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Photograph of Peter Fairbairn

Peter Fairbairn

Peter belongs to: Cullercoats RNLI

Peter was born in Simpson Street in Cullercoats. From an early age he wanted to be a fisherman and lifeboatman. Peter fished from a coble, herring drifters and trawlers.

Peter was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 24 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 1 hour, 4 minutes and 38 seconds.

Photograph of Peter Fairbairn
Photograph of Peter Fairbairn

The herring drifters

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"I was too young to go in the trawler- you had to be 16 but the herring drifters I could go in"

I was too young to go in the trawler- you had to be 16 but the herring drifters I could go in. I had to sign two indentures but under fifteen and it was my uncle who knew this herring skipper who wanted a hand at that precise moment to go away up to Lerwick and he asked me and I was so keen and I took the job. And we went away to Lerwick and I think, in the first week, if there was a bus to go home I would have been home- it was that hard. But anyway I stuck it for three and a half months, came back to Shields and then went away down to Yarmouth and after that, well I was fully fledged herring man in Lerwick really.

And work was really hard- I can remember the first week we had been fishing well, no sleep and about, I think it was the Wednesday or Thursday, I said to the mate, I said, “when to we sleep?” He said, “at weekends!” And by Hell, he never spoke a truer word. That’s all the sleep- you were getting naps, but…

Well you used to go away at, say, four, three, four o’clock in the afternoon, go to the fishing grounds which were, say, forty miles away, shoot your… about three mile of net and lie, if you weren’t on watch, sleep. You went to what we called work, that was starting the haul, at about midnight. And depending on what herring you had, a fifty cran, that’s four baskets to a cran, 50 of them, a moderate day’s work. But the boat I was in would land anything like 160-200 crans. And once you started to haul in, that was work. From then on until you had a nap on your evening off, when you got shot. There was many a time you didn’t turn in for grub. The cook used to make some grub and you were that tired you turned in and would just leave us.

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This memory has these themes:
Roles and Routines | The North East | Traditions | Work

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