A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
No 51 “THE WIRELESS “ pb 20.08.2010
In the Groat of July 9th 2010 we mentioned the “wire”, the bearer of news good and bad, the news received by Wm Tait in his Diary entry of Jan 22nd 1907 of his brother James of J. & W. Tait’s sudden death. Which poses the question of progression to the “wireless”
My earliest recollection of a wireless is the huge long grey box in the sitting room, our own very first wireless. Dials and whatnots on the outside and tubes and valves and wires and goodness knows what inside. As visitors would often say, big enough to sink the Queen Mary!!
The wireless was bought by our Uncle John for his parents on a visit back home from Invercargill in New Zealand in 1924, but perhaps really a toy for the surgeon to play with. At least family lore has it that our grandfather said to his son, “Johnny me boy, stop playan wae that box o’ b***** rubbish and talk to me “
As Uncle John had come a long way with a six week sea voyage home fromm N.Z., and had been away for many years including the War of 1914 to 1918, it seemed a very reasonable thing for his old father to ask. In any case it would be the last they saw of each other, Da dying on 19th March 1930, aged 79.
A flag pole erected at the far end of the tennis lawn at Whitehall did service as an attachment point for one end of the long aerial, the other end attached to a bracket on the end of the house. Huge white porcelain insulators on either end of the aerial. Then a wire lead down the wall and in through the sill of the bow window of the sitting room. There was also an earth wire returning through the sill and buried in the ground outside. Reception was intermittent, and when the Merry Dancers filled the sky to the North we used to get what we said was them talking to us, but in reality I suppose just an increase in background static.
.
The old wireless did function but we were a long way from transmitters so reception was at best dodgy, accompanied by squeaks and crackles and pops. At times complete silence. Islands always had and still have someone knacky, totally untrained in a formal sense but amazingly knowledgeable for all that. Now and again our father had someone along who would take a look inside the monster, tweet this or that, find a loose wire, and for a while sweet music again.
When we took an interest in the magic box I cannot recall. But enough was enough, with War approaching by 1938 our father was certainly trying to get better reception. So he bought a new Pye, a wireless that did well enough and worked for a very long time later in Greenland Mains after we came there in 1944.
A dry battery and two rechargeable wet batteries - accumulators - with one usually being recharged at Swanneys in Whitehall Village. The Pye was a good wireless, and we used to play around with the tuning knob and get Hilversum and Berlin and Droitwich and other exotic foreign stations, some times in Orkney a better reception than British.
A wireless was a precious possession in many a house or cottage, and must have cost a farm worker a fair bit of his wage, but extremely popular. I do not recollect any house without one, though there must have been some. A look at his watch or the alarm clock on the dresser in the kitchen/cum living room of the farm cottage and the farm worker would say “Switch on the wireless and get the news”. The wireless was definitely not on all the time, it used up the batteries. Any background music would come from a wind up gramophone and a record or two which was used over and over again until scratched beyond repair and it gave up the ghost.
Any old wireless found a home elsewhere when superseded by a new one. Broken ones were taken apart and repaired or rebuilt by some local enthusiast. I cannot now recall names with any certainty but usually someone in the Village. Some made one for themselves out of bits and pieces and an old instruction book. Swanneys’ little engine and charging dynamo system out the back of the shop and bakehouse seemed to be always going, chugging away night and day and charging the Islands batteries.
This is all a far cry from today with constant music, sometimes quite obtrusive,
the name wireless superseded by radio, then in turn by a multitude of trade names. School pupils going down-town in Thurso at lunch time with something or other stuffed in their ears. Traffic hazard I think !!
.
The high point in our Stronsay wireless listening came with the outbreak of the War of 1939 to 1945. Much news, a great deal sad, some good, getting better as the War progressed, as much as the Government thought we should know and hear. And the Germans helped our wireless reception with Lord Haw Haw top of the pops though we did not use that phrase then. Aka William Joyce
The wireless station was Reichsender Hamburg, with the catch phrase “Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling”. The program broadcast from Hamburg started on 18 September 1939 and continued until 30 April 1945, when Hamburg was overrun by the British Army. (Wikipedia)
Joyce’s gravelly voice was instantly recognisable, slightly nasal. He was an American born in Brooklyn, his Irish father a naturalised US citizen. They left the USA when he was quite young and came back to Ireland, though Joyce still kept a touch of the USA in his voice. He was said in a quote by novelist Cecil Roberts in Wikipedia to be;-
“Thin, pale, intense, he had not been speaking many minutes before we were electrified by this man, so terrifying in its dynamic force, so vituperative, so vitriolic.I
His voice was indeed compelling. Even from outside a house we would hear and recognise it.
He was highly intelligent, did many things in England, some political, before being drawn into the Germany of the Nazis. In late August 1939, shortly before war was declared, Joyce and his wife Margaret fled to Germany. Joyce had been tipped off that the British authorities intended to detain him under Defence Regulation 18B. Joyce became a naturalised German in 1940. Eventually to Broadcasting. The rest is History, not my remit, though his story is worth looking up on the Internet. He was hanged for Treason on 3rd January, 1946. Got a very dodgy deal I think, but it was bad times.
Reichssender Hamburg was possibly the most widely listened to wireless programme we had. It had its own time slot to which Stronsay tuned in religeously.
Lord Haw Haw gave us the dispositions of British troops, where your son was before even his family knew, sometimes telling of someone taken prisoner, name, rank and number before any notification from the War 0ffice in London. He told us the Germans had sunk the Aircraft Carrier Ark Royal three times at least before U 81 did indeed torpedo her off Gibralter on 13th Nov. 1941, with terminable damage, sinking next day. Lord Haw Haw gave us much information denied to home listeners, where such and such a Regiment was, who had over-run whom, and of course only German victories were mentioned. In the early days of the War there were all too many of those.
It was indeed uncanny how so much Home information was at his command, and in his own way he kept us up to date with the War.
William Joyce, aka Lord Haw Haw, was indeed compulsive wireless listening.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
No 44. Straw Baskets,= pb 06 /08/ 2010
No 44. STRAW BASKETS. 06.08.2010
In this plastic age when packaging is such an issue, I sometimes swank a bit and take my old straw basket shopping. Home made in Lower Dounreay Farm House in January, 1954, our good old house now demolished I fear.
Peter Leith from Appietown in Stenness in Orkney was along Isauld a few days back and, taking a look at the 56 year old basket in the back of my car, immediately said ”That’s a Westray stitch”. His knowledge of Old Orkney is profound. So there’s a tale to tell about the old basket, no pun intended, no offence taken!!! .
Made of completely natural organic ingredients, straw from a sheaf pulled out of a stack of cleanland Ayr Line oats in the Lower Dounreay stackyard, binder twine of North African Sisal “borrowed” from the twine box on the binder, a bit of fencing wire from the work shop. Tools required - simple enough - just a strong 6 inch sail maker’s needle with a flattened wide curved end. Nettie cleaned the straw, I made the basket, a job for us both on dark winter’s evenings well before T.V. or Electricity. But back to the beginning.
A long time ago in Stronsay, aged 11, I had one year in the Big Room before going from Stronsay to Inverness Royal Academy to School. John Drever was my Headmaster. Among our Latin and Composition and French and Maths we had to read the Orkneyinga Saga to prepare for the Bursary Competition. He also found time to take us for Handicrafts, the boys doing woodwork and straw basket making and weaving wicker or cane into trays and baskets and ornaments. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for a spell at the end of the school day, then home. I chose straw basket making and cane trays and baskets.
The girls went next door to the cooking room doing I know not what, sewing and dress making and knitting and cooking spring to mind. I cannot remember who taught them, not John Drever anyway. We boys had utterly no interest in the more domestic things the girls had to do, none at all. Not then anyway!!.
As most of us were from farms, and if not then a farm was not far away, we who did straw baskets had to find a sheaf or two of good straight straw. Always from cleanland oats after a turnip crop the previous year, shortish, straight straw, well ripened, harvest gold. Take the sheaf to the barn and strip off the ears and the leaves, giving us “gloy”, clean straight straw ready for basket making. Take it to School for Mr Drever’s inspection, if not quite clean enough take it home and do it again !! Otherwise store it in some cupboard or other till needed. Thrashed straw was of no use.
We had to hand make a special cord for the coming task, made with imported raffia. We went down to the shore to the Sand Dunes on Mill Bay and found some specially hard Marram grass to add to the cord. Take some raffia, twist it into a continuous cord, feed in a small amount of Marram for extra strength. Two strands doubled, cross woven, twist each strand right handed, cross over left handed to make a self supporting two ply cord. Very hard and strong and quite attractive, a skill on its own.
Learn to hold the already woven ball under your arm, a bit of a job to keep all tidy and not let it fall to the floor and run out to lie and trip anyone. Easier said than done. There was a certain amount of twine to make before we were introduced to making the basket.
The technique is essentially the same as for the well known Orkney Chair. For a basket start at what will be the centre of the bottom with a small length of straw and double it back on itself to make a starter about six inches long, Catch your cord in the loop of the bend, wind your cord round the starter at one inch spacing, less if you wanted to be a bit fancy but one inch was a general measure.. Then loop it spirally round and round about one inch apart each time. Tuck the loose end into the straw, well hidden. A clove hitch was a good starter tie in the initial bend
Turn the free end of your straw back, feed in some more straws and start stitching to the starter, looping each stitch under the previous. And so on and on, making an increasing flat oval until the desired size of the bottom of the basket is reached. Round if you liked, mine was oval. Fresh straw fed in a few straws at a time into the working end, stubble end first and inside the centre to keep it out of sight in the finished basket. Keep just the right amount in your hand, practice soon tells you how much. Pull the stitches just so, tight but not too tight. Better too tight than too slack, but you can only pull so much. It is surprising how hard a few straws can get when pulled tight into the basket. Or an Orkney Chair for that matter, almost as hard as wood.
Having reached the limit of the bottom, usually oval, now to turn up the straw for the sides. Begin with a half turn, complete it on the next round and we are now rising into the sides. Here the shape becomes critical, a good eye needed to keep a nice shape. A slight outward slope at first, curving gently further out a bit, then, as the sides climb, straighten it upwards again. Gives a nice figure “S” outline shape. For the rim just wind the cord continuously round and round the last run, keep it tight, then with the sail needle stitch the flying end out of sight into the body of the basket.
The one I made has fencing wire for the handle with the ends bent at right angles and inserted some five rows below the rim. Then the handle reinforcement is filled out with straw, wrapped close with twine, the wire out of sight within the straw.
The basket I made was 18 inches long, 12 inches across, eight inches deep, a classic measurement but you could make what you fancied. In its time it carried many an egg to Willie Oman in Trail Street in Thurso, and our shopping back home. Did service for a picnic, the odd Bring and Buy Sale. For age it has done pretty well, and I still use it.
But not a match for the Orkney Straw Backed Chair made as a wedding present for our Grandparents Wedding at Campston in Tankerness in Orkney. Still there with Hamish in Greenland Mains, a few woodworm holes but otherwise as good as new, a present from Grandma’s Campston Tait family..
From Wm Tait’s Diary of 1880. ,
Aug 18 Wed At Cattle Show - preparing barn for wedding.
Aug 19 Thur Elizabeth (his sister) married this night …very fine night
{Married David Pottinger of Upper Stove, Deerness}
Aug 20 Fri At Kirkwall with long cart with cousins from Caithness (Taits)
Aug 21 Sat At Kirkwall with three carts with seats.{from the barn wedding?}
Straw Baskets and Straw Backed Chairs are still a great Orkney Tradition.
In this plastic age when packaging is such an issue, I sometimes swank a bit and take my old straw basket shopping. Home made in Lower Dounreay Farm House in January, 1954, our good old house now demolished I fear.
Peter Leith from Appietown in Stenness in Orkney was along Isauld a few days back and, taking a look at the 56 year old basket in the back of my car, immediately said ”That’s a Westray stitch”. His knowledge of Old Orkney is profound. So there’s a tale to tell about the old basket, no pun intended, no offence taken!!! .
Made of completely natural organic ingredients, straw from a sheaf pulled out of a stack of cleanland Ayr Line oats in the Lower Dounreay stackyard, binder twine of North African Sisal “borrowed” from the twine box on the binder, a bit of fencing wire from the work shop. Tools required - simple enough - just a strong 6 inch sail maker’s needle with a flattened wide curved end. Nettie cleaned the straw, I made the basket, a job for us both on dark winter’s evenings well before T.V. or Electricity. But back to the beginning.
A long time ago in Stronsay, aged 11, I had one year in the Big Room before going from Stronsay to Inverness Royal Academy to School. John Drever was my Headmaster. Among our Latin and Composition and French and Maths we had to read the Orkneyinga Saga to prepare for the Bursary Competition. He also found time to take us for Handicrafts, the boys doing woodwork and straw basket making and weaving wicker or cane into trays and baskets and ornaments. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for a spell at the end of the school day, then home. I chose straw basket making and cane trays and baskets.
The girls went next door to the cooking room doing I know not what, sewing and dress making and knitting and cooking spring to mind. I cannot remember who taught them, not John Drever anyway. We boys had utterly no interest in the more domestic things the girls had to do, none at all. Not then anyway!!.
As most of us were from farms, and if not then a farm was not far away, we who did straw baskets had to find a sheaf or two of good straight straw. Always from cleanland oats after a turnip crop the previous year, shortish, straight straw, well ripened, harvest gold. Take the sheaf to the barn and strip off the ears and the leaves, giving us “gloy”, clean straight straw ready for basket making. Take it to School for Mr Drever’s inspection, if not quite clean enough take it home and do it again !! Otherwise store it in some cupboard or other till needed. Thrashed straw was of no use.
We had to hand make a special cord for the coming task, made with imported raffia. We went down to the shore to the Sand Dunes on Mill Bay and found some specially hard Marram grass to add to the cord. Take some raffia, twist it into a continuous cord, feed in a small amount of Marram for extra strength. Two strands doubled, cross woven, twist each strand right handed, cross over left handed to make a self supporting two ply cord. Very hard and strong and quite attractive, a skill on its own.
Learn to hold the already woven ball under your arm, a bit of a job to keep all tidy and not let it fall to the floor and run out to lie and trip anyone. Easier said than done. There was a certain amount of twine to make before we were introduced to making the basket.
The technique is essentially the same as for the well known Orkney Chair. For a basket start at what will be the centre of the bottom with a small length of straw and double it back on itself to make a starter about six inches long, Catch your cord in the loop of the bend, wind your cord round the starter at one inch spacing, less if you wanted to be a bit fancy but one inch was a general measure.. Then loop it spirally round and round about one inch apart each time. Tuck the loose end into the straw, well hidden. A clove hitch was a good starter tie in the initial bend
Turn the free end of your straw back, feed in some more straws and start stitching to the starter, looping each stitch under the previous. And so on and on, making an increasing flat oval until the desired size of the bottom of the basket is reached. Round if you liked, mine was oval. Fresh straw fed in a few straws at a time into the working end, stubble end first and inside the centre to keep it out of sight in the finished basket. Keep just the right amount in your hand, practice soon tells you how much. Pull the stitches just so, tight but not too tight. Better too tight than too slack, but you can only pull so much. It is surprising how hard a few straws can get when pulled tight into the basket. Or an Orkney Chair for that matter, almost as hard as wood.
Having reached the limit of the bottom, usually oval, now to turn up the straw for the sides. Begin with a half turn, complete it on the next round and we are now rising into the sides. Here the shape becomes critical, a good eye needed to keep a nice shape. A slight outward slope at first, curving gently further out a bit, then, as the sides climb, straighten it upwards again. Gives a nice figure “S” outline shape. For the rim just wind the cord continuously round and round the last run, keep it tight, then with the sail needle stitch the flying end out of sight into the body of the basket.
The one I made has fencing wire for the handle with the ends bent at right angles and inserted some five rows below the rim. Then the handle reinforcement is filled out with straw, wrapped close with twine, the wire out of sight within the straw.
The basket I made was 18 inches long, 12 inches across, eight inches deep, a classic measurement but you could make what you fancied. In its time it carried many an egg to Willie Oman in Trail Street in Thurso, and our shopping back home. Did service for a picnic, the odd Bring and Buy Sale. For age it has done pretty well, and I still use it.
But not a match for the Orkney Straw Backed Chair made as a wedding present for our Grandparents Wedding at Campston in Tankerness in Orkney. Still there with Hamish in Greenland Mains, a few woodworm holes but otherwise as good as new, a present from Grandma’s Campston Tait family..
From Wm Tait’s Diary of 1880. ,
Aug 18 Wed At Cattle Show - preparing barn for wedding.
Aug 19 Thur Elizabeth (his sister) married this night …very fine night
{Married David Pottinger of Upper Stove, Deerness}
Aug 20 Fri At Kirkwall with long cart with cousins from Caithness (Taits)
Aug 21 Sat At Kirkwall with three carts with seats.{from the barn wedding?}
Straw Baskets and Straw Backed Chairs are still a great Orkney Tradition.
Friday, 23 July 2010
No 81. Boys Knives. 23rd July, 2010
A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
Every boy needed a knife. Back to my first schooldays in the North School again, though I still have to do the Central School where I did my last three years at Stronsay Schools. And in this present day “no knives” culture, we lived then when the ownership of a knife was such a distinguishing mark of a very young boy’s growing up. To own one was a matter of great pride.
At School we had slate pencils of course, mentioned in the North School article of 18th April 2008, which sometimes needed a bit of sharpening. And lead pencils which needed frequent sharpening as the lead either wore down or broke.
Pencils came in many guises, thick, thin, hard, soft, AA, BB, crayon and coloured pencils. An indelible pencil of a purplish shade which was frowned upon as it could not be rubbed out with any ease at all.
They all needed sharpening, and all the boys had penknives, though some were a bit older than others before getting one, and the trust of their parents. My very first one was a present from my surgeon Uncle John who had a professional interest in knives anyway!!! I was rising six in 1935 when he came on a visit home from Invercargill in New Zealand, and I had just recently started the North School. Mother-of-pearl handle, two bladed, neat, one large blade at one end, one smaller blade at the other. It made for a certain deal of self importance which I have never lost – so they say !!!.
That I now had a knife like the other boys and like my father made for a feeling of being quite grown up. To be trusted with a knife was great.
With the knife came instructions and demonstrations on its use, do it this way, do not do it that way, and shown the reasons why. How to open and close your knife without cutting yourself. How to sharpen your knife. What kind of stone off the beach made the best sharpener. Whetted with a bit of spit when needed. Learning to do simple every day things then was a part of life which seems to be getting neglected in some ways today in this computer age, but all is not yet entirely lost.
And so to School, able now to sharpen my own pencils. There were many ways of so doing. A really sharp knife worked well with the away stroke, but we had to go to the iron stove to do so and sharpen the pencil into the coal bucket to keep the floor clean. A blunt knife was still usable, but not with the away stroke, you were guaranteed always to break the new point just as you had got it properly sharp. !!
.
Still, even a blunt knife had it’s own method. Support the pencil tip with your thumb and with the knife held in the curled four fingers of the same hand cut towards the thumb. Amazingly, and H.S.E. would not allow such a thing today, it was just impossible to cut yourself or your thumb this way. Your thumb supported the tip so you could cut towards yourself without danger. Total control. Done carefully there was no breaking of a treasured newly sharpened point, and to have a really sharp pencil point was again a matter of honour. Some boys had a talent for pencil sharpening, Jim Stout from Linksness comes to mind. A good seaman and coxswain of the Stronsay Lifeboat later in life. Some, myself included, just got by.
.
A razor sharp knife was a matter of pride. Frequently someone was challenged as to who had sharpened his knife, and in my case it was Ould Pat Shearer who was the magician. He always had and treasured a special small beach stone in his pocket, just the right shape, a shallow groove worn into it from much use. The stone had come from the beach at Skaeval, a superb sheltered picnic spot on the Westside of Rousam Head, one of our favourite spots. A peculiar hard pebble stone could be found among the many others on the beach.
Spit on the stone, a few rubs and razor sharpness. Yet when we tried it ourselves we could not do it. Never ever. The final test was to be able to cut a hair, or with grown men to shave a little hair off their forearm, showing off a bit. I do not think modern knives are made of the same steel, and will not take or keep the same edge, too soft.
Pencil sharpening by the girls was totally different. No knives but here and there one of the girls had a pencil sharpener. They were actually very efficient but infectious pride forbade any of the boys from using one, cissy.
The penknife had many other uses. Surreptitiously carving your initials on many a long suffering school desk was one, difficult to deny to the teacher when the initials were your own and on your own desk. Some desks in the old school were really a lexicon of bygone scholars, some we knew but were now grown men.
Pick out a thistle from your finger, a careful job. Or a splinter of wood. Clean and trim your finger nails!!. Dissect a flower to see how it worked. Peel the outer sharp bristles from a Scotch Thistle flower head to get at the tiny tasty cheese inside. Skin and gut a rabbit caught in the dyke on our way home from School, presenting our mother with an oven ready carcase. We were always humoured by having it cooked, tasted like good chicken if the rabbit was young enough, just above half grown was best.
Pick a tiny hole with the sharp point of the small blade in either end of a bird’s egg to blow it and add it to our small amateurish collection. A hanging offence today of course, but birds do seem to be much less plentiful now. We were taught never to take more than one egg from any one nest, leave the others to hatch in due course. We were indeed environmentalists before the word was invented.
And whittling. Find a bit of drift wood on the beach that looked like something or other and better shape it. Carve a wooden pipe and bore a hole through the stem with a thin wire heated at one end in the farm smiddy forge. Time consuming and a few burnt fingers. Gouge out the bowl with the brace and bit in the farm workshop. When completed cadge a bit of baccy from Jock o’ Sound the cattle man to try it out. Sick as a dog afterwards. Put me off smoking for life. A good cure.
There were many other uses for a knife of course, but far too many to try to enumerate. A boy’s life long ago without a knife was just impossible.
.
Every boy needed a knife. Back to my first schooldays in the North School again, though I still have to do the Central School where I did my last three years at Stronsay Schools. And in this present day “no knives” culture, we lived then when the ownership of a knife was such a distinguishing mark of a very young boy’s growing up. To own one was a matter of great pride.
At School we had slate pencils of course, mentioned in the North School article of 18th April 2008, which sometimes needed a bit of sharpening. And lead pencils which needed frequent sharpening as the lead either wore down or broke.
Pencils came in many guises, thick, thin, hard, soft, AA, BB, crayon and coloured pencils. An indelible pencil of a purplish shade which was frowned upon as it could not be rubbed out with any ease at all.
They all needed sharpening, and all the boys had penknives, though some were a bit older than others before getting one, and the trust of their parents. My very first one was a present from my surgeon Uncle John who had a professional interest in knives anyway!!! I was rising six in 1935 when he came on a visit home from Invercargill in New Zealand, and I had just recently started the North School. Mother-of-pearl handle, two bladed, neat, one large blade at one end, one smaller blade at the other. It made for a certain deal of self importance which I have never lost – so they say !!!.
That I now had a knife like the other boys and like my father made for a feeling of being quite grown up. To be trusted with a knife was great.
With the knife came instructions and demonstrations on its use, do it this way, do not do it that way, and shown the reasons why. How to open and close your knife without cutting yourself. How to sharpen your knife. What kind of stone off the beach made the best sharpener. Whetted with a bit of spit when needed. Learning to do simple every day things then was a part of life which seems to be getting neglected in some ways today in this computer age, but all is not yet entirely lost.
And so to School, able now to sharpen my own pencils. There were many ways of so doing. A really sharp knife worked well with the away stroke, but we had to go to the iron stove to do so and sharpen the pencil into the coal bucket to keep the floor clean. A blunt knife was still usable, but not with the away stroke, you were guaranteed always to break the new point just as you had got it properly sharp. !!
.
Still, even a blunt knife had it’s own method. Support the pencil tip with your thumb and with the knife held in the curled four fingers of the same hand cut towards the thumb. Amazingly, and H.S.E. would not allow such a thing today, it was just impossible to cut yourself or your thumb this way. Your thumb supported the tip so you could cut towards yourself without danger. Total control. Done carefully there was no breaking of a treasured newly sharpened point, and to have a really sharp pencil point was again a matter of honour. Some boys had a talent for pencil sharpening, Jim Stout from Linksness comes to mind. A good seaman and coxswain of the Stronsay Lifeboat later in life. Some, myself included, just got by.
.
A razor sharp knife was a matter of pride. Frequently someone was challenged as to who had sharpened his knife, and in my case it was Ould Pat Shearer who was the magician. He always had and treasured a special small beach stone in his pocket, just the right shape, a shallow groove worn into it from much use. The stone had come from the beach at Skaeval, a superb sheltered picnic spot on the Westside of Rousam Head, one of our favourite spots. A peculiar hard pebble stone could be found among the many others on the beach.
Spit on the stone, a few rubs and razor sharpness. Yet when we tried it ourselves we could not do it. Never ever. The final test was to be able to cut a hair, or with grown men to shave a little hair off their forearm, showing off a bit. I do not think modern knives are made of the same steel, and will not take or keep the same edge, too soft.
Pencil sharpening by the girls was totally different. No knives but here and there one of the girls had a pencil sharpener. They were actually very efficient but infectious pride forbade any of the boys from using one, cissy.
The penknife had many other uses. Surreptitiously carving your initials on many a long suffering school desk was one, difficult to deny to the teacher when the initials were your own and on your own desk. Some desks in the old school were really a lexicon of bygone scholars, some we knew but were now grown men.
Pick out a thistle from your finger, a careful job. Or a splinter of wood. Clean and trim your finger nails!!. Dissect a flower to see how it worked. Peel the outer sharp bristles from a Scotch Thistle flower head to get at the tiny tasty cheese inside. Skin and gut a rabbit caught in the dyke on our way home from School, presenting our mother with an oven ready carcase. We were always humoured by having it cooked, tasted like good chicken if the rabbit was young enough, just above half grown was best.
Pick a tiny hole with the sharp point of the small blade in either end of a bird’s egg to blow it and add it to our small amateurish collection. A hanging offence today of course, but birds do seem to be much less plentiful now. We were taught never to take more than one egg from any one nest, leave the others to hatch in due course. We were indeed environmentalists before the word was invented.
And whittling. Find a bit of drift wood on the beach that looked like something or other and better shape it. Carve a wooden pipe and bore a hole through the stem with a thin wire heated at one end in the farm smiddy forge. Time consuming and a few burnt fingers. Gouge out the bowl with the brace and bit in the farm workshop. When completed cadge a bit of baccy from Jock o’ Sound the cattle man to try it out. Sick as a dog afterwards. Put me off smoking for life. A good cure.
There were many other uses for a knife of course, but far too many to try to enumerate. A boy’s life long ago without a knife was just impossible.
.
Friday, 9 July 2010
No 80 Wird o' Mooth. pb. 09 07 2010
No 80 “WIRD O’ MOOTH”. Pb 09.07 2010
We forget today that news actually did travel, a phrase we still use by saying “Bad News Travels Fast”. Still all too true I fear.
Funerals were notified by “wird o’ mooth”, a man coming to our house, often on foot or on his bike, possibly with a horse and a gig, and in all sobriety and with due formality giving the Man o’ the Hoos a “Bid” to the funeral. Sometimes that was also the first intimation that someone had died, though in some cases it was “ expected”. The man on the door step in his best dark suit and black tie told it’s own silent story.
The bid was never passed on over the doorstep, considered unlucky.
“Come in, Wullie, come awa in.” Courtesy dictated that a dram was offered to help the messenger on his way. Not always accepted and a dangerous courtesy anyway, with in some cases predictable results. It was a sober occasion, if I can use that word, and I remember the bearer of the news being ushered into the dining room by our father and spending a little time with him before going further on his sombre way. No doubt they would have a “bit o’ a news” as well.
Newspapers in Stronsay came in bundles, a feast and a famine. The Earl Thorfinn came out from Kirkwall on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Earl Sigurd came out some Tuesdays but not to every Island. She, as we always called a ship, normally served Rousay, lying out to the West a bit on its own. On Fridays, but not every Friday, it did a “Round the Isles” sailing, a sort of “Touch and go”, with little cargo being handled, almost no livestock unless to another Island, beginning and ending in Kirkwall. It always was curious to me that the service was called a “sailing” though there were no longer any sails to drive the ship. It is still so called even today. How a word lingers on even after it’s immediate use has become outdated.
.
So newspapers came when they came, and several days newspapers would come in the same bundle, delivered by the postman. Many years later at Lower Dounreay and then Isauld we still had newspapers delivered by post from Malcolm and Tait in Thurso, postage 2d a time old money, less than a decimal penny now. Later Jim Ferrier, servicing Dounreay with the papers, threw ours out passing the Isauld road end, no extra charge. But we got them, with the occasional rainy day !!!
In Stronsay our regular paper was the Glasgow Herald. Others stuck religiously and vigorously to the Scotsman. Local papers were the Orcadian and the competing Orkney Herald, the latter now gone. I guess as his journey progressed the postman’s burden would get lighter. He also passed on much news by the well known “wird o mooth”.
Wm Tait of the Diaries in March 1915, in the Bay in Stronsay, paid 6s 8d. to W. Slater, Kirkwall, for the Scotsman delivered by post for a year. That is 33p. today, not bad for a year’s supply right to your door. In 1918 the Scotsman for 6 months cost him 4s 4d. Meeting the postman was always an adventure, and we vied as to who would get the letters and the newspapers. They came well wrapped too.
.
The postman delivered much else, parcels of clothes from Patrick Thompson on North Bridge in Edinburgh, a suit for our father from P.L.Johnston in Stromness, his brother-in-law, catalogue orders, though our mother generally frowned on that source. Still, catalogues were much used by many people far from still unborn shopping malls and filled a most useful need in remote Islands, sometimes with a local catalogue contact.
And books. Always books. Our mother subscribed to the Book Society, and I think there was a Reprint Society as well. Every month a new book came in a neat cardboard container. To be the first to open the small parcel was a competition between us. We also had and looked forward to the Childrens Newspaper, founded and edited by Arthur Mee, a brilliant man who also compiled and edited the Children’s Encylopedia. That was a quite incredible compendium of good information, I read it in its 8 volume entirety. A red leather bound set was in Whitehall, I remember when it arrived, then on to Greenland Mains, then on again to Isauld and so on down the family. A very old green leather covered set from Keiss also appeared, my late wife’s teacher Aunt Anne on the Robertson side. That set, a bit battered, is now in New Zealand with our daughter Janet and on to her children. I do not know if they read it, I suspect too many outdoor interests in that green and pleasant land.
Finally, the “wire”. In Wm Tait’s Diaries when he was farming, in Stennaquoy in Eday, 1900 to 1907, the first wire I found was an entry in 1907:-
jan 22 tues Sandy horse at Smiddy, got shoes on hind feet - 1 pair carting neeps a.m. thrashed p.m. - got wire word of James death - dry windy day.
[ James was his elder brother, founder of J. & W.Tait, born in Caithness in Inkstack in Dunnet Parish }
jan 24 thur W. S. Tait went to Kirkwall to James funeral .
jan 26 sat W. S. Tait came home today.
And that was that !!
There were submarine cables connecting the Islands with Kirkwall, dog legging on land over one Island and then diving under the sea to the next, coming onshore to various small buildings which are still there. The telephone line in Stronsay went by two wires in wooden telephone poles from land fall at Linksness past Whitehall Farm and down the road to the Post Office in Whitehall Village where, in a back room, Jim Fiddler, Postmaster, took care of them. Morse code knowledge required, and a light touch on a Morse key tap tap tapping the message. We used to hear the two wires singing as they passed Whitehall Farm and imagined the words actually passing along the wires.
Jim’s Norwegian wife Bertha often carried a bunch of telegrams - wires - in their unmistakeable buff envelopes to the Fish Mart, putting them in the desk boxes of various fish buyers and curers. Telegrams were delivered by messenger, not waiting for the regular postman but delivered by just anyone who would carry it. Sometimes a handy passing boy would get the honour. A far cry from the cell phone constantly at the ear of a well known local fish buyer down at Scrabster, as seen on T.V.!!!
The sadder part of the life of the “wire”, or the telegram, was the all too frequent carrying of sad tidings from War, the first notification of all too many deaths. Woundings were also notified by wire, and the first our grandfather knew of his Dr. son David’s injury in France in 1915 was a wire Notification from the War Office that he had been wounded. David himself had not thought fit to tell his parents, considering it not worth worrying them. He was honoured with an M.C. for that episode in No Mans Land, out with a stretcher party succouring wounded men.
During both World Wars the sight of a boy with a telegram was heart stopping in a small Island, the tidings all too frequently guessed in advance.
And Caithness was there too in the early days of telegraphy and the “wire”. In 1843 Caithness man Alexander Bain, credited as from Watten though born in Thurso Parish, invented and patented a device that could be considered the first facsimile machine. He called his invention a "recording telegraph". Bain's telegraph was able to transmit images by electrical wires.
(Wikpedia) “Alexander Bain and his twin sister Margaret were born in October 1811 of humble parents in the little town of Thurso, at the extreme north of Scotland. Their dad was a crofter, and he had six sisters and six brothers. They grew up in a remote stone cottage at Leanmore, a few miles north of Wick”
Caithness can justifiably be proud of him. He went a long way from “Wird o’ mooth”.
We forget today that news actually did travel, a phrase we still use by saying “Bad News Travels Fast”. Still all too true I fear.
Funerals were notified by “wird o’ mooth”, a man coming to our house, often on foot or on his bike, possibly with a horse and a gig, and in all sobriety and with due formality giving the Man o’ the Hoos a “Bid” to the funeral. Sometimes that was also the first intimation that someone had died, though in some cases it was “ expected”. The man on the door step in his best dark suit and black tie told it’s own silent story.
The bid was never passed on over the doorstep, considered unlucky.
“Come in, Wullie, come awa in.” Courtesy dictated that a dram was offered to help the messenger on his way. Not always accepted and a dangerous courtesy anyway, with in some cases predictable results. It was a sober occasion, if I can use that word, and I remember the bearer of the news being ushered into the dining room by our father and spending a little time with him before going further on his sombre way. No doubt they would have a “bit o’ a news” as well.
Newspapers in Stronsay came in bundles, a feast and a famine. The Earl Thorfinn came out from Kirkwall on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Earl Sigurd came out some Tuesdays but not to every Island. She, as we always called a ship, normally served Rousay, lying out to the West a bit on its own. On Fridays, but not every Friday, it did a “Round the Isles” sailing, a sort of “Touch and go”, with little cargo being handled, almost no livestock unless to another Island, beginning and ending in Kirkwall. It always was curious to me that the service was called a “sailing” though there were no longer any sails to drive the ship. It is still so called even today. How a word lingers on even after it’s immediate use has become outdated.
.
So newspapers came when they came, and several days newspapers would come in the same bundle, delivered by the postman. Many years later at Lower Dounreay and then Isauld we still had newspapers delivered by post from Malcolm and Tait in Thurso, postage 2d a time old money, less than a decimal penny now. Later Jim Ferrier, servicing Dounreay with the papers, threw ours out passing the Isauld road end, no extra charge. But we got them, with the occasional rainy day !!!
In Stronsay our regular paper was the Glasgow Herald. Others stuck religiously and vigorously to the Scotsman. Local papers were the Orcadian and the competing Orkney Herald, the latter now gone. I guess as his journey progressed the postman’s burden would get lighter. He also passed on much news by the well known “wird o mooth”.
Wm Tait of the Diaries in March 1915, in the Bay in Stronsay, paid 6s 8d. to W. Slater, Kirkwall, for the Scotsman delivered by post for a year. That is 33p. today, not bad for a year’s supply right to your door. In 1918 the Scotsman for 6 months cost him 4s 4d. Meeting the postman was always an adventure, and we vied as to who would get the letters and the newspapers. They came well wrapped too.
.
The postman delivered much else, parcels of clothes from Patrick Thompson on North Bridge in Edinburgh, a suit for our father from P.L.Johnston in Stromness, his brother-in-law, catalogue orders, though our mother generally frowned on that source. Still, catalogues were much used by many people far from still unborn shopping malls and filled a most useful need in remote Islands, sometimes with a local catalogue contact.
And books. Always books. Our mother subscribed to the Book Society, and I think there was a Reprint Society as well. Every month a new book came in a neat cardboard container. To be the first to open the small parcel was a competition between us. We also had and looked forward to the Childrens Newspaper, founded and edited by Arthur Mee, a brilliant man who also compiled and edited the Children’s Encylopedia. That was a quite incredible compendium of good information, I read it in its 8 volume entirety. A red leather bound set was in Whitehall, I remember when it arrived, then on to Greenland Mains, then on again to Isauld and so on down the family. A very old green leather covered set from Keiss also appeared, my late wife’s teacher Aunt Anne on the Robertson side. That set, a bit battered, is now in New Zealand with our daughter Janet and on to her children. I do not know if they read it, I suspect too many outdoor interests in that green and pleasant land.
Finally, the “wire”. In Wm Tait’s Diaries when he was farming, in Stennaquoy in Eday, 1900 to 1907, the first wire I found was an entry in 1907:-
jan 22 tues Sandy horse at Smiddy, got shoes on hind feet - 1 pair carting neeps a.m. thrashed p.m. - got wire word of James death - dry windy day.
[ James was his elder brother, founder of J. & W.Tait, born in Caithness in Inkstack in Dunnet Parish }
jan 24 thur W. S. Tait went to Kirkwall to James funeral .
jan 26 sat W. S. Tait came home today.
And that was that !!
There were submarine cables connecting the Islands with Kirkwall, dog legging on land over one Island and then diving under the sea to the next, coming onshore to various small buildings which are still there. The telephone line in Stronsay went by two wires in wooden telephone poles from land fall at Linksness past Whitehall Farm and down the road to the Post Office in Whitehall Village where, in a back room, Jim Fiddler, Postmaster, took care of them. Morse code knowledge required, and a light touch on a Morse key tap tap tapping the message. We used to hear the two wires singing as they passed Whitehall Farm and imagined the words actually passing along the wires.
Jim’s Norwegian wife Bertha often carried a bunch of telegrams - wires - in their unmistakeable buff envelopes to the Fish Mart, putting them in the desk boxes of various fish buyers and curers. Telegrams were delivered by messenger, not waiting for the regular postman but delivered by just anyone who would carry it. Sometimes a handy passing boy would get the honour. A far cry from the cell phone constantly at the ear of a well known local fish buyer down at Scrabster, as seen on T.V.!!!
The sadder part of the life of the “wire”, or the telegram, was the all too frequent carrying of sad tidings from War, the first notification of all too many deaths. Woundings were also notified by wire, and the first our grandfather knew of his Dr. son David’s injury in France in 1915 was a wire Notification from the War Office that he had been wounded. David himself had not thought fit to tell his parents, considering it not worth worrying them. He was honoured with an M.C. for that episode in No Mans Land, out with a stretcher party succouring wounded men.
During both World Wars the sight of a boy with a telegram was heart stopping in a small Island, the tidings all too frequently guessed in advance.
And Caithness was there too in the early days of telegraphy and the “wire”. In 1843 Caithness man Alexander Bain, credited as from Watten though born in Thurso Parish, invented and patented a device that could be considered the first facsimile machine. He called his invention a "recording telegraph". Bain's telegraph was able to transmit images by electrical wires.
(Wikpedia) “Alexander Bain and his twin sister Margaret were born in October 1811 of humble parents in the little town of Thurso, at the extreme north of Scotland. Their dad was a crofter, and he had six sisters and six brothers. They grew up in a remote stone cottage at Leanmore, a few miles north of Wick”
Caithness can justifiably be proud of him. He went a long way from “Wird o’ mooth”.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
No 79. Thrashan doon and building oot 25 06 2010
No 79. THRASSAN DOON “ AN “BUILDAN OOT”
At Whitehaa I remember some Springs when “Building oot “ was done. By no means every Spring were stacks left over after a hard winter, but sometimes. This meant a run of days of thrashing down stacks left in the stackyard after winter end before the rats and the mice completely demolished them. Sometimes there were more, sometimes there were less, sometimes there were none at all.
Obviously the straw would have to be built outdoors, the barn could not hold it all. So a clear level space in the stackyard just beyond the barn door was made ready. We actually had two hard standings of many flat flag stones set out for that purpose, ever so slightly raised above ground level to keep the straw dry.. One was in the stackyard, one was inside the Square, both as near to the opposing barn doors as reasonable, not too far to carry the straw. The one in the Square is to be seen in the photo we previously published of Billy the Horse in the square with the bairns, including myself !! Obviously a space was left in the stackyard between the gilt and the barn wall to let the carts get in to the sheaf window. No travelling steam mills were available in Stronsay so threshing doon was a homer with your own thrashing mill in the barn. A dusty job too at winter’s end.
Extra hands were needed if the straw was to be carried direct from the mill as thrashing progressed, hauled in burdens out of the door. It needed two men to carry the straw from the mill, one man with a pitchfork at the gilt to pitch up to one man on a half loaded cart used as a platform on the way up. Pitching straw from the ground to any height at all was a no-go, especially on a windy day..
The cart we used was usually the Long Cart, handy if you had one, less shoogly and a longer platform, the shafts sitting on a barrel. It was better to have two men building on the gilt if you could get them.
Otherwise if not enough hands were available the straw was first stored in the barn on thrashing day, and then another day it was tediously carried out. and pitched up onto the gilt. Not too often was there enough people to keep everything going at the same time, so many days the straw just had to be barn stored. but it was double handling. Often enough that was the method when but few people were available
At Whitehall our father could usually rustle up enough extra hands to do both thrashing and carrying out at the same time. Sometimes a neighbour came to help to thrash down the left over stacks. A cart load of straw might be his wages, if you could call it that, loaded direct at the barn door and saving a bit of building into the gilt. A tricky building job, straw was not as easy to build on a cart as sheaves but I remember some mighty good loads being built, then tied tightly down with a couple of ropes thrown over the finished marvel. At Greenland Mains a certain Mr Campbell from Castletown was very good at so doing, never missing a chance of a free load of straw in return for his help. High entertainment thrown in as an extra.
He used to cart herring for our father in Stronsay in the fishing days gone by. Fancied himself as a good horseman, and it was so. Except for the time he backed a young horse in the cart into the sea to wash both the horse’s legs and the cart. after a day’s herring carting. The horse would not stop backing further anhd further into deeper water until Cammelly’s bum was under water, as helpless with laughing as the on dry land spectators. There was more to a load of straw than one would think!!
More often the extras were some hands from the Village. There was a nicely balanced barter system of setting some drills of tatties for a Villager, the favour being returned with a bit of occasional work when needed. We had another farm at Airy, four miles away, and the men interchanged when needed.
Not all stacks were at risk from rodents, only those built on the ground level steathes. I remember not needing to thrash stacks built on special raised stack steathes, or steddles to give the Caithness name. These steathes were usually kept for the seed oats, they were more or less rat and mouse proof.
They were built on stone pillars, or fancy bought-in iron pedestals on a few farms, with wide flagstones laid flat over the pillars so no varmints could climb into the stack. They were usually kept for the seed oats, always grown on the clean-land, a a field after a crop of turnips the previous year. They were used before winter’s end anyway as the seed was normally all needed. Any left over on raised steathes could be safely left unthrashed to next winter. That clean land crop was usually pretty free of weeds, shorter in straw length, more often cut standing and more regular and indeed giving a better and cleaner seed oat than any crop of lea, which usually, being very heavy, was prone to being flattened by bad weather.
.
But don’t count on total safety. Rats were wonderfully self reliant. There is the oft told story of the two rats night raiding the hen house. One rat lay on its back and held the desired egg on its stomach, the other rat gripped its tail and sledged the rat with the egg to the rat hole, or under the hen house. I never saw it done myself, but, as they say, “I knew a man who knew a man who had a wife etc.” Nuff said, believe it if you will. I do know that when we moved a hen house in the field there was always a number of eaten out egg shells underneath. So sometimes even a stack on pedestals would have a tenant. These rats must have grown wings.
Thrashing down left over stacks made use odd days of spare time for the men, a day of wind and rain mostly when land work was impossible. Or better, if all the land work was so up to date that time was available.
Straw gilts were a different kind of building than the sheaf building of harvest time when the outer ring of sheaves had a downward slope which ran off the rain. Even if not thatched, which I never saw in the North of Scotland, a well built stack was rain proof.
So too with the straw gilt. Keep the heart high, tramp it hard, place the loose straw with practiced care just so, pat it down into shape, keep an outward convex curve to the gilt topsides. Two men on top of the gilt, one keeping the incoming straw clear, the other doing the careful building. Stack nets over the gilt to keep it all down when finished. An art form.
We previously published a photo on the 11th June Groat issue of a gilt being built, have a look back unless the editor can reprint it. Good old photo too !!!
At Whitehaa I remember some Springs when “Building oot “ was done. By no means every Spring were stacks left over after a hard winter, but sometimes. This meant a run of days of thrashing down stacks left in the stackyard after winter end before the rats and the mice completely demolished them. Sometimes there were more, sometimes there were less, sometimes there were none at all.
Obviously the straw would have to be built outdoors, the barn could not hold it all. So a clear level space in the stackyard just beyond the barn door was made ready. We actually had two hard standings of many flat flag stones set out for that purpose, ever so slightly raised above ground level to keep the straw dry.. One was in the stackyard, one was inside the Square, both as near to the opposing barn doors as reasonable, not too far to carry the straw. The one in the Square is to be seen in the photo we previously published of Billy the Horse in the square with the bairns, including myself !! Obviously a space was left in the stackyard between the gilt and the barn wall to let the carts get in to the sheaf window. No travelling steam mills were available in Stronsay so threshing doon was a homer with your own thrashing mill in the barn. A dusty job too at winter’s end.
Extra hands were needed if the straw was to be carried direct from the mill as thrashing progressed, hauled in burdens out of the door. It needed two men to carry the straw from the mill, one man with a pitchfork at the gilt to pitch up to one man on a half loaded cart used as a platform on the way up. Pitching straw from the ground to any height at all was a no-go, especially on a windy day..
The cart we used was usually the Long Cart, handy if you had one, less shoogly and a longer platform, the shafts sitting on a barrel. It was better to have two men building on the gilt if you could get them.
Otherwise if not enough hands were available the straw was first stored in the barn on thrashing day, and then another day it was tediously carried out. and pitched up onto the gilt. Not too often was there enough people to keep everything going at the same time, so many days the straw just had to be barn stored. but it was double handling. Often enough that was the method when but few people were available
At Whitehall our father could usually rustle up enough extra hands to do both thrashing and carrying out at the same time. Sometimes a neighbour came to help to thrash down the left over stacks. A cart load of straw might be his wages, if you could call it that, loaded direct at the barn door and saving a bit of building into the gilt. A tricky building job, straw was not as easy to build on a cart as sheaves but I remember some mighty good loads being built, then tied tightly down with a couple of ropes thrown over the finished marvel. At Greenland Mains a certain Mr Campbell from Castletown was very good at so doing, never missing a chance of a free load of straw in return for his help. High entertainment thrown in as an extra.
He used to cart herring for our father in Stronsay in the fishing days gone by. Fancied himself as a good horseman, and it was so. Except for the time he backed a young horse in the cart into the sea to wash both the horse’s legs and the cart. after a day’s herring carting. The horse would not stop backing further anhd further into deeper water until Cammelly’s bum was under water, as helpless with laughing as the on dry land spectators. There was more to a load of straw than one would think!!
More often the extras were some hands from the Village. There was a nicely balanced barter system of setting some drills of tatties for a Villager, the favour being returned with a bit of occasional work when needed. We had another farm at Airy, four miles away, and the men interchanged when needed.
Not all stacks were at risk from rodents, only those built on the ground level steathes. I remember not needing to thrash stacks built on special raised stack steathes, or steddles to give the Caithness name. These steathes were usually kept for the seed oats, they were more or less rat and mouse proof.
They were built on stone pillars, or fancy bought-in iron pedestals on a few farms, with wide flagstones laid flat over the pillars so no varmints could climb into the stack. They were usually kept for the seed oats, always grown on the clean-land, a a field after a crop of turnips the previous year. They were used before winter’s end anyway as the seed was normally all needed. Any left over on raised steathes could be safely left unthrashed to next winter. That clean land crop was usually pretty free of weeds, shorter in straw length, more often cut standing and more regular and indeed giving a better and cleaner seed oat than any crop of lea, which usually, being very heavy, was prone to being flattened by bad weather.
.
But don’t count on total safety. Rats were wonderfully self reliant. There is the oft told story of the two rats night raiding the hen house. One rat lay on its back and held the desired egg on its stomach, the other rat gripped its tail and sledged the rat with the egg to the rat hole, or under the hen house. I never saw it done myself, but, as they say, “I knew a man who knew a man who had a wife etc.” Nuff said, believe it if you will. I do know that when we moved a hen house in the field there was always a number of eaten out egg shells underneath. So sometimes even a stack on pedestals would have a tenant. These rats must have grown wings.
Thrashing down left over stacks made use odd days of spare time for the men, a day of wind and rain mostly when land work was impossible. Or better, if all the land work was so up to date that time was available.
Straw gilts were a different kind of building than the sheaf building of harvest time when the outer ring of sheaves had a downward slope which ran off the rain. Even if not thatched, which I never saw in the North of Scotland, a well built stack was rain proof.
So too with the straw gilt. Keep the heart high, tramp it hard, place the loose straw with practiced care just so, pat it down into shape, keep an outward convex curve to the gilt topsides. Two men on top of the gilt, one keeping the incoming straw clear, the other doing the careful building. Stack nets over the gilt to keep it all down when finished. An art form.
We previously published a photo on the 11th June Groat issue of a gilt being built, have a look back unless the editor can reprint it. Good old photo too !!!
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