The Spate Gatherers

I was raised in the picturesque fishing village of Cullercoats on the North East coast of England at the southern edge of the ancient county of Northumberland. I recently caught sight of an intriguing painting by Henry Perlee Parker, a Devenport man who married a Woodbridge girl and headed to Newcastle eventually co-founding The Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts. The painting I saw was of women, Cullercoats fishwives handling the catch from the local fishing boats known as cobles and storing it in tidal rockpools temporarily to keep it fresh while they gathered the rest of their catch for the creels. This sounded like a quaint tail to tell in a modern folk song, but when Cullercoats man Arnold Brunton told me of tales of theft and skullduggery reported in the 19th Century a quaint Cullercoats tradition took a dark turn making it even more perfect fodder for a folk song. It seems that while the heavy creels were being lugged up the bank to the top of the cliffs by the spate gatherers, the fish in those spates was often stolen. One can imagine the rage of the fishermen and the ensuing brawls that might have taken place outside the tiny fisherman's cottages in the streets above the rocky scarps. Some of those homes... more lyrics The Spate Gatherers Well the cobles come in and the fishwives they grin, and they take on the catch from their man On the scarp they all stand and they pass hand to hand To keep the fish fresh as they can It's heavier work, than the work in the boats, the men get to roll with the waves Singing reels to the sirens away out to sea, while the wives tread the rocks like they're slaves Then they're lugging a load to the tops of the cliff, it's not easy to carry a creel Well, it's only a catch, but it's fresh and it's naturally feeding the bairns; dance a reel! Singing aye-diddle-aye-dai, aye-diddle-aye-dee, A spate gatherer's life's not for me Singing aye-iddle-aye-dai, aye-diddle-aye-dee Give'uz the easier life out at sea There's a scratching of slate with the numbers, the date, then they carry it south 'round the bay They scrape over the pier and then disappear from the view of those hiding away What's kept in the pools north of Jakey's and scrapes, is enough to pay for wor rent But the bastards dive down and they take it to town, another load slips through the net Now, the tide's on the turn and the lads they return And they know who it is that's to blame With their beer inside 'em and no lack of pride, them'll kick two shades of spate out of them! credits from Bridge of Sighs, track released March 19, 2019 Words and music by David Bradley, all vocals, instrumentation and production dB/ Inspired by the 19th Century painting "The Spate Gatherers" of Cullercoats by Henry Perlee Parker, brought to my recent attention by Arnold Brunton.