Fish cleaner

Moreine Kennedy cuts about to debone a trout

It’s a cold nippy Wednesday morning – a holiday. At 6.15, the Meadowbank Wharf is buzzing with sellers and buyers of fish. Behind the Fisher’s Co-op Society a row of fish cleaners are busy scaling, gutting and filleting fish of all sizes and species.
Cleaners such as Moreine Kennedy has been cleaning fish for a living for some 15 years.

A greens vendor prior to cleaning fish, Kennedy says she got into the business because, “I’m a mother of eight children [and] the father never mind them so I had to hustle.”

But she notes also that being a fish vendor is easier than her last job because