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Craig Easton
“I was one of the fastest gutters – it took me a couple of months to learn it and a year to pick up speed. My hand used to cramp up and I used to stab my finger all the time.’ So says Louise Hutchins, a filleter at Aberdeen (left). On the right Glynys Stews stands outside a smokehouse in Lowestoft, Norfolk.
Left: An easing in the cliffs at Eshaness, Shetland. The islands were the northerly point of Craig Easton's photographic project. Left: Right: the last smokehouse in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
[The fish] “was piled up for us to cut and we never saw the bottom of the farlan [a wooden trough] for three weeks. They kept on piling them up and up and up every day, but we made up for it when we went to the Palais at night. We had good times. Every Saturday night. Dancing.” Mary Williamson, left, photographed in Shetland. Right: a portrait entitled 'the hands that gut the herring.'
“It was travelling work. I gid tae Isle of Man, Lerwick, Lowestoft and Yarmouth... We had nothing. Nothing. We had nae showers, we had a basin and a tap outside with cauld water... I’ll tell ye it was very hard work, but I enjoyed it.” Rita McNab, packer; Lerwick, Shetland
Not all ‘fisherwomen’ are land-based. Shiela Hirsch, from North Shields, was a trawler captain. During her time at sea she was pulled off the ship in wild weather. “Very rarely do you get back again. I’m lucky. I’ve been over the wall three times and each time I’ve been alright.”
Phyllis Jones, Kirkwall, Orkney.
Margaret Smith with a rack of smoked haddock – to be made into the 'Arbroath smokies' – Arbroath, Scotland.
Paulina Efczynska, a shellfish processor at Stromness, Orkney.
Frances Brown, fish smoker; St Monans, Fife, Scotland.
Angie Smith, Peterhead, Scotland.