5 Portrait
Herveline Grall, the administration gets involved
Herveline Grall, ar velestradurezh o kemer perzh
A native of Brest who did not speak Breton, nothing destined Madame Grall to work with seaweed harvesters. A war widow with children to support, she was offered the post of secretary of the local fisheries committee for the Brest district — from Brignogan to Port-Launay — a position she held from 1946 to 1970.
Her job was to improve the living conditions of coastal fishermen, and she was appalled by the much harsher conditions of the seaweed harvesters. She fiercely defended the profession against the iodine industrialists, and later the alginate industry. Her work gradually helped raise their incomes. She also contributed to the building of prefabricated houses on the islands of the Molène archipelago for migrant harvesters, who until then lived in insalubrious shacks.
Her tenacity in defending the seaweed harvesters, against an administration that turned a blind eye, earned her the nickname “Miss Goémon.”