TC Lethbridge | The Sons of TC-Lethbridge | Tekh's Anthological Review

Fishermen of Durness

Self-published, 1938

In The Fishermen of Durness, Lethbridge articulates that there are two types of study; one that concentrates on the spectacular and another that chooses to focus on common things. It is the study of the latter, that Lethbridge believed was the most revealing about the lives of the ancients.

He had observed that the lobster fishermen of Faraid Head facing Cape Wrath across Balnakeil Bay used upturned Scaffies as cottage roofs. He suggested that the rounded end of the Hebridean Blackhouse was not simply a device for lessening the windage on the corners, but rather a survival from the days when long houses were being evolved from round houses through the convenience of using old, upturned boats as roofs.

He continues this brief study by discussing lobster creels and how the disappearance of a fishing community on Piper’s Island in Loch Hourn was a change that had occurred in living memory. He concludes with a brief discussion on the men who worked the Salmon nets, suggesting that their boats were a survival of something far more ancient than the scaffie. He pinpoints a likeness between the Norwegian pram and the British coble and suggests that its origin is a fusion between the pram and the long Norse cod-boat.

He humbly concludes his study by remarking, “Here, as with the expert on classical sculpture, I am trusting to my eye and to my intuition alone. Still, where a boat is concerned, I feel I have as much right to my opinions as any art critic has to his.’

The volume contains seven pages of text and five dedicated to illustrations and photographs that relate to his study:

Plate #1: Illustration; Setting creels off Durness
Plate #2: Illustration; Mullion fishermen lifting their pots
Plate #3: Photograph; Coble of Skerray
Plate #4: Photograph; Fisherman’s house at Faraid
Plate #5: Illustration; Whelk boat - Wells Bar

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