant burial places. Often the stones were so overgrown with moss or so broken and decayed that they were scarcely legible. But nothing daunted the letters were scraped out with a knife, or, failing that, an impression was taken by “rubbing.” Many curious and quaint specimens of tombstone, literature were thus stored up, from which Dr Rogers and others have been supplied. But the collection of- these epitaphs had another advantage— it gave him a complete knowledge of the people of Fife, landed proprietors, and others, which often proved useful as references in his literary work.
In all municipal matters he took a deep interest, but though often requested to allow himself to be nominated for the Council his modesty was too great to accept the honour. But in all points of difficulty he was invariably consulted, and to no one else could then apply for more authentic information. Mr Gourlay was- engaged on another work on Fifeshire, which he has left unfinished. He has also a vast collection of notes on all sorts of folklore and such literature, which might be valuable. But his work is over. He took ill about a month ago, but though his friends thought it was only a slight indisposition at first he gradually grew weaker and weaker. Still no serious consequences were apprehended. His mind was as clear as ever, and even up to the week before his death he continued to dictate para- graphs for his daughter to write to the Weekly News. On Wednesday last a change set in, and about three o’clock in the afternoon he passed peace- fully away. Mr Gourlay was a member of the Established Church, and was a true, earnest Christian, but though often urged he always declined to take office in the Church. He has left a widow and three sons and a daughter, for whom great sympathy is felt in their sore bereavement.