Latest Comments Welcome
Towards the end of 2005, people in Cromarty started discussing how the community might celebrate ‘Scotland’s Year of Highland Culture 2007’.
A group of volunteers (Cromarty 2007) soon decided to hold a summer festival of the sea, recognising Cromarty’s strong and varied maritime links. Amongst the earliest proposals was an idea that seized our imaginations: to compile a collection of thoughts, memories and feelings about what the sea means, or has meant, to the people of Cromarty today.
We wanted this to be as inclusive a project as possible. It would embrace not only the memories of our oldest residents, many of whom have a long line of sea-faring ancestors and who have themselves witnessed great changes as fishing gave way to oil and tourism; but also a selection of younger voices. We wanted to hear from native-born Cromarty folk and those who have chosen to live here.
Funding from Highland 2007, the Heritage Lottery Fund and The Cromarty Trust enabled the idea to become a reality and in the autumn of 2006 the project got under way - to produce a book and associated website of their contributions.
We put up posters in shop windows to encourage people to start thinking about the sea; then we delivered follow-up invitations to take part - to every house in the town’s postal area, and the Project Team also invited key individuals to be interviewed – their words appearing in first-person accounts that form the heart of this project.
We knew we would hear some good stories. What we didn’t anticipate was the breadth and depth of experiences – beside, on and under the sea and not just concerning our local shores. There are tales of accidents and near drownings, of heroic rescues, of battles against the elements, of the sea as creative inspiration as well as work provider.
There is poetry and humour, philosophy and reminiscence. There are reminders of the past, when boarding the ferry boat was as commonplace as catching a bus, when the Cromarty Firth was full of huge ships whose crews filled the town’s streets and parks, when the Fishertown was just that: its residents speaking their own ‘patois’, when giant oil rigs were constructed across the water and nowadays, of research and tourism on the same waters. From old and young alike we heard of the timeless, simple pleasures of swimming, fishing and ‘harbour jumping’.
Older people knew the sea was in their blood. We hope that, by contributing to this project in so many ways, our younger residents also recognise just how great a part the sea still plays in giving them a sense of place, of community, of what makes Cromarty so special for all of us lucky enough to live here.
We were privileged to listen, to marvel at people’s amazing powers of recall and to record. All three of us have thoroughly enjoyed sharing in the experiences of the contributors and we’re confident that the material collected here will lead to further studies exploring other strands of Cromarty’s rich oral history.
From the outset we decided to let people’s voices speak for themselves, even if their accounts clashed with those of others. We are not historians and take no responsibility for any factual errors that may exist in the various individual accounts.
Visitors to this site can, of course, add their own thoughts and comments. It'll be interesting to see if others remember things differently.
Fran Tilbrook (Project Leader), Martin Gostwick and David Ross.
Comments about the Living by the Sea Project
|
