I loved being part of the first John O’Groats Book Festival in April this year talking about my latest book Necklace of Lies – and yesterday, thanks to my first novel, When the Boats Come Home, it was my privilege to be part of Gritfest, the festival celebrating the life of the Grit, the historic beach fisher village of Lowestoft.
Held at Lowestoft’s delightful Sparrows Nest Gardens, just yards from the beach and the long rolling waves of the sea, Gritfest offered music, dance, poetry, laughter, films, talks and lots and lots of interesting things to see and buy, and people to talk to!
I was ‘on’ at 2.30 p.m. to talk about the Scots fisher lassies who followed the fleet down the East Coast in the days of plentiful herring fishing. Their job was to gut and pack the salted herring into barrels. The arrived in East Anglia after a nearly 2-day train journey from the far north and started work outdoors in the pickling yards in bitterly cold October and November.
I decided that once again I would dress as a fisher lassie for my talk but I wanted an authentic apron, so I got some heavy-duty black rubbish sacks, plenty of sellotape and a roll of black Gaffa tape and set to on Saturday afternoon. The result is not too bad, I think!
The fisher lassies have become heroines to me. I so admire their grit in leaving home age 15 right up into their 70s to do what was hard, dirty, cold work – yet they were renowned for their cheerfulness. Yesterday some of my audience stopped to tell me their memories of the girls – for some, their grandmothers had provided lodging for the girls when they came to Lowestoft – and they are unfailingly remembered as thoroughly nice girls.
How wonderful to leave a memory like that behind!
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