The One That Got Away

The euphoria of the millennial celebrations didn’t linger long in the fishing community of Lochinver.

- Martin Morrison

As the last hangovers dissolved, the cry of “sold” saw the last boxes of fish head to the last lorry to leave the last quayside auction in Lochinver. The loaders shed their oilskins for the last time, went for their last after work pint and that was that. The pivotal act in a commercial tradition dating back centuries took its last bow on a cold January evening to an audience of its participants alone.

Three years later, along with ten friends, I was made redundant after thirteen years on the quayside with a Breton firm. They had landed here along with Dorics, Iberians, Faroese and many more, bringing both good cheer and hard currency. The bulk of this, as with the wages from the loaders, auctioneers, forklift drivers, managers and countless others involved in this major local industry and the services dependent on it, circulated locally. Unlike many, we were well-rewarded on our departure and we all found something soon enough. We didn’t complain as we’d all done well from it. By any objective standards, particularly today’s, these had been fruitful times.

It is not so now. There are government jobs in administrative positions, but the labour force has vanished with only part-time piece work for a few men. Tourists no longer flock to see the boats land and listen to the shrieks and grunts of buyers and sellers while loaders, fisherman and countless others weave about in the organised chaos of a wet fish mart. They wouldn’t be allowed to now.

Ominous and abundant signage that wouldn’t seem out of place on the thirty-eighth parallel is everywhere, but there’s little to see anyway. Most significantly, just as wet fish prices are the same in cash terms as they were thirty years ago, so are quayside wages. Once considered good money, the work now offers a minimum wage. Like many before me, I can testify to the invisible orthopaedic toll. Nobody does this for supermarket wages.