Courtesy of Scottish Screen Archive

Nat and Nettie McGavin were from Glasgow and were keen amateur filmmakers. They were founder members of the Scottish Association of Amateur Cinematographers, and won prizes on many occasions at the Scottish Amateur Film Festival.

This documentary film, shot while on holiday on the Outer Hebrides, is believed to be the first film that they made. Note the fishwives bandaging their fingers to protect them for the work of gutting the fish. The strips of linen were used to protect the fingers against cuts from the sharp gutting knives. Any cut, however small, would be excruciatingly painful if exposed to the brine in the fish troughs. People on the remote island of Harris would not at all have been accustomed to film cameras at this time, and one inhabitant is seen very deliberately turning away from the lens.

Kenneth Broom

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