This essay is about my family history on my dads side, and

all of it traces back until about 1750. The one thing everyone
in my family had in common until the 1960s were that they
were all poor. Everyone.
My Granny's family were all 'Fisher Folk'. They lived in tiny
fishing communities along the coast of the Moray Firth from at
least 1700. Fishing was an extremely difficult way to make a
living. The men went to sea in small, open boats all the time
to go fishing, no matter what the weather. In some villages
the wives and mothers carried the men out to their boats so
they wouldnt have to fish with cold, wet feet. The women then
spent the day walking to nearby houses to sell the fish caught
the day before. Then they knitted while they walked so they
could keep as busy as possible all the time. My great granny
was well known in the farming community outside Hopeman where
she went to sell her fish - she smoked a clay pipe and always
had some uncooked rice in her pocket to chew as she went
along! They then had to come home and bait the lines for the
next day's fishing. This was a huge job and the older people
and children helped. Then they had to do all the usual
cooking, cleaning and looking after children. Men only married
women born into fishing communities because the life was so
hard women not born into it would never cope.
From about 1870 until after WW1 the herring industry in
Scotland was huge business. Herring moved in huge numbers down
the coast of Scotland and into England. The herring fleet large numbers of boats which caught herring - moved along the
coast catching the fish. When the fish were caught and brought
to shore they had to be gutted and packed in salt to preserve
them. This work was done by the 'guttin quines' that is,
Scottish girls who moved along the coast with the fleet. The
quines worked in crews of three - 2 quines did the gutting and
the 3rd packed them into huge barrels of salt. The knives were
very sharp and the girls wrapped their fingers in rags to try
and protect them. They had to work outside in all weather and
kept their spirits up by singing. They knitted while they
waited for the boats to come into the harbour. My great granny
followed the fishing from Ireland to Shetland and all the way
down to Yarmouth. Apparently she said the life was hard but
you made great friends with the girls you travelled with. She
went on strike the first day at work for better pay. This is
one of the earliest examples of women coming together to
improve their conditions.
My great Grandad served in the Royal
been in the Merchant Navy before the
immediately war was declared because
Navy Reserves. He spent a lot of the

Navy during WW2. He had

war and was called up
he had been in the Royal
war escorting ships

travelling across the Atlantic. Because of all the submarines

it was very dangerous work. One of the ships he was in (HMS
Hurricane) was torpedoed in December 1943 and he spent the
night 3 feet above the water waiting to be rescued. He was
lucky - all the sailors in the other 5 boats hit that night
died. In WW1 one of Grandads brothers (Alexander) and 5 of
his cousins were killed. The loss of life in WW1 was so huge
that every tiny village in the whole of Scotland (and England)
has a memorial to the men killed from that village.
My grandad's family lived and worked in Aberdeenshire before
moving to Aberdeen about 1870. They were labourers and farmers
and the girls were in domestic service before they got
married.
My Grandad was in the Royal Air force during WW2 because the
Government told him he had to join, even though he did not
volunteer. Both his brother in law and his brother were also
conscripted. Two of them were in the army and the other was in
the navy. All of them lived. My Grandad was in Paris when
peace was declared and saw the victory parades. At the start
of the war Aberdeen was bombed - it was called Black Friday.
Because my grandad and his family lived close to the docks
their house was bombed. He was asleep upstairs when one bomb
landed close and caused his roof to collapse. His life was
saved because the wardrobe fell on top of him.
My Grandad left school at 14 because he needed to start
earning money to help look after his Mum. His father had died
when he was only eight years old. My Great Granny had
struggled to bring up her four children on her own. Great
Grandad had been a riveter in the dockyards, working for Hall
Russell, very famous Aberdeen shipbuilders. One eye had a
light spot in it where a spark had gone in. Great Granny was a
rope maker before she got married. Both were physically very
hard jobs, and poorly paid.
My Grannie was a nurse before my dad, aunt and uncles where
born, when she worked with patients with mental disabilities.
She left school at 16, but would have like to have stayed
there but her Mother didn't see the point in more education if
she could get a job.