About the Project
What are its aims?
The Mallaig Oral History Project was launched on 19 April 2008 and aims to record interviews with at least 50 people about their memories of living and working in Mallaig and the Mallaig fishing fleet.
The project will put together a history of Mallaig as a fishing village between 1901 when the railway opened and the present day. It will focus on the living history - the living memories of some of the people in Mallaig and the surrounding area. It aims to document - using taped interviews and video recordings - the history of the people in this area who do not traditionally have a voice, and will provide a unique insight into this fishing community which grew up around the herring fishing at the turn of the C20th and survived as a herring port right up into the 1970s.
Why is the Project needed?
Mallaig is a unique community composed of a large number of people who moved to the area with the fishing and the railway and mixed with the existing west Highland crofting community, many of whom also became closely involved with the fishing themselves as the port grew and prospered. Before the railway, there were only a few hundred people living mainly at Mallaigvaig, and from these beginnings it has grown to a population in excess of 1000, which has managed to maintain itself predominantly through the fishing industry for over 100 years. The way in which the crofting and fishing communities have lived and worked hand in hand over the years will become an important aspect of the project as people become involved and memories of life in the area are collected.
What will happen to the recorded interviews?
The recordings and transcripts will be added to the Mallaig Heritage Centre archive and will be used to produce a book and a DVD which will document and make available the material collected in the project. No social histories of this area exist currently, so this will be an important and valuable addition to the history and culture of the area. This will be a real community project which we hope will reflect all aspects of the community we live in now and also celebrate the memory of those who have gone before.
Extracts from some of the interviews are available on the interviews page.
How to take part
The project hopes to involve as many people as possible, both as interviewees, and interviewers, and all age groups including the younger population and children whom we hope will take an active part, and this will give them a real sense of the history of their own area and the community here.
If you would like to take part in the Project, either as an interviewer or as someone who is willing to share their memories please get in touch with us. Ways of contacting us are here.
Project Funding
The Project would not have been possible without the support and funding of the following bodies:
