Life on Low Shore: Memories of Twenty Years Among Fisher Folk at Macduff, Banffshire, 1938 - 1958

by Peter F. Anson

PETER FREDERICK ANSON was born at Portsmouth on August 22nd, 1889. He is the elder son of Admiral Charles E. Anson, C.B., M.V.O., and Evelyn Ross, granddaughter of Horatio Ross, of Rossie Castle, Angus. Educated at Wixenford, Wokingham, later under private tutors, he spent two years at the Architectural Association School, London. In 1910 he joined the Anglican Benedictine community on Caldey Island, off the coast of South Wales, where he was one of the twenty-two monks received into the Roman Catholic Church, along with Abbot Aelred Carlyle, on March 5th, 1913. Always keenly interested in ships and seafaring, he was a co-founder of the Apostleship of the Sea in 1921, and its first Organising Secretary for three years. On reverting to secular life in 1924, Mr Anson took, up writing and drawing as his profession. He specialised in water-colours of fishing ports and fishing vessels, which led to his becoming a founder member of the Society of Marine Artists. The first of his thirty four published books was issued in 1927. Many of them deal with nautical subjects, the Scottish fishing industry in particular, but none have had such big sales as “How to Draw Ships,” published in 1940. A German edition of the revised edition (1955) appeared two years later. The call of the Moray Firth coast was heard so strongly in 1936 that he decided to make his home on the Banffshire coast. From 1938 to 1958 he lived on Low Shore, Macduff, where he identified himself closely with his fisher neighbours, as is recorded in these memoirs. He now resides at Ferryden, near Montrose, a moribund village where his maternal ancestors did much to promote the local fishing industry. In February 1966 Pope Paul VI made him a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in recognition of his literary work.

152 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1969

About the author

Peter Frederick Anson was a marine artist and author of many books on fishing life and religious orders. For fourteen years a brother in an Anglican monastery, he moved over to the Cistercians in the Roman Catholic Church. Coming to the Moray Firth, he spent six years with the fishermen of Buckie and twenty years at Macduff, where he became involved with the Scottish national movement. His most famous book is Fishing Boats and Fisher Folk on the East Coast of Scotland, but his Fisher Folklore is also a standard work.