Bride Fitzgerald: Washed it, no, I washed it out in the morning because we had to carry it out ... take it out of the puncheons and wash it out and lay it away all day and all night -- and all that morning 'til the next morning [when] we'd carry it out, then it'd be- all the water and everything would be drained off of it hey? ... It'd be better, it wouldn't be so heavy.

MF: ... So your brothers would carry it into the big store ...

BF: Yeah, to salt it, my mother used to salt it

MF: Oh- ok, she was the salter eh? So she knew how to salt?

BF: Oh my gosh, I'm telling you! And they had hard times making fish -- cause it's not like the years now. Do you know what I mean to say now -- we had a -- hot weather -- used to have hot weather, burn the fishes, pick the fish up -- my blessed Lord! -- quintals and quintals of fish used to be split up with the sun -- [MF: It was so hot eh] Yes, it would split the fish right open. [MF: Jeepers] Yes boy, I'm telling you.

MF: What was that called -- does that ... have a name or anything?

Bride Fitzgerald: A wet day -- the flies never used to spit on fish until they'd get a wet day, and then probably there'd be two or three wet days and the flies used to get their fly spits, and you had to go out the next morning with salt and water, out on the flake, and wash all that off the fish. [MF: After a wet day, that would happen?] Yes, after a wet day -- a couple of wet days ...

You wouldn't want to put away no fish for the winter, cause all you had to do was to keep the fish [that got spit on] ... If it was split with the sun -- that wouldn't hurt the fish, so you could keep that for the winter then... 

Mark Ferguson: ... You had to do that I s'pose? Scrubbing work?

BF: Yeah, well, no, I used to get Mam [laughs] -- you might tell I didn't do it all if I could get away with it -- I used to tell Mam "I'm not putting my hands in no salt today -- I got a sore on me finger.'' [laughs]

MF: Oh yes, so you'd get a little break.

Mark Ferguson: Do you remember if she [sister] used to help with the fish?

Bride Fitzgerald: No boy, she never done no fish, she was too lady-like, she wouldn't - [words unclear, drowned out by my laughter.] ... she wouldn't touch a fish! She was always away though ... Yes, she wouldn't touch no fish. But I heard Mary [other sister]  say she used to carry out fish and do fish, but I don't know whether that was true or no. She'd tell me what she'd like eh. Yeah.

MF: You used to carry out fish though on the flake --

Bride Fitzgerald : People used to dry barrels and barrels of caplin for their dogs, they'd  eat in the winter, see? 

MF: Oh they got caplin for their dogs did they?