By Rachel Chapman
Sheila Hirsch is a legend on North Shields Fish Quay.
Believed to have been the country’s first female trawler skipper, she was a woman in a man’s world, fishing all over the UK and in America, including in the Bering Straits between Russia and Alaska.
Known on the quay as ‘Big Sheil’, she retired more than 20 years ago after working full time at sea for 27 years, as well as several years part-time.
Her love of the sea began during school holidays in Oban where her grandfather was a fisherman. Girls didn’t go to sea and her grandfather said he wouldn’t take her until she could tie a ‘bowline’, a strong knot.
As a Girl Guide, she learnt how to tie knots and just before her summer holidays, aged almost 11, she could manage a bowline. Before her grandfather got the chance to keep his promise, she sneaked out of their cottage and hid under a net on his boat. The next morning, while at sea, she was found, already feeling seasick.
Her grandfather gave her a box to sit on and a bucket of herring to gut and clean. He thought this – and the seasickness – would put her off but far from it. Sheila was hooked!
Sheila’s family moved to the North East with her father’s work. When she finished school, she went to university. She wanted to study to be a vet, but her father said that wasn’t women’s work. She had an interest in art and design, so she ended up reluctantly starting a degree course in fine art which she didn’t finish.
However, Sheila didn’t go into fishing until she was in her 20s, after a few jobs, including as a diver on the Coral Reef in Australia, helping to clear the giant star fish, called Crown of Thorns, that were destroying the reef.
On returning home, she worked a boat taking anglers out. A skipper asked if she wanted to try fishing and she started as a “deckie”, later taking her skipper exams.
It was hard being a woman in a man’s world – “you had to make yourself indispensable or prove you were better than them”. She proved her worth and was accepted by the men she worked with, although some, especially those from Scotland, believed a woman should not even be seen on the quay, let along on a fishing boat.
Sheila was fearless, even going was over the wall – overboard – three times did not put her off. Usually, the sea is so rough that when someone goes over the side, they do not survive.
The first time was in calm waters outside Eyemouth and her biggest worry was the other fishermen finding out that she had been in the water. The second was in a howling gale and rough sea at Fraserburgh and she ended up in hospital with four broken fingers and hypothermia. The third was when she fell between the boat and the quay at North Shields – a big fella pulled her by the straps of her bib and brace and she came out of the water like “a cork out of a bottle”.
Sheila’s story is on a display board at the Old Low Light Heritage Centre.
