The city of Aberdeen has been shaped by its natural surroundings and location on the North Sea coast. Long before the 1,000-plus years of the city’s recorded history, the area’s prehistoric people built megalithic stones and circles, and for centuries the area’s granite from nearby quarries was used to build the city, as well as exported around Britain wherever the hard-wearing stone was required. Over the centuries a vast number of crafts and skills went into the development of Aberdeen, a city that sits between two rivers, each enabling trades such as fishing, papermaking, shipbuilding and textiles.

The city was a major fishing port and an important Scottish trading centre with the Continent, and when oil was discovered in the North Sea in the 1960s and 1970s, Aberdeen became the oil capital of Britain. Today the north-east of Scotland’s natural landscape again dominates work and labour in the move to invest in new energy sources, harvesting wind and wave power.

In Aberdeen at Work, authors Lorna Corall Dey and Michael Dey explore the working life of this city and its people, and the industries that have characterised it. The book will appeal to all those with an interest in the history of Aberdeen.