Ceardannan
The Summer Walkers
Eddie Davies – Pearl Fishing in Mackay Country
The Davies family lived by the ancient trade of pearl fishing in rivers like The Naver and The Laxford. Eddie Davies recalls fishing Mackay Country rivers.
The Rivers
‘The Tay gives you the big white pearls, but they don’t have the lustre we have on the rivers up here in Sutherland. The Oykel is a beautiful river, it’s there you get the coloured pearls – salmon pink, rose-pink, beautiful, beautiful pearls in the Oykel – but they tend to be small.’
‘The Laxford was always a great river for me like. There’s less colour in the Laxford, beautiful white pearls, satin-white, sliver-grey, moon pearls I used to call them.’
‘The Naver is a great river for pearls, the river ‘of the great cleared Strath’. The colours you get are white, the satin grey and sometimes a soft pink/grey. And the Mallard, Borgie, Inverkirkaig, they all have their different sheens.’
The Fishing
‘A pearl-fisherman needs a “rod” and a “glass” and that’s it. We always made our rods of hazel wood. One wood we never used was rowan, a rowan tree must be left to stand in the ground where it grew. The Travellers would never cut a rowan bough for a bow-tent; hazel or ash, yes, but not for us the rowan tree. It’s a superstition, goes way back. It’s a beautiful tree.
My rod would be hazel, maybe four, maybe six, maybe nine feet tall – an inch and a half to two inches thick. I like to have a slight bend tow thirds along the shaft, a kink – fo luck and for balance – for the pleasure of the hand. You slit the thick end with a knife, as though you are making a clothes peg. Then you bind the upper end of the cleft with binder-twine or string, to hold a spring in the ‘claw’ and stop any splitting of the shaft. Firm, with just a hint of give, the claw should be. I pared my claws to a beak shape, to grasp the mussel. They stand up, feeding in the sunlight, among stones in the bed of the river, and they come away easy enough. There’s a knack to it.
My “glass” is just a wooden box, with a glass bottom; it cuts out the side-light and allows you to see deep in the water. … Some people use a big jug with a glass-bottom, like a foghorn; but I’ve always used a box. I make them myself; just three in all my days I’ve had, I’m very superstitious.
Waders, or bare legs, is what we’d wear. Good waders can be very expensive! Bare legs it was when we were young – and the stones could be very hard on the toes. It’s shallow water we mostly fish but sometimes in a river with deep pools we use a boat.
Pearl-fishing, of course, is prohibited today, illegal by Act of Parliament. The river-mussel is a protected species. You see, we pearl fishers had to open up the shells, and so the fish were killed. Now when the number of pearl fishers was small, that was OK, but when they came up here like an army – that was it! We would know which shells to open but they would open every shell – wee shells, smooth shells – and that was that! They wiped the rivers clean. Something had to be done . Now you have to have an official permit. I have a permit. And you have to use a special tool, which opens the shell without killing the fish If there’s a pearl you have to run the flesh out, but otherwise every shell must be kept alive and thrown back into the water. The law’s right enough, difficult to enforce like, but right by me. Because what the cowboys did was kill the goose that laid the golden eggs! As a trade for local men, pearl-fishing up here is dead – but maybe in ten or twenty years the pearls will come again.”[1]
Eddie Davies
[1] Quoted by Timothy Neat in his important book ‘The Summer Walkers’, published by Canongate, Edinburgh – 2002.
Gordon Stewart - Apprentice Smith
Essie’s step-brother, Gordon Stewart, has lived in Bonar Bridge now for many years and worked for the ‘County’ Roads Department. Below he remembers his travelling days.
Tinsmithing
“Six years I was tinsmith on the road. It was my uncles, Brian Stewart and Peter Stewart who learned me the craft. But mainly it’s a thing you learn by doing, and most of all you learn by your mistakes. The first things that I made were the cups the crofters would leave behind at the well. And I used to make mugs for the children; from Tate and Lyle syrup tins, green and gold, with the lion and bees all round. I’d just turn the lip and fit a handle on. Going to a party, the children would take their own mugs, and syrup tins were just the thing. The mothers used to keep them for us, for when we came round, and old corned beef tins: we’d burn them to get the solder out.
By the age of twelve, I was near enough as good as Brian and Peter, and the womenfolk started selling everything I made. One day the orders would come in, the next day the women would take the orders back. We made three different kinds of milking pails, we made big pails for water, small pails, skimmers, milk-basins, creaming bowls, steamers for cloutie dumplings, sieves, basins, baths for babies and for washing clothes. Those were the big things. Then we made jugs, cups, ladles, spatulas for the frying pans. I’ve known us at it from half-past seven in the morning till late into the evening, when a rush was on. Work like that was hard on the eyes.”[1]
[1] Page 95 - Quoted by Timothy Neat in his book ‘The Summer Walkers’, published by Canongate, Edinburgh – 2002.
Loch Eriboll – Wartime Memories
‘I mind us meeting the MacPhees up at Laid, on Loch Erriboll, at Eriboll Farm. It’s deep water in the loch. We went to sleep in our tents and when we woke up there were battleships there, cruisers, destroyers anchored in a great row down the loch. That was 2nd September 1939. They’d come in to hide, waiting for the war. The Williamsons were camped not far along. … We were boys then and we cheered and waved our bonnets at the sailors. They must have wondered who the hell they were fighting for!’[1]
Eddie Davies
[1] Page 35 – Quoted by Timothy Neat in his book ‘The Summer Walkers’, published by Canongate, Edinburgh – 2002.