Crew of 'Fairy Land', Campbeltown, c.1880.

Crew of 'Fairy Land', Campbeltown, c.1880.
Crew of 'Fairy Land', Campbeltown, c.1880.
Crew of 'Fairy Land', Campbeltown, c.1880.
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Crew of 'Fairy Land', Campbeltown, c.1880.
Dugald Robertson’s smack ‘Fairy Land’ at Trench Point, Campbeltown, c 1880.

Many boat-owners kept smacks and luggers for drift-netting at distant fisheries, and, prior to the advent of the Loch Fyne Skiff, with its built-in accommodation, open-boat ring-net fishermen could cook and sleep aboard the larger smacks.

At the annual Campbeltown regatta in September 1878, there were merely three entries in the first-class fishing smacks category, all of them owned by Robertson. The winner was ‘Fairy Flower’ – built that year at McLean’s boatyard, Ardrishaig – followed by ‘Fairy Queen’ and ‘Fairy Land’, also a McLean boat, built the year before.

Robertson lived at Trench Point from 1884 until his death in 1921, aged 76. All his boats were moored there, and all were named with the prefix ‘Fairy’, e.g., in 1904, the skiffs ‘Fairy Bank’ CN54, ‘Fairy Brae’ CN55, ‘Fairy Flower’ CN83, ‘Fairy Queen’ CN196 and ‘Fairy Field’ CN316. Even his house was named ‘Fairy Flower Cottage’.

To the left of the photograph, a net-barrow can be seen and the seated man third from left is holding what appears to be a water-flask. The other seated man, at right, may be Dugald Robertson himself. He was prominent in the Argyll & Bute Fishermen’s Association and travelled to London in 1883 as chronicler of the delegation of Kintyre fishermen’s adventures at the Fisheries Exhibition held there. He is remembered as a creditable poet and a ‘rare storyteller’.

Original image from P. Stewart, Campbeltown.
Free of known copyright restrictions. Image supply fees may still apply.
Bk 57 p90
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