Lobsters & Lambs

Being brought up in a religious home meant no television, no radio and definitely no playing outside on a Sunday. This is what life was like for nearly all families on the island, so it never felt strange or as if you were missing out on something. Sunday mornings were for church. The washing would never be hung out on the line on the Sabbath; it was not a day for work or chores. But my father, who was a trawler fisherman, was allowed to switch on BBC Radio 4 for a few minutes at three minutes past one every Sunday to listen to the Shipping Forecast after church. I loved listening, and would wait eagerly to hear what conditions my father’s fishing boat, the Ripple, would face that week. By the time I was nine I’d learned the thirty-one sea areas from Viking to Southeast Iceland off by heart and would whisper their names along with the radio presenter every week, the memory almost instinctive. There was always an intake of breath, shake of the head or tut at the dinner table from my father if the forecast storm warnings were high, but even so, for five days a week he would head out in the north Atlantic with his crew to fish for prawns. But even after he got home on a Friday, he would take his wee rowing boat out to check his creels for lobsters and crabs. Fishing and the seas around the island of Lewis were his life, a life that meant my mam had plenty of fresh fish to put on the table for dinner in the evenings.