21 June 2025, Starts: 10:00, Ends: 11:30

A Kind of Freedom: Stories from the Herring Girls

Talk by Jill De Fresnes

Organised by Timespan Museum, Helmsdale. Part of their Salt & Silver Solstice Festival. Free. Further details and bookings from their website.

Dr. Jill de Fresnes shares her research on the Scots Herring Girls – the vast migratory workforce of women who travelled with the herring fleets in the 19th and 20th centuries, gutting and packing fish along the coasts of Scotland and down to East Anglia. Drawing on oral histories, photographs, and popular media, Jill explores how these women lived, travelled, worked, and formed their own cultures. A multi-media presentation based on the recollections and representations of the women themselves from around Scotland who worked in the Scots Herring fishery, collected by Jill as the main source for her research on the fishing communities in the early 2000s.