Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie

Subject: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 05:10 PM

I love this song and these women...2 form a group...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7B7_uE6S4

Does anyone know them? Know how to get in touch with them? Have this on a CD? I would like to put it on an upcoming CD about canneries etc.

From you tube

Silver of the Sea show held upstairs at the Salmon Bothy at the Portsoy Festival (2010). Performers are Shanty Jack (aka Pete Hayselden) from England, Gaye Anthony and Trish Norman from Scotland, and Nanne Kalma and Ankie van der Meer from the Netherlands.

Subject: RE: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: BobKnight
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 05:25 PM

The two in costume are Gaye and Trish, I don't know who the other woman is. You can contact Gaye, the taller of the two, on Facebook under her name of Gaye Anthony.

Subject: ADD: The Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:12 PM

Commander Crabbe buried this in another thread (which is OK) and paired it with another song (which is confusing). Here it is, all in its lonesome splendor:

Thread #128881   Message #2891614
Posted By: Commander Crabbe
21-Apr-10 - 05:10 PM
Thread Name: Sardine Songs, Herring Hymns
Subject: Lyr Add: THE FISH GUTTING LASSIE

Suzanne, no apologies needed.

Here's another two.

THE FISH GUTTING LASSIE
(Believed to be from Orney Folk Group FRIDERAY but I may be wrong)

I'm a fish-guttin' lassie, guttin' herrin's me trade
I'll never be wealthy, nae fortunes I've made
For tenpence a barrel is all we are paid
Life's hard wi' the herrin' shoal

Chorus:
For we'll gut an' well clean an' we'll salt them away
Fill all the barrels and get a day's pay
And when the job's over we'll be on our way
We'll follow the herrin' shoal

For the work is gey hard and the weather is cauld
But we sing as we wait for the catch of pure gold
When the drifters sail in, what a sight we'll behold
Hurrah for the herrin' shoal

For we'll gut and we'll clean in the sun and the rain
Back almost breakin', hands stiff wi' pain,
But when next season comes, we'll be back here again,
Along wi' the herrin' shoal

Well the season is over the work is all done.
The men with their boats and the herring have gone.
We'll pack up our kit and then head away home.
Along wi' the herring shoals.

Subject: RE: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:17 PM

Gaye Anthony and Trish Norman have a website at http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/prod/dialspace/town/avenue/rcx71/G&T/.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:25 PM

Please, put a hyphen in "fish-gutting" (in the subject line & title; it is there in the text). When I first saw the subject line, I imagined -- well, never mind.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:32 PM

Well, Joe, our fish get a little carried away now and then. A change in the thread title might be pedantically correct, but that's not how the song has been identified in our sources....

Subject: RE: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Anne Neilson
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:32 PM

This is a composed song -- by Ian Sinclair from Thurso, Scotland.

Ian was a member (fiddle) of the respected Scottish folk group Mirk, along with his wife Margie (a very much admired singer of traditional songs) and Ray Crompton on guitar and mandolin. They had a couple of good records, but the distance from the north of Scotland made it difficult to promote their music, given that all three were in full-time employment.

Other well-known songs of Ian's are "The King's Shilling" and "Tak' a Dram", both of which are becoming accepted into the Scottish 'traditional' repertoire.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 06:35 PM

Anne, do you know how to contact Ian for permission to record this song? It might be better to e-mail contact information to me, unless you can furnish contact information that Ian has made public. At one time, he was performing with a group called Mirk with Margie Sinclair and Ray Crompton, but the only Mirk recording I could track down was issued in 1979.

Ian Sinclair also wrote the well-known song The King's Shilling.
-Joe Offer, Mudcat Archivist-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 08:09 PM

I am wondering if the tune is Jack Hagerty or not. I am bad at telling if tunes are the same.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: GUEST,Paul Slade
Date: 11 Aug 12 - 04:19 AM

"Please, put a hyphen in "fish-gutting" (in the subject line & title; it is there in the text). When I first saw the subject line, I imagined -- well, never mind."

A trout eviscerating a border collie? Because that's the picture that immediately sprang into my mind.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish-Gutting Lassie
From: GUEST,Gaye Anthony
Date: 17 Aug 12 - 10:47 AM

Ian Sinclair of Thurso, a great song-writer wrote the song. We accredited it to him on our CD.
The other singer with Trish and I is Ankie Vandemeer of Friesland of the duo Nanne 'n' Ankie. The occasion was at the Portsoy Boat Festival in the Salmon Bothy . We performing Nanne's musical play " The Silver of the Sea' along with Pete Hasleden aka Shanty Jack. There were songs in Dutch and Fries as well. It is recorded on our album Fish and Ships Too.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fish Gutting Lassie
From: GUEST,Fish Gutting Lassie
Date: 20 Oct 12 - 09:20 AM

From a toddler until 1992, a long time, I spent every summer holiday with my parents in Sutherland, either at Durness or Kinlochbervie and I can remember well hearing Mirk perform this song at the Ceilidh Place at Ullapool. I had a small portable tape recorder that night and I made a tape recording of them singing and this was the start of a new career. My late Mum's folk, were "Thorburns", an old fishing family from Fisherrow, East Lothian and I speak to groups and at day centres about the fishing families and traditions. I always sing 2 verses of that song when doing the fishgutting section of the talk as it is so descriptive. Particularly at dementia day centre, the song and its wonderful music opens communications. Iris McMillan