Nannie Dick was part of a small army of Cullercoats fishwives who travelled by train from the coast to sell their wares on the streets of Newcastle. She fought a battle with the railway company when they restricted their use of the trains, because they were stinking out the carriages.
Nannie lived near Cullercoats Bay, where her fisherman husband Thomas kept his boat. A fishwife’s day started at around four in the morning when their husband’s breakfast had to be cooked, then they would help him launch his boat into the sea. He’d return a few hours later with the catch, which was taken to Newcastle by the fishwives in time for their customers to have a piece of fresh fish for their lunch.
The railway was essential to the fishwives, before it reached the coast in 1839 they had walked the ten miles to Newcastle carrying five or six stone of fish on their back in a wicker basket called a ‘creel’. The trains could take them into the centre of Newcastle in around half an hour and there were stations in many of the suburbs on the way, with Nannie Dick preferring to ply her trade on the streets of Jesmond.
The railway line was electrified in 1904 and its operator decided the fishwives were no longer welcome on it, due to complaints from First Class passengers that water from the fish was seeping into their compartment and causing a terrible stench. A meeting was held with Nannie and her colleagues and it was agreed they could travel at a specific time in the mornings.
This concession wasn’t enough to save the Cullercoats fishing industry, which was already in decline. The fishermen used small boats called ‘cobles’ and fished with baited lines, they couldn’t compete with Scottish trawler fleets that followed the shoals of fish down the Northumberland coast and scooped them up in huge nets. Nevertheless, there were still Cullercoats fishwives on the streets of Newcastle well into the second half of the 20th century.
Nannie is pictured here in her traditional costume, which consisted of a bonnet, a short jacket called a ‘bedgoon’ and a shawl, and would normally be made by the fishwives themselves or female members of their families. But Nannie was no normal fishwife, she’d become a celebrity, her costumes were designed and made for her by Fenwick’s French Salon in Newcastle. Fenwick’s proudly advertised this fact in newspaper adverts, which also boasted they dressed members of the Royal family.
The queen of the Cullercoats fishwives died in 1912, aged 68.
