FIFE FISHERMEN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 272, 2 November 1916, Page 7

FIFE FISHERMEN.

THE NAVVIES OF THE NAVY. Along this coast one meets strange changes of landscape, type, feature, and fibre. If the war has drained the land .(and the ‘‘irrigation” will i soon be more drastic) of stalwart men of the plough, herdsmen, shepherds, shopkeepers, and foresters, it has taken still greater toll of the coastal villages. For league upon league the grass lands and the oat kinds run down to the sea, and on a misty August evening one can hardly distinguish between the tall hayejeks ad the humped sand dunes. I Here and anon the fishing villages and burghs lie, tough built and low to withstand the angry battering of the North Sea. Strangel,v silent — sometimes desolate — are these villages to-day. There is an atmosphere of suspense about them. They seem to be waiting for something. From mast and cross-stay the nets, acres of them, are spread out to air in the silver sunlight. Under them and round about them the children play, bare-headed, barelegged, black-eyed, and burnt so richly brown that you might imagine them to be sea-urchins of the Pacific. The little houses are quaint and almost barbaric with their prehistoric decorations of shells in arabesque design, curiously reminiscent, at a distance, of the inlaid artistry of some Cordovan mosque, A RACE APART.

Undoubtedly these fisherfolk are a race apart. But for a’ that, these silent rugged people make a magnificent bulwark to the land o’ cakes. The men of this dark, this mysterious “clan,” forsaking their nets and their lives, have east in their lot with the Navy. Coast patrol is their job in this mighty war, and wonderfully they do it. They are the rough edges of the Fleet —the navvies of the Navy. Yon never hear of them—and, save for an occasional sudden “call” at home and away again neither do their own folk. They are out of the limelight all the time, but alwavs and ever in the swim.

From eighteen to eighty-five their ages are. A grandfather and his grandson are serving in the same ship—a rusty old tin-kettle of a trawler, christened with the name of a lady saint and crowned fore and aft with a quickfiring gun. The Santa Maria’s mission is strictly private and confidential. She came, into Cellardyke the other day after a long prowl along the edge of the plateau of the North Sea, clamorous for jam and cucumbers. These delicacies having been supplied, she stole away again to her silent business, leaving a scatter of cucumber rind in her wake. Cellardyke expects to hear of her again somewhere about the 25th of December when old man Sammy (who is the grandfather aforementioned) hopes to take up for the twentieth year in succession his popular role of Father Christmas. SEVEN FROM ONE HOUSE.

Cellardyke is a remarkable intesting place. It is one of three ' small burghs, all of which run into one another after the fashion of the three towns of the west —Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse. The other two burghs, each with its separate civic and religious functions, are Anstruther Western and Anstruther Eastern. In East Anstruther I enquired the way to Cellardyke of a bearded ancient. “Do ye see that wee dip in the causeway | beyond the next opening?” replied my hoary friend. “There was a ■burn ran alqng there once, though it’s dry now. And the’ far side of the wee dip—that’s the toon o’ C'ellardyke!” From one little house in Cellardyke afather, six sons, and one son-in-law have gone from their nets to patrol work, and out of the 850 men of all ages in the three towns ; over 500 are wearing the Uniform of I His Majesty’s Navy. Women, girls, old men (anywhere up to ninety), and young lads are carrying on the homework as best they may, though a good many of the fishergirls have left the place and gone south to work in the linen mills. After a few months’ training they make excel- i lent work-women.