OPINION: Fishing tragedy that left the people of Avoch in mourning
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By Bill McAllister
This week is the 150th anniversary of the first of two shocking tragedies at sea in the space of 19 days which plunged the village of Avoch into mourning.
Records of the village’s fishing tradition go back to the 16th century and some maintain Avoch was founded by survivors of a Spanish Armada ship wrecked off its coast in 1588.
Seatown, a hamlet within the village, was home to fisher folk in the 1700s and still carries the names of the Mackenzie lairds of Avoch – Margaret Street, John Street, James Street and George Street. Sails for the fleet were made in Seatown from hemp grown nearby.
In 1814 Thomas Telford built a new harbour at the village’s east end, where a new fishertown emerged.
Avoch, which takes its name from the Old Gaelic for “ford” or “mouth of the stream” – the Killen Burn – was such a busy fishing community that around 1850 over 150 fishermen worked in its fleet, plus 500 support workers.
The sea afforded so many a way of life, but it was hazardous. There was a reminder of this in 1857 when four fishermen were lost in Petty Bay, near Ardersier.
On May 25, 1871 the Inverness Courier reported: “One of the boats from Avoch, employed in dredging oysters in the firth, was lost last week and its crew of three drowned. The boat has gone out with the others on Tuesday in stormy weather but failed to return. Wreckage was later washed up on the shore.”
John Patience, who was 16, had only joined the boat a few weeks earlier. Alexander Skinner and Alexander Allison were married with children.
Avoch’s trauma, however, was to grow much worse. On June 13 vessels landed and creels of fish were sorted then loaded on to a salmon fishing coble half a mile from shore, ready to sail next morning to sell the fish in Inverness.
Fifteen of the 21 passengers were women set to sell the fish.
The heavily laden coble sailed at first light on a calm sea, but did not get far.
The Courier of June 15 reported it had only gone 150 yards before it began to take on water: “By this time they were in fairly deep water, one foot beyond your depth was as fatal as a hundred feet, and the passengers became excited and alarmed.
“In a frenzy of panic, one of the women flung herself overboard as the boat began to sink. In the midst of all this agitation, the overloaded boat overturned. Women clung to the few men on board and prevented them from saving themselves or saving others.
“The scene was fearful and the cries pathetic.”
The drama was seen from the shore but the tide was out and the boats were beached, delaying rescue, though locals pushed one boat out and saved two men and five women clinging to the capsized coble.
Two men managed to swim ashore but boat owner William Jack and his son George (21) were to die of exhaustion.
Fourteen people, including 10 women, were lost in the space of 15 minutes in what became known as “The Avoch Droonings”.
Over 20 children lost a parent.
Even in the 1920s Avoch had more than 200 fishermen. In the 1930s the Blossom became the last fishing boat built there.
Avoch fisher women travelled in summer to work at Lerwick, Yarmouth or Ireland, while Avoch boats fished out of Whitby for three months each August.
This is the era of fewer, bigger boats but this compact community still has a fishermen’s co-operative. The sea remains on its doorstep and the roar of the breakers sometimes echoes with the memory of the Droonings.
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