Neil and Donald MacKinnon of Brock in their skiff, the ‘Tunnag’
Photograph of Neil and Donald MacKinnon of Brock in their skiff, the ‘Tunnag’, in the 1930s.
Courtesy of Mr Alasdair Sinclair
Neil MacKinnon, holding aloft a lobster, and his brother Donald, both from Brock, are pictured in their skiff, the ‘Tunnag’, in the early 1930s. The old men were very fussy about placing the single-entrance creels precisely so that the entrance faced the rocks where the lobsters were hiding.
Their great-nephew Alasdair Sinclair remembers, as a ten year old boy, having the job of rowing the boat while Neil placed the creels. The ‘Tunnag’ was eight feet wide with long, narrow-bladed oars. While he was trying to manoeuvre the boat, the pernickety old man would be saying, ‘Chan eil sin ceart idir. Feuch a-rithist e!’ (That’s not right at all. Do it again!)
Lobsters often hide inshore at low tide in small crevices in the rocks called ‘faichean’. Knowledge of their whereabouts were kept secret and passed down through the family.
Black and white photograph of Neil and Donald MacKinnon of Brock in the early 1930s.
L-R: Neil MacKinnon of Brock, holding aloft a lobster, and his brother Donald, both from Brock, in the skiff `Tunnag` in the early 1930s. (Neil and Donald were brothers of Alasdair Sinclair`s grandmother.)