HERRING HISTORY:
Who Were The Herring Girls? (is it OK for me to say that? 😉)

Herring Girls, the ‘Herring Lassies’: the women from Scotland and the Scottish isles who would follow the fishing boats down the east coast as they followed the herring shoals, ‘the silver darlings’ migrating down to their spawning grounds.

The women would camp in the ports where the fleet moored, some times for several weeks and then moving down the coast to the next fishing as the late spawning fish shoals passed by. Their task was gutting, sizing and packing the fish. It was hard work and the women had to be tough. They were paid piece-work by the barrel-load of stacked fish. Novices working slower earned less than the experienced women, who worked fast and could almost gut the fish in their sleep.

However skilled, it was still dangerous work; a knife can slip and inflict serious wounds often infected by the brine the herrings were stacked in. So the women bound strips of cloth around their thumbs and forefingers to protect them from the knives – Get Up and Tie Your Fingers. It was the call that went up as the herring fleets were sailing in with their catch.

source: http://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/arts-culture/performance/herring-girls