Remembering Scotland’s Herring Girls – BBC News

“From anything I have seen and heard told of the herring gutters there was a social side to the work too,” says Ian.

“The women worked in teams of three or five, and sometimes they were from the same family.

“If it was a team of three you had two gutting and one packing fish into barrels.”

In Wick, the work was focused on Lower Pultneytown, a part of Wick designed in the 19th Century by famous Scots engineer Thomas Telford to support Britain’s booming fishing industry.

Ian says: “Millions of fish would come through Wick.

“It is said the population of the town would grow by three times during the herring season.”

But with no fishing on Sundays, in observation of the Sabbath, Saturday nights offered a rare chance of some time off for fishermen and gutters.

“At one point there were 43 pubs just in the Lower Pultney area,” says Ian.