Drink and alcohol in the Filey fishing community
From the book "Filey - a Yorkshire fishing town" by Irene E Allen and Andrew A Todd
SCARCELY ANYTHING COULD BE DONE WITHOUT DRINK BEING CIRCULATED FREELY!
The state of religious observance in Filey in the early 19th century was described by the Reverend George Shaw in 1867. It should be borne in mind, however, that he was not a disinterested writer, since he wanted to stress the improvement that the Primitive Methodist revival had brought to the town. Still if used with caution, his account is of interest.
The fishermen's leisure time activities, according to Shaw, had been largely based upon drinking. Prior to their annual departure for the herring fishery, there was the custom of passing "sea-beef" to their friends, the consumption of which was lubricated with a drinking session. An Easter tradition involved the young men stealing shoes from the girls, and a reciprocal stealing of hats! These various pieces of property were returned at a subsequent "rural repast" at one of the town's inns. Weddings and funerals, too, involved drinking sessions, a newly married couple being accosted with "jugs of strong liquor" as they passed each house on their journey home. "Carling Sunday" involved the consumption of specially prepared peas in the public houses of the town. Christmas was celebrated with the traditional beverage of frumity(wheat boiled in milk, and fortified, needless to say with alcohol!)
Some dubious superstitions were associated with this generally graceless state. Wagons and carts were driven to the cliff top on the third Saturday night after the departure of the herring fleet to Yarmouth, in the belief that would drive herrings into the nets. Shaw angrily pointed out in a footnote that the wagons and carts would have to be removed on the Sabbath. He repeated the well known superstition about pigs - the sight of one, or even a mention of the word, stopped any fishermen from going out to sea that day.
OTHER ARTICLES
• The fishing community in Flamborough head - superstition and bad luck
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• Trawling and overfishing - Filey fishing
• A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
• Filey fishermen in 1862 - yawls and cobles
• Filey and its early fishing industry
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• Church first and Church last - Filey methodists and St Oswald's
• The history of the herring fishing in the North Sea
• Ranter Chapel revival in Filey
• Illigitamacy amongst the Filey fishing community
• Suzanne Pollard and her Filey Fishing relatives
• A preachers trip on a Filey Herring yawl
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• An early history of Filey and its fishing community
• Primitive Methodism amongst the Scarborough Filey and Flamborough fishing communities
• The history of the Scarborough fishing industry
• Watching for ships by the harbour walls in Scarborough
• Tunny fishing in Scarborough in the 1930's
HOW TO HELP THIS WEBSITE: Google rates pages posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites very highly. So if you have found this site useful please post it using the buttons below.
Tweet