Gloria Wilson Books

A nostalgic celebration of Scotland's fishing industry

Illustrated with 200 photographs, all of which were taken by the author, this evocative book reveals developments in fishing boats built to the requirements of mostly Scottish fishermen from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. Fishermen traditionally regard their boats as individuals and discuss their merits and peculiarities in critical detail. It is this strong, independent spirit which makes the Scottish fleet so lively and colourful and rich in diversity and quality. Though shapely cruiser-sterned wooden-hulled boats remained the favourites of many, the introduction of the transom stern was a radical departure in design, and there was also a colossal demand for steel vessels in the below-80ft section of the fleet. In fact the Scottish boats were so likeable that a number were built for owners in Ireland and the north-east of England too. Based on her original fieldwork, Gloria Wilson traces these changes and links them to the wider fishing industry in what was a turbulent era. These were times ol prosperity interspersed with downturns and sometimes tragedy, when several boats were lost at sea with all hands, and financial upheavals caused shipyard closures with half built vessels left on their slipways. Steadfast Boats and Fisher-People celebrates the author's deep regard for the fishing communities and their boats, which represented such a unique way of life. Book jacket.

In four dozen meticulous, informative and annotated drawings Gloria Wilson has recorded, both afloat and ashore, the functional beauty of the fishing boat in both timber and steel-mainly of eastern Scotland (with a few craft from Yorkshire, where the artist now lives).

Gloria Wilson documents the Peterhead yard of Richard Irvin & Sons, and the wooden craft for which it became renowned. Some one hundred of her photographs accompany her account of the boats and the people who made up a distinctive and now disappearing maritime culture.

Fishing boats of the North Sea have always been fundamental to my existence, writes Gloria Wilson in her Introduction. I have chosen those which, for me, are the most likeable and pleasing, predominantly the classic, cruiser-sterned wooden-hulled seine netters and dual-purpose craft which are splendid sea boats and have such beautiful hull forms.

In photographs, artworks, and words Gloria Wilson celebrates the rugged fishing village where she was brought up, and from which she set her course to a career recording, both visually and verbally, the North Sea fishery she loves.