Page 122 - Demo

122 Maggie O%u2019HareIn the first half of the 20th century fishwives were common on the streets of Sunderland selling the catch that day.. By the 1950s there were few left, but one of them was Margaret Latimer, who was better known as Maggie O%u2019Hare (O%u2019Hare being her maiden name). Maggie was born in Govan in Glasgow to Northern Irish parents, who likely moved there for Maggie%u2019s dad to work in the shipyards there. But they stayed for a maximum of 6 years, and by the time Maggie was 2 her dad had swapped the shipyards of the Clyde for the Wear. She started plying her trade in 1886 when she was just 10, and was still going strong at the age of 80. Sensibly in the last couple of years she opted to sell them from her doorstep rather than walking the streets.The fishwives would carry the fish in baskets on their heads. Maggie%u2019s technique was to use a rolled towel as a cushion. Speaking to a reporter in 1954 she said %u201cYou need a good load, about four stones, to keep it steady.%u201d When there were 30 to 40 fishwives the fish would be sold by auction to the highest bidder, but by the fifties the small number of fishwives meant they were sold to them at a fixed price. Maggie certainly was a character. She married and had her first child at the age of 16 (she claimed to have had 10 children, but I could only find 5 in the records, so 5 may have died before being born or at a very young age). She died at the age of 83 in 1959, outliving both of her husbands and a number of her children. And she was estranged from her first husband for many years, living with the man that would become her second husband long before her first died.What was the key to her long life? She put it down to hard work and plain food. %u201cNothing fancy for me. I can eat half a loaf of bread and butter and a pint of beer for my supper.%u201d I suppose she was sick of the sight of fish...The beer most likely came from the Boar%u2019s Head pub in Hendon, which is today one of the city%u2019s oldest pubs, where Maggie said she made a daily pilgrimage. %u201cMy can can find its own way home from the Boar%u2019s Head%u201d she is reported to have once said. It looks as if she may have had one too many every so often too - she made the news on a handful of occasions for getting a bit lary. Her excuse usually was that she had %u2018had a little drop to drink%u2019!