Balmerino Cemetery
Oh father mother and brother dear
Weep not for us though sleeping here
For in one time we think to rise
And strive to gain the glorious prize.
Fishermen, sailors, merchants and workers in the fish industry – the people of Fife have always had a special relationship to the sea. Not surprising that the sea features prominently in the graveyards of the East Neuk and beyond.
From the Fishery Report of 1883 we learn that the Anstruther or East Neuk district, from Buckhaven to St Andrews, had 830 boats, manned by 3491 men and boys. The total tonnage was 10,663, and the total value about £ 67,000.
How many crew and ships were lost at sea is anybody’s guess.
tales of the ancient mariners
“Those of Buckhaven are said to have sprung from a shipwrecked crew of Brabant in the reign of Philip II., and the natives of the Tent Muir were at one time called Danes; but no one is bound to accept literally these tales of ancient mariners.
The fishers of Fife are, at least by origin, a separate hereditary class. Like other classes, they are conservative of old dress, customs, and privileges, marrying chiefly members of their own class.”
names – common and famous
“A few surnames, such as Deas and Thomson, are so frequent that the custom was, and still is, to distinguish men by the names of their wives, and when this resource fails, of their boats or their by-names.
Perhaps fishing folk have common ways in different quarters of the globe. Their own masters, and living the free life of the sea, they are an independent and fearless race. Some of them have been fond of distant adventure, like Alexander Selkirk of Largo, the original of “Robinson Crusoe,” and in former times the whalers of Kirkcaldy.”
tragedies at sea
“They all are ready to brave the dangers of the deep, in which, almost within sight of shore, between the Oxcar and the May, “many a ship has been cast away.” The tragedy of their common lot is seen when a company of grave men, both old and young, in sober black and brown, is met crossing the sands with the coffin of one of their comrades to the nearest kirkyard.”
A.J.G.Mackay: The Countie Histories of Scotland: Fife and Kinross, Blackwood, Edinburg, 1896
Liked the read? There’s more here…
The stories of this book have been discovered and gathered for my blog, Graveyards of Scotland, over many years. Find treasure all over Scotland with my latest book. I am Nellie Merthe Erkenbach, journalist and author.The fairy hill in Inverness, a nitrate murder on Shetland, a family of left-handers, wolves, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace shown in a new light, the secret bay of the writer Gavin Maxwell, a murdering poet and so many things you didn’t know about Scotland, its clans and its history.
My main sources were historical travel guides from the 18th and 19th centuries, where the finds were scary, beautiful, funny, and sometimes, cruel.
This unusual approach to a country’s history has produced amazing results. You don’t have to share my passion for cemeteries to enjoy this book; only a small number of the stories in this collection take place in graveyards, though they do all end in them, so perhaps it helps.
Graveyards of Scotland 
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