AN almost forgotten era in Scotland's mari-time heritage has been restored in Norway by a group of enthusiasts.

The 149ft Southern Actor - the only Scottish whale-catcher in existence - was one of a fleet of 40 ships which sailed to the Antarctic each year in search of the giant mammals.

From 1945 until 1963, 700 men would set sail in September from Leith, armed with harpoon guns, and two giant factory vessels, which escorted the fleet.

They returned in May from the hunting grounds off South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

A group of around 80 former Scottish whalers still meet monthly in Edinburgh to swop tales about their adventures.

Two of them are Willie Greenfield, 70, of Great Junction Street, in Leith, who worked for 49 years for the ship's former owners Christian Salvesen, and George Cummings, 65, of Blackford Hill View, Edinburgh, who flies over to Norway in a few weeks time to see the newly-restored 438-tonne vessel.

Mr Greenfield, the company's historian, said: ''The Norwegians are doing a great job with this restoration project.

''I spent three seasons with the whaling fleet in the Antarctic Ocean during the 1940s.

''I know that whaling is considered politically incorrect these days but at the time we felt that we were doing an important job harvesting a resource of the seas to provide food for a country still under food rationing and for the starving people of Europe.''

Mr Cummings, a retired businessman, also spent three seasons whaling in his younger days.

He now spends his spare time painting scenes from the industry, which hang in museums in four countries.

His Edinburgh-born ex-whaling friend James Meiklejohn lives on the shores of Oslo Fjord, just half-an-hour's drive from the port of Sandefjord, where Southern Actor has pride of place in Norway's Whaling Museum.

He says: ''I regularly go across for a holiday with James and I always take in a visit to Southern Actor.

''I have been enormously impressed with the efforts the Nor-wegians have made since she was rescued as a rusting hulk from a Spanish shipbreakers yard in 1989.

''It is ironic that Norway, which used to be the world's major whaling nation, has saved this Scottish ship, but that was because none of their own Antarctic whalers survived.

The last time a Scottish fleet sailed to the Southern seas tracking blue, fin and sperm whales was in 1962, which ended two centuries of whaling which in earlier years was conducted Moby Dick-style in Arctic waters by sailing vessels from Dundee, and Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire.

Christian Salvesen, which was founded by a Norwegian immigrant 150 years ago, opened up the Antarctic whaling in 1909 and built a major supply base on the remote island of South Georgia, which they named Leith after their homeport.

More than 200 men lived there in the winter, maintaining the fleet of catchers for the next hunting season, while the factory ships and tankers with whale oil sailed for home.

Southern Actor which carried a crew of 15, was built in Middlesbrough in 1950, as part of the post war fleet.