Sea change: How the Herring Queen brought promise and joy to a small Scottish town | Scotland

The sun is battling the clouds, but the forecast rain holds off as the flotilla enters the harbour. Lining the quayside, hundreds of local people and tourists cheer each boat as it appears, and the sound of a pipe band skirls on the breeze as families crane their necks. They are looking for WaveDancer, the final, most important vessel. Today it is carrying an honoured passenger: the Eyemouth Herring Queen.

Fourteen-year-old Holly Blackie is the 80th Eyemouth Herring Queen (EHQ) and this year is particularly special as 50 former queens have travelled from all over the world to witness her coronation.

Many are wearing sashes identifying the year they were crowned; knots of women – grouped according to decade, friendship or family ties – chat and reminisce. One thing they all agree on is that nothing compares with the thrill of passing into the harbour on that boat and seeing the cheering crowd.

“Coming in on the boat was just magic,” remembers the oldest surviving former EHQ, 93-year-old Anne Collin, née Rosie, of her coronation day in 1946. “We were just coming out of the second world war and all the deprivations.”

Everyone was buoyant, she says, as the fishing boats that had lain dormant throughout the war were finally out at sea. “They all sailed out to find a new queen to bring prosperity to Eyemouth.”

This part of the Scottish Borders has many longstanding – often ancient – summer traditions, akin to the May Queen, in which young community members are chosen to carry out duties aimed at ensuring peace and abundance. On the coast, two towns – Berwick-upon-Tweed in England and Eyemouth in Scotland – choose a salmon and herring queen respectively. While Eyemouth’s celebration has modern roots in a “peace picnic” held after the first world war, the origins of Berwick’s festival is widely believed to date back to 1292.

The roles of herring and salmon queen are not merely ceremonial. Blackie and her Berwick counterpart, Darcy Martin, will represent their towns at civic events throughout the Borders and raise funds for charity.

But beyond the pipes and parades is a darker reality. Both towns have areas of deprivation, in part linked to the almost total decline of the industry they are celebrating.

The North Sea herring fisheries that once brought wealth to Eyemouth are now closely managed since overfishing in the 1970s led to a collapse of the population. Instead, boats from Eyemouth go out hoping for a catch of crab, langoustine and lobster or carry day-trippers and divers.

Today, two of the town’s most striking features are the new Neart na Gaoithe windfarm operations base, which dominates one arm of the harbour, and the holiday park on the cliff overlooking the bay.

“I’m hearing from fishermen that they wouldn’t want their children to get involved in this industry any more,” says Caitlin Turner, of the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust.

“It’s heartbreaking because so many of our coastal island communities are built upon fishing. It’s integral to them; it runs within their language, their culture, their history.”

The story is perhaps even starker over the border in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The collapse of the Atlantic salmon population means that fishing on the River Tweed itself is limited to one remaining commercial fishery and strictly licensed rod-fishing for sport, with catch and release of the salmon strongly promoted.

At the Eyemouth crowning ceremony, the toll on the communities is well illustrated by the presence among the face painting and beer stalls of a gazebo carrying the logo of a men’s suicide prevention charity Andy’s Man Club (AMC). Meetings have recently started in Eyemouth and Berwick and the enthusiastic take-up has surprised even the charity.

David Windram, an AMC volunteer who used to fish for a living, agrees that for many the shift from traditional jobs has been painful. “Suddenly you’re scraping about trying to find different work, so you’re no longer the provider,” he says. “You’re struggling with the stress.”

Farming in the area has been similarly affected, says Windram, and the jobs that were promised as part of the new windfarm development have mostly gone to those commuting from elsewhere.

“That doesn’t mean to say that there [aren’t] any other opportunities,” he says. “I think you need to have a positive mentality.”

Against this background of change, the herring queen festival harks back to a bygone era, but in some ways is more relevant than ever. “You have it [being queen] for life,” says Wendy Lough, a member of the festival committee.

And it is clear that just as the queens promote and support their community and heritage, so in turn they benefit from becoming part of a wide-ranging network of women keen to help one another succeed. Former queens have gone on to become everything from civil servants to pilots, and while not all stay in the town, they are all fiercely proud of it.

“Find me a fishing village that celebrates women like this,” says Emma Dixon, née Ross, a headteacher who was herring queen in 2002.

“Fishing villages are about men. The Eyemouth Queen is about women. And a woman’s voice, and a woman’s speech and women coming together. And then using that to gain confidence, to go into next steps, to get places within the community. Nothing else is like that outside of Eyemouth.”