Friday, 4 July 2008
Herring Days in Stronsay.
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.
Islands, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our in
RAIN ON MY WINDOW.
Morris Pottinger (in Chicago!!) Nov. 15th 2007
The Silver Darlings of Stronsay.
( with acknowledgement to Neil Gunn )
I have been circling round a very special part of our father’s life, and ours too, the Herring Fishing of Stronsay, as I wished to do it the justice it deserved. I will never do enough, but for this series the time has come, though it is mostly my own memories I put down, not a definitive history of the Herring Fishing of Stronsay. Still, a bit of background by way of introduction will not go amiss, and reference to:- “The Herring Fishing - Stronsay: by W. M. Gibson. Published by B.P.P., Edinburgh. 1984.
The name Stronsay has been given many meanings but for me it is the Island of the Strojns, or Strands, Old Norse for sandy beaches. Hence Strojn ey , i.e beach island. Shaped like the emblem of the Isle of Man, a tripod of legs, within which lie so many sandy bays. The only hard part of Stronsay lies in the cliffs on the east side from Odness to Brough Head and to the south Rothiesholm Head, both graveyards to many ships. To the old Vikings a sandy shelving beach saved many a life as they ran right up onto the beach even in a storm. Apart from that, these beaches were all round the island so whatever the direction of a gale a sheltered beach was always available. No harbours then as now we know them, the only trace of one being the ancient stone-built Dane’s Pier at Housebay on the south-east. None know it’s provenance. Above all the sheltered harbour of Whitehall was supreme, having Papa Stronsay to the North enclosing and sheltering Whitehall Harbour, with a deeper entrance on the west side between Papa and Huip Ness, a shallower one to the east, navigable for shallow draft fishing boats and at high tide for larger.
History only tells us so much, but we know that Hollanders fished herring off Orkney and Shetland at the time of Robert the Bruce, and no doubt long before then. With no harbours as now we know them they used these sheltered beaches, ran on-shore onto sand or gravel, carried their catches up to the dry land and there processed them in whatever manner they wanted. Salting them down is the best known, either dry salting or cured in barrels of brine, but splitting and drying in the wind was common. My forebears in Stroma did the same with cod and ling, even today a practice still widely used in Norway with huge wooden A-frames on exposed spits of land holding split cod and even cod heads to cure naturally in the salt sea air. In our days in Whitehall farm staff often had an evening at the sea with hand lines, catching coal fish we called caithes, in Caithness cuddins, or ling, haddock or cod or mackerel if they were biting, using wands of bamboo with three hooks on the line with white goose feather lures, and often three fish to each cast when they were taking. They also got sillocks off the pier with a pock net or even off a suitable sea rock, drying them against the wall of their house strung on long lines, and when dry hung from the kitchen ceiling in bundles.
The main pride of Stronsay in fishing will always be the herring fishing, begun by Malcolm Laing about 1800, finally finishing when the War of 1939 broke out, having been in severe decline for the few years previous. It had been vastly important for our father who returned to Stronsay to Whitehall Farm in Nov. 1919. The family had been in Rothiesholm in Stronsay from 1893 to 1913, moved to Hobbister in Orphir for the six year gap.
Father was in partnership with his father David in the farm of Whitehall, but during the herring fishing season he was deeply involved in carting all the requirements of that trade. He did this on his own account, diversification I believe is the modern word. For this seasonal work he employed locals and imported men and horses and carts from wherever he could find them, sometimes as a team, sometimes individuals whom he provided with a cart and horse. Once I was watching a rugby match in the Bignold Park in Wick, spoke to a Wicker standing beside me, and found he had carted herring for my father in Stronsay when he was young. We forgot about the Rugby match I am afraid, as he told me one story after another, which I regrettably did not write down Tempis fugit I fear.
Going to the Village with our father was high on our list, if he was not too busy. There he oversaw his carts moving all the necessaries for the season, salt first from ships from the Baltic to be stored dry in sheds for later use, empty barrels again from the Baltic coming in to Stronsay piled mast high on the ships, to be stored in huge pyramidal piles on the curing yards, filled with salt herring and then reloaded for the Baltic and Germany, Danzig and Hamburg. Wick provided two curers I remember, Donaldson and More. The yards were open air work benches into which was wooden-shoveled cartloads of herring from one side, on the opposite side the hundreds of gutter girls at a speed that defied the eye gutted and size-sorted the herring, large one way, small another, herring guts a third. I doubt if any mere man would have had the dexterity to do so, but they were not asked anyway. Others packed the barrels just so, layers of herring and layers of salt. Everywhere enormous activity to deal with a perishable harvest. When I see these marvelous old photographs in Wick Heritage Centre it brings much of it back to me. They are a richly harvested heritage in their own right.
Then the drifters themselves. Early mornings saw us from our bedroom window scanning the Eastern horizon to catch the first smudge of smoke, the first of many as the steam drifters headed for harbour after a night at sea. There were still a few sailing drifters around, the Isabella Fortuna in Wick provides an example. Their big brown sails against the rising sun, they must have been of shallower draft as most came in by the shallower eastern entrance.
Drift netting was done at night when the herring came near the surface to feed, the boats setting off at the end of the afternoon each for their chosen grounds. The nets hung in a curtain suspended between cork floats and sinkers, the mesh large enough to catch mature full-sized herring and let the smaller fish through to grow and mature for another year. It was very sustainable compared to today with all fish being swept up in purse nets and often turned into fish meal, a shocking waste.
CRAN.
In Great Britain, a unit of capacity for fish, specifically herring, since 1852 the quantity needed to fill 37½ imperial gallons (about 6.03 cubic feet, or 170.5 liters). Since 1832 it had been defined legally as 45 wine gallons, almost exactly the same value.1 Under the Herring Industry Board's rules, and Weights and Measures Regulations, any herring not sold by the cran must be sold by weight. A cran but can vary from 700 to 2500.2
The cran originated in Scotland as a heaped measure. A standard but bottomless 30-gallon herring barrel was filled to overflowing with fish, and then the barrel was lifted off. Because the fish were heaped, the resulting pile contained more than 30 gallons of herring – observers estimated around 34 wine gallons. 4
In the United States, the size of the cran was fixed “from and after the first day of June, 1816, the cran to be used for the purchase and sale of fresh herrings...shall be of the content or capacity of forty-two gallons English wine measure.”
My memories are of seeing the drifters coming to harbour in droves, shoals might be better, mostly by the western entrance which lay below Whitehall and in our full view. Father had an old brass telescope which we were allowed to use to get a better view. We looked for boats low in the water denoting a heavy catch, at it’s greatest a boat would have so many herring in their nets they would ask another boat to help garner the harvest. Gulls clouded behind a boat even if they were not gutted on board. A big catch could not all be stored in the herring hold and we saw boats with fish everywhere on deck, easy pickings for marauding gulls.
When tied up the first task for two fisherman was to carry a wicker basket with a sample of their shot, as they called the catch, up to the fish market at the head of the pier for sale by auction. The speed of the auctioneer’s tongue always beat us, quite incomprehensible, but the fish were sold anyway. Father was on hand to send carts immediately down the pier, of which there were two, the old and the new, to cart the herring quickly to the curer who had bought that catch. Measured in crans of four baskets, a Scottish measure typically containing about 1200 fish, but there was no time for fussy weighing though the baskets had to be full and an oversman for the curer counted the tally. The baskets were filled with a light wooden scoop with a beveled edge which did not harm the slippery fish. . They were swung ashore by a ship-mounted derrick boom and most had a small steam winch to help, though not all. Swing it high and across to the waiting carts standing in line. Do not get in the way, we were told, and the work was rapid indeed. Each full cart then off to the curing yards, back it over the outer face of the working troughs, lower the back door, shovel the herring across for the numerous waiting gutter girls.
When we had later moved to Caithness, in 1944, there was many a time that we would go to Wick with our father and down to the harbour. It did not take long before he would meet someone who had been to Stronsay, some who had worked there for him, or others, and it gave us the nice feeling that Wick and Stronsay were herring sisters in the old days, now long faded into the mists of time.
Islands, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our in
RAIN ON MY WINDOW.
Morris Pottinger (in Chicago!!) Nov. 15th 2007
The Silver Darlings of Stronsay.
( with acknowledgement to Neil Gunn )
I have been circling round a very special part of our father’s life, and ours too, the Herring Fishing of Stronsay, as I wished to do it the justice it deserved. I will never do enough, but for this series the time has come, though it is mostly my own memories I put down, not a definitive history of the Herring Fishing of Stronsay. Still, a bit of background by way of introduction will not go amiss, and reference to:- “The Herring Fishing - Stronsay: by W. M. Gibson. Published by B.P.P., Edinburgh. 1984.
The name Stronsay has been given many meanings but for me it is the Island of the Strojns, or Strands, Old Norse for sandy beaches. Hence Strojn ey , i.e beach island. Shaped like the emblem of the Isle of Man, a tripod of legs, within which lie so many sandy bays. The only hard part of Stronsay lies in the cliffs on the east side from Odness to Brough Head and to the south Rothiesholm Head, both graveyards to many ships. To the old Vikings a sandy shelving beach saved many a life as they ran right up onto the beach even in a storm. Apart from that, these beaches were all round the island so whatever the direction of a gale a sheltered beach was always available. No harbours then as now we know them, the only trace of one being the ancient stone-built Dane’s Pier at Housebay on the south-east. None know it’s provenance. Above all the sheltered harbour of Whitehall was supreme, having Papa Stronsay to the North enclosing and sheltering Whitehall Harbour, with a deeper entrance on the west side between Papa and Huip Ness, a shallower one to the east, navigable for shallow draft fishing boats and at high tide for larger.
History only tells us so much, but we know that Hollanders fished herring off Orkney and Shetland at the time of Robert the Bruce, and no doubt long before then. With no harbours as now we know them they used these sheltered beaches, ran on-shore onto sand or gravel, carried their catches up to the dry land and there processed them in whatever manner they wanted. Salting them down is the best known, either dry salting or cured in barrels of brine, but splitting and drying in the wind was common. My forebears in Stroma did the same with cod and ling, even today a practice still widely used in Norway with huge wooden A-frames on exposed spits of land holding split cod and even cod heads to cure naturally in the salt sea air. In our days in Whitehall farm staff often had an evening at the sea with hand lines, catching coal fish we called caithes, in Caithness cuddins, or ling, haddock or cod or mackerel if they were biting, using wands of bamboo with three hooks on the line with white goose feather lures, and often three fish to each cast when they were taking. They also got sillocks off the pier with a pock net or even off a suitable sea rock, drying them against the wall of their house strung on long lines, and when dry hung from the kitchen ceiling in bundles.
The main pride of Stronsay in fishing will always be the herring fishing, begun by Malcolm Laing about 1800, finally finishing when the War of 1939 broke out, having been in severe decline for the few years previous. It had been vastly important for our father who returned to Stronsay to Whitehall Farm in Nov. 1919. The family had been in Rothiesholm in Stronsay from 1893 to 1913, moved to Hobbister in Orphir for the six year gap.
Father was in partnership with his father David in the farm of Whitehall, but during the herring fishing season he was deeply involved in carting all the requirements of that trade. He did this on his own account, diversification I believe is the modern word. For this seasonal work he employed locals and imported men and horses and carts from wherever he could find them, sometimes as a team, sometimes individuals whom he provided with a cart and horse. Once I was watching a rugby match in the Bignold Park in Wick, spoke to a Wicker standing beside me, and found he had carted herring for my father in Stronsay when he was young. We forgot about the Rugby match I am afraid, as he told me one story after another, which I regrettably did not write down Tempis fugit I fear.
Going to the Village with our father was high on our list, if he was not too busy. There he oversaw his carts moving all the necessaries for the season, salt first from ships from the Baltic to be stored dry in sheds for later use, empty barrels again from the Baltic coming in to Stronsay piled mast high on the ships, to be stored in huge pyramidal piles on the curing yards, filled with salt herring and then reloaded for the Baltic and Germany, Danzig and Hamburg. Wick provided two curers I remember, Donaldson and More. The yards were open air work benches into which was wooden-shoveled cartloads of herring from one side, on the opposite side the hundreds of gutter girls at a speed that defied the eye gutted and size-sorted the herring, large one way, small another, herring guts a third. I doubt if any mere man would have had the dexterity to do so, but they were not asked anyway. Others packed the barrels just so, layers of herring and layers of salt. Everywhere enormous activity to deal with a perishable harvest. When I see these marvelous old photographs in Wick Heritage Centre it brings much of it back to me. They are a richly harvested heritage in their own right.
Then the drifters themselves. Early mornings saw us from our bedroom window scanning the Eastern horizon to catch the first smudge of smoke, the first of many as the steam drifters headed for harbour after a night at sea. There were still a few sailing drifters around, the Isabella Fortuna in Wick provides an example. Their big brown sails against the rising sun, they must have been of shallower draft as most came in by the shallower eastern entrance.
Drift netting was done at night when the herring came near the surface to feed, the boats setting off at the end of the afternoon each for their chosen grounds. The nets hung in a curtain suspended between cork floats and sinkers, the mesh large enough to catch mature full-sized herring and let the smaller fish through to grow and mature for another year. It was very sustainable compared to today with all fish being swept up in purse nets and often turned into fish meal, a shocking waste.
CRAN.
In Great Britain, a unit of capacity for fish, specifically herring, since 1852 the quantity needed to fill 37½ imperial gallons (about 6.03 cubic feet, or 170.5 liters). Since 1832 it had been defined legally as 45 wine gallons, almost exactly the same value.1 Under the Herring Industry Board's rules, and Weights and Measures Regulations, any herring not sold by the cran must be sold by weight. A cran but can vary from 700 to 2500.2
The cran originated in Scotland as a heaped measure. A standard but bottomless 30-gallon herring barrel was filled to overflowing with fish, and then the barrel was lifted off. Because the fish were heaped, the resulting pile contained more than 30 gallons of herring – observers estimated around 34 wine gallons. 4
In the United States, the size of the cran was fixed “from and after the first day of June, 1816, the cran to be used for the purchase and sale of fresh herrings...shall be of the content or capacity of forty-two gallons English wine measure.”
My memories are of seeing the drifters coming to harbour in droves, shoals might be better, mostly by the western entrance which lay below Whitehall and in our full view. Father had an old brass telescope which we were allowed to use to get a better view. We looked for boats low in the water denoting a heavy catch, at it’s greatest a boat would have so many herring in their nets they would ask another boat to help garner the harvest. Gulls clouded behind a boat even if they were not gutted on board. A big catch could not all be stored in the herring hold and we saw boats with fish everywhere on deck, easy pickings for marauding gulls.
When tied up the first task for two fisherman was to carry a wicker basket with a sample of their shot, as they called the catch, up to the fish market at the head of the pier for sale by auction. The speed of the auctioneer’s tongue always beat us, quite incomprehensible, but the fish were sold anyway. Father was on hand to send carts immediately down the pier, of which there were two, the old and the new, to cart the herring quickly to the curer who had bought that catch. Measured in crans of four baskets, a Scottish measure typically containing about 1200 fish, but there was no time for fussy weighing though the baskets had to be full and an oversman for the curer counted the tally. The baskets were filled with a light wooden scoop with a beveled edge which did not harm the slippery fish. . They were swung ashore by a ship-mounted derrick boom and most had a small steam winch to help, though not all. Swing it high and across to the waiting carts standing in line. Do not get in the way, we were told, and the work was rapid indeed. Each full cart then off to the curing yards, back it over the outer face of the working troughs, lower the back door, shovel the herring across for the numerous waiting gutter girls.
When we had later moved to Caithness, in 1944, there was many a time that we would go to Wick with our father and down to the harbour. It did not take long before he would meet someone who had been to Stronsay, some who had worked there for him, or others, and it gave us the nice feeling that Wick and Stronsay were herring sisters in the old days, now long faded into the mists of time.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Singling the neeps.
RAIN ON MY WINDOW.
No 19. Laying down the neeps. Pb 27.06.2008
The most arduous and time consuming task on the farm of Whitehall that I can remember had to be the laying down of the turnip crop. In early May, better still before the end of April if all the crops were sown, the first task was to plough inwards the open ploughing finishes of the field destined for turnips to leave it as level as possible. Then the ground was harrowed and cross harrowed and rolled and grubbed and harrowed and rolled again until a very fine tilth was achieved. In those days before sprays came in weeds in some fields were incredibly thick, the most obnoxious being knot grass and couch grass. These weeds had nodules and roots that survived all ploughing and, where thick enough to warrant it, were gathered by chain link grass harrows crossing and re-crossing the field one way and then the other so the roots were rolled up into large balls, then carted off and dumped at the side of the field, or even carted onto a piece of nearby rough pasture to dry enough to be burnt, or left to rot. Some of these weed middens still survive near a gate, showing now as mere grassy mounds on the surface with their origin probably forgotten. The five pawed grubber was a ferocious tool used to bring up and loosen earth from below, very heavy work and sometimes father had a team of three horses yoked into one grubber if the land was heavy. In retrospect that was the daftest job they ever did as it brought up fresh earth with its new compliment of weed seeds to later germinate and choke the young turnip plants. The very best preparation for turnips was deep ploughing in the autumn and let frost and wind and weather break down the earth to a good tilth and kill the many weed seeds as well, as it still is..
Having finally got the earth fine enough the next task was to open the furrows. This was a shallow furrow at 28 inch centres and dead straight, or meant to be. Then the laborious carting of dung from the farm middens to the field, walking the horse and cart down the rows, pulling off dung from the back of the cart with a hooked dung hack, being followed by a helper who teased out the small heaps even further to leave a line of dung spread evenly and thinly along the bottom of the shallow open furrows. Next the horse drawn spreader to distribute fertiliser over the furrows. This fertiliser was sometimes made up on the farm and mixed by the men with shovels on a shed floor with various bought in straight ingredients from Kirkwall, sometimes with some shell sand incorporated to dilute it somewhat and make it easier to spread. Serious work.
Field now ready and a good dry day in the offing. First the drill ploughs each with its pair of horses, the foreman setting the pace and the line. Not the easiest of tasks to split and close the small opening furrows and heap up a fine sharp pointed ridge. Follow with the two row neep barrow, or sower, one horse, with two small canisters of turnip seed driven from two rollers on top of a pair of furrows. The canisters had small holes which could be opened or closed to get the small amount of seed needed, usually 3 lbs an acre, but at Greenland Mains Father had it down to under a pound. Hard clay ground such as Olrig Mains or East Murkle needed more seed, easily dried out and sometimes had to be sown over again if the seed did not catch. The seed fell into a cut in the centre of the top of the furrow opened by a small disc or shoe, desired depth about 2 inches, no deeper, and a very light roller on the sower following behind to cover the seed. Sowing had to be done right up to the last furrow drilled that day as to leave it meant drying out and seed failure, so don’t come home till you are finished. The whole work took days on end.
The turnip seed took from three days to longer to germinate and show above the ground, a shower or two of rain helped. Three weeks minimum and the rows were ready for thinning or singling. First scarfing, or scarifying, two rows at a time with a bladed scarifier and one horse, cutting away the shoulders of the rows to leave a width of five inches with the young plants in the centre.
Then the big day, hoes taken down from the couples in the loft, old friends with handles well polished by horny hands over many years, the blades with differing widths from 5 to 7 inches and depths about 3 inches according to personal preference. Edges sharpened, they would be the constant companion for the men for anything up to 6 weeks, day after day in the field. The object was to leave one single small turnip plant every nine inches or so lying away from the hoer to better bulb up in the Autumn. We had to lay the plants flat and I do not think it made a whit of difference, though a long established tradition, and it did look good and regular in the field. The ridge was also cleaned of small weeds as the work proceeded. It was no easy task but long practice made perfect. There would be a long line of singlers following each other in echelon, room for extra workers such as the women on the farm and any casual workers one could get. Small boys and girls too, but we were given a patch on our own as we could not keep up, often just doing the ends. I have seen twenty at a time in the line. Singling went on in the evenings too, other workers doing other jobs but available for evening work and a bit of pocket money. The late Horace Henderson of Scrabster and others organized busloads from Thurso or Wick to come out to the countryside to help. Taken to its ultimate there were hoeing matches held in every parish, usually in the evenings, exquisite workmanship judged and prizes given.
Thinning or singling the neeps was full of incident, who would have thought just a line of men could have such adventures in the middle of a neep field. On a wet day the hoes clagged up with wet earth, getting quite stupidly heavy. One looked for a stone on which to dunt the back of the hoe to knock off the clinging mud, or tapped it on your own steel heel plate on your tackety boots. Or against another worker’s hoe, a mutual help. Extra care was taken on a windy day, the tiny tender plants could be easily uprooted by the wind. Sometimes we turned to hoe the other way so the plants could lie away from the wind. Days of wearing oilskins, days of burning sunshine, days of gale force winds, we had them all.
Today we forget the measurements of our fathers. An acre ( now hectares ) was 270 chains of neeps at 28 inch centre drills. A fair day’s work was 45 chains a man. At Greenland Mains with free and clean ground we did 90 chains, really walking on. In weedy neeps I would not care to hazard even a guess, but it could be mighty slow work. At times the young neeps got ahead of the men, making thinning a laborious and backbreaking job. And at times when some farmer got behind with his thinning other the farm men would go in their own time in the evenings to push them on, a very welcome and sometimes merciful help.
After hoeing the rows would be scuffled, a kind of harrowing, with one horse and a single row scuffler to uproot the weeds, usually more than once. Finally, in Whitehall, just about harvest, perhaps on a damp day when corn cutting was impossible, the rows were water furrowed, a shallow furrow heaping the earth around the turnips, again a single horse would do.
One aspect of singling though, and not to be forgotten. Though the work was hard and the weather could be unhelpful, the constant chatter and banter and backchat and local news and humour was as good as a concert. You can’t talk to a tractor.
No 19. Laying down the neeps. Pb 27.06.2008
The most arduous and time consuming task on the farm of Whitehall that I can remember had to be the laying down of the turnip crop. In early May, better still before the end of April if all the crops were sown, the first task was to plough inwards the open ploughing finishes of the field destined for turnips to leave it as level as possible. Then the ground was harrowed and cross harrowed and rolled and grubbed and harrowed and rolled again until a very fine tilth was achieved. In those days before sprays came in weeds in some fields were incredibly thick, the most obnoxious being knot grass and couch grass. These weeds had nodules and roots that survived all ploughing and, where thick enough to warrant it, were gathered by chain link grass harrows crossing and re-crossing the field one way and then the other so the roots were rolled up into large balls, then carted off and dumped at the side of the field, or even carted onto a piece of nearby rough pasture to dry enough to be burnt, or left to rot. Some of these weed middens still survive near a gate, showing now as mere grassy mounds on the surface with their origin probably forgotten. The five pawed grubber was a ferocious tool used to bring up and loosen earth from below, very heavy work and sometimes father had a team of three horses yoked into one grubber if the land was heavy. In retrospect that was the daftest job they ever did as it brought up fresh earth with its new compliment of weed seeds to later germinate and choke the young turnip plants. The very best preparation for turnips was deep ploughing in the autumn and let frost and wind and weather break down the earth to a good tilth and kill the many weed seeds as well, as it still is..
Having finally got the earth fine enough the next task was to open the furrows. This was a shallow furrow at 28 inch centres and dead straight, or meant to be. Then the laborious carting of dung from the farm middens to the field, walking the horse and cart down the rows, pulling off dung from the back of the cart with a hooked dung hack, being followed by a helper who teased out the small heaps even further to leave a line of dung spread evenly and thinly along the bottom of the shallow open furrows. Next the horse drawn spreader to distribute fertiliser over the furrows. This fertiliser was sometimes made up on the farm and mixed by the men with shovels on a shed floor with various bought in straight ingredients from Kirkwall, sometimes with some shell sand incorporated to dilute it somewhat and make it easier to spread. Serious work.
Field now ready and a good dry day in the offing. First the drill ploughs each with its pair of horses, the foreman setting the pace and the line. Not the easiest of tasks to split and close the small opening furrows and heap up a fine sharp pointed ridge. Follow with the two row neep barrow, or sower, one horse, with two small canisters of turnip seed driven from two rollers on top of a pair of furrows. The canisters had small holes which could be opened or closed to get the small amount of seed needed, usually 3 lbs an acre, but at Greenland Mains Father had it down to under a pound. Hard clay ground such as Olrig Mains or East Murkle needed more seed, easily dried out and sometimes had to be sown over again if the seed did not catch. The seed fell into a cut in the centre of the top of the furrow opened by a small disc or shoe, desired depth about 2 inches, no deeper, and a very light roller on the sower following behind to cover the seed. Sowing had to be done right up to the last furrow drilled that day as to leave it meant drying out and seed failure, so don’t come home till you are finished. The whole work took days on end.
The turnip seed took from three days to longer to germinate and show above the ground, a shower or two of rain helped. Three weeks minimum and the rows were ready for thinning or singling. First scarfing, or scarifying, two rows at a time with a bladed scarifier and one horse, cutting away the shoulders of the rows to leave a width of five inches with the young plants in the centre.
Then the big day, hoes taken down from the couples in the loft, old friends with handles well polished by horny hands over many years, the blades with differing widths from 5 to 7 inches and depths about 3 inches according to personal preference. Edges sharpened, they would be the constant companion for the men for anything up to 6 weeks, day after day in the field. The object was to leave one single small turnip plant every nine inches or so lying away from the hoer to better bulb up in the Autumn. We had to lay the plants flat and I do not think it made a whit of difference, though a long established tradition, and it did look good and regular in the field. The ridge was also cleaned of small weeds as the work proceeded. It was no easy task but long practice made perfect. There would be a long line of singlers following each other in echelon, room for extra workers such as the women on the farm and any casual workers one could get. Small boys and girls too, but we were given a patch on our own as we could not keep up, often just doing the ends. I have seen twenty at a time in the line. Singling went on in the evenings too, other workers doing other jobs but available for evening work and a bit of pocket money. The late Horace Henderson of Scrabster and others organized busloads from Thurso or Wick to come out to the countryside to help. Taken to its ultimate there were hoeing matches held in every parish, usually in the evenings, exquisite workmanship judged and prizes given.
Thinning or singling the neeps was full of incident, who would have thought just a line of men could have such adventures in the middle of a neep field. On a wet day the hoes clagged up with wet earth, getting quite stupidly heavy. One looked for a stone on which to dunt the back of the hoe to knock off the clinging mud, or tapped it on your own steel heel plate on your tackety boots. Or against another worker’s hoe, a mutual help. Extra care was taken on a windy day, the tiny tender plants could be easily uprooted by the wind. Sometimes we turned to hoe the other way so the plants could lie away from the wind. Days of wearing oilskins, days of burning sunshine, days of gale force winds, we had them all.
Today we forget the measurements of our fathers. An acre ( now hectares ) was 270 chains of neeps at 28 inch centre drills. A fair day’s work was 45 chains a man. At Greenland Mains with free and clean ground we did 90 chains, really walking on. In weedy neeps I would not care to hazard even a guess, but it could be mighty slow work. At times the young neeps got ahead of the men, making thinning a laborious and backbreaking job. And at times when some farmer got behind with his thinning other the farm men would go in their own time in the evenings to push them on, a very welcome and sometimes merciful help.
After hoeing the rows would be scuffled, a kind of harrowing, with one horse and a single row scuffler to uproot the weeds, usually more than once. Finally, in Whitehall, just about harvest, perhaps on a damp day when corn cutting was impossible, the rows were water furrowed, a shallow furrow heaping the earth around the turnips, again a single horse would do.
One aspect of singling though, and not to be forgotten. Though the work was hard and the weather could be unhelpful, the constant chatter and banter and backchat and local news and humour was as good as a concert. You can’t talk to a tractor.
Friday, 13 June 2008
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