PROTOTYPE
In Highland Railway days, at the height of the herring fishing season, a special express fish train was run daily from Buckie to Liverpool and Manchester via Aviemore – one could say that it was the forerunner of the 4.45pm from Perth – but that route was never going to compete with the better access over Great North of Scotland/North British and Caledonian routes via Aberdeen.
Those of us of a certain age may well be very familiar with Ewan McColl's evocative song, The Shoals of Herring, a fisherman remembering his youth and becoming a man on the Scottish sailing luggers that followed the herring in the heydays before WW1. To a certain extent, the song celebrates the massive presence of the Scottish fleet in the Yarmouth fishery and the onshore curing works. Quite apart from the fishermen, the singing of the Scottish herring girls was a familiar setting on the streets and quays of Yarmouth. They were also famed for being able to gut 46 fish every 60 seconds, all day long.
“With our nets and gear, we're faring on the wild and wasteful ocean. It's there that we hunt and we earn our bread as we hunted for the shoals of herring.”
All around the British coastline, there were fishing ports of one kind or another, but on this occasion, concentration
