Life for ordinary people was often very hard. The lairds owned most of the land but they also owned shops. When the people fell on hard times the laird would give them essential clothing and food "on tick". In return the men had to promise to fish for the laird. He would take their fish at a low price to pay for the goods "on tick". After this they had no money to get goods from other shops.

The lairds got good prices for the fish, especially in Spain. They liked the idea of making even more money. More fishermen meant more fish and higher profits. They therefore told the people that unless they became fishermen they would be thrown out of their homes. The people had nowhere else to go.

The lairds also split up the farms into smaller pieces and made the people build more houses on them. Each farm was now so small that the people could not make a living from it here was another way to get more fishermen. The lairds also encouraged people to marry young. If they did this the laird might give them one of the new houses. But to get one the young man had to fish.

The lairds bought bigger boats and told the fishermen to go further out to sea. Instead of returning home afterwards they stayed in small huts on the seashore. In the 1880s one old man told what a fisherman's life was like:

"When they went to sea they were for one to three nights off, in a boat 18 to 19 feet keel, and sometimes 40 miles off. They had no food but a little oatmeal and water, and when they came ashore they would be so bad that they would have to help each other out of the boat they had no warm fire to come to, and they had to turn into a small thing of a hut, and put on a little of fish or pottage (thick soup), and many a time death was created through the want of both food and rainment (clothing)."

 
Website by Graeme Storey of Force 10 - Made in Shetland