Trawling Reviewed by Roddy Lumsden

Raymond Anderson has two specialist subjects, Aberdeen and memories. It's no surprise to find that one of his books is called Memories of Aberdeen. A long-time journalist on the city's Evening Express, he has previously published four books of photographs of the city with commentaries. Now, his fifth book of this type covers the industry most associated with the city until the oil business came in the 70s, sea fishing.

Trawling, published by Black and White makes use of the photographic archives of The Press and Journal and covers the period from the 1880s, when the first steam trawlers arrived and brought in a new way of harvesting fish, up to the present, and the work of the Fisheries Research Services in helping fishermen to preserve their industry and conserve marine stocks.

The photographs are the meat of the book, and the unfussily written text, though informative and engrossing, takes a back seat. It is divided into sections covering various aspects of the industry and its history: skippers, the Cod Wars, equipment, lifeboats and so on. Anderson stresses the dangers of the job, suggesting that fishing is not only the country's most perilous profession, but is five times ahead of its nearest rival. Health and Safety may have made huge improvements to tough industries such as construction and mining, but no one can make the sea safe.

A memorial room in Fraserburgh has plaques for 116 men from the area who lost their lives at sea. Aberdeen was an especially dangerous port, due to a large and choppy bar (the area where freshwater and saltwater meet). Traditionally, trawlermen would not learn to swim, hoping that, if the worst happened, their heavy boots would take them down to a quick death. Although lifeboatmen report fewer boats in distress these days, as Anderson was writing this book, the Meridian, a trawler which was working as a patrol boat, was lost with four crewmen.

Aberdeen was fortunate, in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, to step up its fishing industry at a time when many English ports were waning. The areas of Torrie and Footdee boomed and grew. By the time of the Great War, Aberdeen was the UK's biggest fishing port. It has followed food fashions, often out of need, specialising in smoked fish for wealthy tables, then whitefish, shellfish, and nowadays fish farming is a major part of the industry.

Many of those who worked in trawling moved over to work in the oil industry; companies adapted and thrived. Union laws, welcomed when brought in in the 1940s, later drove trawlermen to neighbouring Peterhead. These days, Fraserburgh has the largest and most successful fishing fleet, with over 600 fishermen. The number of Aberdeen trawlermen has now dropped below 100; the number of trawlers in Scotland has dropped by around a third in the past decade.

Anderson is in two minds about the future, but veers toward the bleaker outlook. “The writing must be on the wall for the Scottish fishing industry,” he notes in his Introduction, “with all the charts recording a downward trend.” But elsewhere, he reports better news: the industry is more protean here, as opposed to other countries' fleets which are geared only towards specific types of fish (most Scandinavians look down their noses at haddock, the favourite fish of many Scots). Meanwhile, better equipment, above and below the waves, makes for a more ecologically sustainable industry. A slimmed down Scottish fishing fleet might well have a wealthy future despite EU restrictions and the growth of aquacultural farming.

Trawling is recommended not only to Aberdonians or those with an interest in the sea but to a more general reader, for whom it works well as an introduction to this important slice of Scottish life. The tales of hardship and crises are sobering, and the accompanying pictures fascinating.