Harbour Voices: Recent Episodes
Open Road
Harbour Voices is a series of true story podcasts celebrating the lives and livelihoods of people who call the harbour area of Aberdeen home.
Supported by the Year of Scottish Stories 2022 Communities Stories fund and Creative Scotland's Culture Collective fund.
The ships horn has been recorded by Milo and is distributed by Free Sound https://freesound.org/people/milo/sounds/23722/ and it’s use is licenced under a Creative Commons licence https://creativecommons.org
Music by Marie Driver and Geraldine Heaney
Produced by @openroadltd
In this episode we interview composer Annabel Kershaw who has been commissioned by sound festival to create a new musical score called The Mariner’s Daughter. Annabel has interviewed a number of women for this commission and recorded their experiences, perspectives and connections with the North Sea, either through work or family. Her final musical score will include extracts from their rich and colourful verbatim stories of the sea, all of which have inspired the music.
As part of Aberdeen’s Festival of the Sea 2024, we created a special series of our Harbour Voices podcast. The second episode in this series features an interview with Willie Deas, skipper of The Reaper - a former Fifie Sailing Herring Drifter.
This type of boat was the most popular design of fishing boat on the East Coast of Scotland for the greater part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Today The Reaper is the flagship of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, Reaper and is berthed in Anstruther harbour outside the Museum. She is now equipped as a floating museum of the herring industry and sailed to Aberdeen to be part of the Festival of the Sea programme.
In this episode Wille shares his lifetime of knowledge of The Reaper, fishing industry and the sea.
Fisherman Hans Unkles wants a different way of doing things. With a band of fellow eco-aware fishermen, he took apart his old boat and refited it with cutting-edge electronic tech. In this Harbour Voices podcast we take a deep dive with Hans into his building, learning, making mistakes, chopping and welding a path to an easier, and more environmentally friendly way of fishing.
Chris Gove has a long family history linked with Old Torry and many fabulous stories of the Aberdeen’s harbour and fishing industry to tell. This extended version of his previous episode of Harbour Memories captures of few of the best.
Scottish painter and printmaker Joyce Cairns lived and worked in Fittie for many years. The Fittie Community Hall on New Pier Road is her former studio and here she created a large body of work all inspired by the community and harbour. Joyce is the first woman president of the Royal Scottish Academy and in this podcast she shares her rich memories of Fittie – its people and cats – and the influence of living close to water on her work.
We’re reaching across the generations of Fittie in this Harbour Memories podcast episode. Dorothy Young has been a Fittie resident for over 30 years and her granddaughter Louise Ouston has been a regular visitor since she was a child. Between them they recall the Millennium new year at Aberdeen harbour and the social life of the community old and new.
Norma Reid’s family have lived in Fittie for generations. In this episode she shares her memories of growing up in the community, the fishing industry that many residents worked in and the strong women who have influenced her life.
Chris Gove has a long family history linked with Old Torry and many fabulous stories of the Aberdeen’s harbour and fishing industry to tell. This episode of Harbour Memories captures of few of the best.
In this first episode of our Harbour Memories series, Margaret Wright shares insights on growing up in the Torry area of Aberdeen and the influence of the fishing industry and maritime life on the community.
As part of her residency in Fittie environmental storyteller Cara Silversmith of One Nature Education crafted a story for the community, based on her time in Fittie, the stories residents shared with her and her environmental knowledge and passions. Listen here to the story she created.
The Port of Aberdeen is the oldest business in the UK. They recently donated their rich archives, which date back to the 18th century, to Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives to look after. Senior Archivist Katy Kavanagh shares how the records held within the Port of Aberdeen’s archive prove the significance of the harbour to Aberdeen. As well as details of its rich contents which include extensive historic photographs of Aberdeen and other harbours around Scotland’s North East coast.
The Port of Aberdeen (formerly Aberdeen Harbour Board) is the oldest company in the UK. In this episode Keith Young, Engineering Director at the Port of Aberdeen, talks of his lifelong connection with the harbour, the expansion into the South Harbour as well as the impacts of heavy storms such as Storm Frank in 2015.
Manson Geddes started life as a merchant seaman in Aberdeen Harbour. In this episode he shares stories of his travels around the world and life at sea.
In this episode Torry resident and ceramic artist Amy Benzie shares how the harbour area of Aberdeen inspires and influences her creative work. Amy is one of the city’s artists, designers and makers who work from Deemouth Artist Studios located on the industrial edge of the harbour.
Fittie resident and wild swimmer Dawn Farmer shares her experiences of swimming in the North Sea close to Aberdeen Harbour, and the mental health and wellbeing benefits of an early morning dip in all weathers.
Professor Marjory Harper is a Scottish historian with a focus on social history and emigration from the Northeast. Discover more about Aberdeen Harbour as a port of emigration, who left the Northeast, why they emigrated and where they went.
The Fittie Bar is an institution in the Harbour area of Aberdeen. Long time bar maid Catherine O’Donnell shares stories of the locals and visitors who frequent this unique pub and talks of its place at the heart of harbour life.
Carole Monnier leads on fundraising for Greyhope Bay, a dolphin watching café and community space at Torry Battery. Listen to her stories of bottlenose dolphins and making off the grid Greyhope Bay a reality.
In his role as history curator Ross cares for the city’s maritime history and archaeology collections. In this episode he shares details of medieval finds unearthed close to the harbour as well as collections on the city’s shipbuilding, fishing and oil and gas industries.
Find out more about Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum by taking a virtual tour
https://vt.virtualinclusion.com/aberdeenmaritimemuseum/
In a ‘what if’ moment Fittie resident Campbell Scott gave up his job as a university lecturer in 2017 to set up Scot Surf and offer surfing and paddleboarding lessons on Aberdeen Beach. Campbell shares experiences of new surfers getting hooked after their first wave, water safety and dolphins coming to find you.
Natalie has lived in Torry on the south side of Aberdeen Harbour for 30 years and volunteers with a number of charities in the area including the Torry Memories and Heritage Society. In this episode Natalie talks about life about life and community spirit in Torry from community cleans up to supporting local shops. As well as the amazing views of the old and new harbours.
Andy shares a behind the scenes insight into life as a RNLI volunteer at Aberdeen Lifeboat Station located on Waterloo Quay in Aberdeen Harbour. Hear what it’s like to live in Fittie - a community with a rich history of RNLI volunteers - as well the adrenaline rush of heading out on a rescue during Storm Arwen.