Jump to content




Dunbar prawners 1954


Dunbar prawners 1954

My grandfathers boat the 38ft Primrose lying against the pier and my father's first boat the Devotion of 34 ft.This was about the first of the prawn trawling in the Firth of Forth.Low powered wee ships..a 36 Gardner in the Primrose and a 27 National in the Devotion.The prawns were packed into butter barrels and sent to North Shields and the fish went into lidded boxes and were sent to Newhaven.




    quiet waters
    Oct 16 2008 11:29 PM
    great pic ronnie, i suppose you were getting close on the same price as today? or was this a bit earlier? we were just talking aboot that, price no different today as it was in mid 70's

    hadn't noticed the category so its a lot earlier, did they even tail them back then or just pick the best sizes? my father never went to prawns till late 60's, it was all ring net and seining up to then.

    young ronnie
    Oct 16 2008 11:54 PM
    Just picked the best back then,but according to the Old Man they were mostly decent sized anyway,apart from the "Bass Hole" as it was known,an area around the Bass Rock,which was always well known for wee prawns.I don't know about price back then but I still have the Old Lady's ledger for 1966 when I started,and my first day at sea we had 6 boxes of prawns for £21...a cool fortune!
    Tell us aboot the olden days grandad. Was everything in black and white then? lol

    young ronnie
    Oct 17 2008 01:35 PM
    Aye Ambleman,I used to have a terrible struggle getting up the inside of the chimney in my first job...awful dirty work yon. Youth of to-day don't know they're born lol

    quiet waters
    Dec 14 2008 03:34 AM
    well they weren't were they? i mean i wasn't born till eight years after this was taken, so it would be another 25-30 years after that before the youth of today were born!!!!
    i didn't know i was born when that pic was taken, because i hadn't been, in fact my parents hadn't even met, wouldn't for another three years.
    Great to see this site up and running again.Been badly missed.Well done to the lads that have brought it back.
    just found out today that the site was back on what a godsend wife can get to watch tv again thanks to all involved