Fish gutting and packing

"All the boats came in with their fish you see and the ladies, they did the gutting and the packing of the herring in the barrels and the men brought in the fish and then of course they just went away out again.

"If I had children then perhaps you looked after the children in the morning and I went and did the gutting and then in the afternoon I went and looked after your children and you went and did the gutting.

"Of course the men were away you see, nearly all the time. As well as that, the man who had the curing station, his brother had a shop and he maybe didn’t pay you for the gutting, but if you wanted tea, you wanted sugar or any of these things- well, you got that in exchange for the work you did. Sandy’s Grandmother, she was the main gutter. She was very, very good. She used to get a shilling for gutting a barrel of herring. That’s 5p."

As told by Isabella Ross for the Memories of Torridon project

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