THE MEN OF THE BU'

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.


"The Men o' the Bu' "

What of the men who walked through my early days, and the women too. We have in the family a keepsake wages book from these far away bygone days, long before my childhood, well, a bit anyway. Yet many of the names in it are familiar to me even if they do go back before my own memory. Some I only heard tell of, some I knew, familiar names because our father spoke often of them, men of his own early days in the Bu’ of Rousam in Stronsay. And these farm men and women, even those too of my own farming life, deserve a tribute from me, perhaps too long in the making.
A new Century, a new Millenium, just into the 1900s. This look back is a full century to farm workers wages as found in the wages book of David Pottinger my Grandfather. It begins in 1906, it ends in 1942. After my Grandfather's day and his generous handwriting it was kept up by my father, Tom Pottinger of Whitehall, and the last entries are in the hand of Annie Tait of Inkstack in Caithness, our mother. My grandparents, David Pottinger, born in Quoylanks in Deerness, and Elizabeth Tait in Campston, Tankerness, flit in November,1893, from their farm of Upper Stove in Deerness to the Bu' of Rousam when my father was but a year old. They moved in November 1913 to Hobbister in Orphir, a “gey weet farm”, then back to Stronsay to Whitehall in November 1919. There all our own family of eight were born, the final family move being to Greenland Mains in Caithness in May 1944. None of our own immediate family name of Pottinger remain in Orkney, but I dread going into a strange house in my native land to be told:- "I am your third cousin once removed on the wrong side of the blanket.!!" Long memories!!
Our new century will never hear that old and emotive phrase we grew up with, the descriptive "Men o’ Whitehaa" or “Airy”, the "Men o’ Hobbister", the "Men o' The Bu'". There are few farm workers left. All these farms were our family farms at one time or another. Our father’s two farms of Airy and Whitehall in Stronsay led to a cultivated rivalry, kept the men on their toes, taking home a bigger neep from Airy to show "The Men O' Whitehaa", a handful of heavier oats from Whitehaa to return the compliment, bragging to each farm staff that the other farm was ahead of them, bigger stacks, further on with the singling, a heavier steer, ploughing finished. All great incentives!!! And what better Orkney name to begin a tribute to them all than the very first entry in the Wages Book of Rousam for the six month term from 28th Nov. 1906 to pay day on 28th May, 1907, Andrew Delday, one of the “Men O' the Bu'.” Delday had to be the foreman at Rousam as he was at a higher rate of pay than the others. He came with them from Deerness to Stronsay in 1893. Delday is a Deerness name anyway, in the census of 1901 he was 39, married, living in Springwell, a bowman’s cottage on the Bu’.

1906 ANDREW DELDAY
To six months work from 28th Nov. 1906 to 28th May, 1907. , £10,
Nov. 28th one boal meal
Feby 12th one boal meal
March 28th one boal meal
May 28th, 1907, Paid £10

Ten pounds in the half year, 38p a week, 6 p. a day, 6 days a week, 12 hours a day! I am not kidding. Oatmeal was very much part of the wage, of old called "Cost". Three bolls of oatmeal at 140 lbs each was the standard for six months employment, which worked out at 2.3 lbs. a day, just over one kilogram. So when next you shop at ******!!, find a packet of oatmeal at 500 grams, take two, and that was porridge in the morning, porridge in the evening, porridge at suppertime, enough for a whole household for a day, bairns and all. And maybe a little left over for the chickens and the dog. A worker’s cottage on the farm was normally provided, but I will not answer for the standard thereof.

THOMAS GORN was next, slightly less at £9 the half year. The Book does not state whether cattleman, horseman or shepherd, which would explain slight differences in pay. Gorn had one boll bere meal but it was included in his standard three boals. Bere bread was a staple diet in those days. From 28th Nov. he also had 4 bushels oats at 42lb. the bushel (20kg.) price 9/-, or 2/3d the bushel. Obviously he had some hens, as did all farm workers save the bothy men.

THOMAS GORN Jnr. who had to be a son of Thomas, feed [hired] at £7.10/- Got his three boals of meal and paid £7.10/- on 28th May. Not quite a full grown man with a lesser pay. Whether he was married or not I do not know, he could have sold his three bolls meal if living with his parents. Definitely not a bothy man fed in the Big Hoos.

WILLIAM TOWERS followed at £11 in the half year. He bought 8 bu.of oats at 18/-,one boal bere meal at 11/-. Balance due, £9.11/-. At £11 he must have been the cattleman, a seven day week all winter his lot.

JOHN (Jock) MILLER , £9 in the half. 10 bu. Oats at 22/6d., a boll of bere meal at 11/-, an extra half boal of meal at 7/6d. Do not take me to task for misspelling a "boll", I am only quoting my grandfather’s spelling, and it varied - boll, bole, boal.

SAMUEL BROWN @ £9. 8 bushel oats, and on 18th Dec. 2 lop rabbits @ 3/-. they must have been the lop eared breed of pet rabbit, not just a pair of rabbits for Xmas dinner. A pretty hefty price out of his £9. Rabbits on the Bu' were definitely not an endangered species, then or now, and my father told us how, as boys, he and his brother David snared rabbits on the Rothiesholm Links to make a penny for themselves by selling the skins. An early training in High Finance. Sam Brown was the shepherd and a later entry has "meal for dogs." which was farm provided.

ROBERT SINCLAIR, £9. Had two bushel oats and one boal bere meal. Paid £9 at the May term but no meal. Had one boal bere meal, no charge.. He was working at the Bu’ for the whole half year, had his own small croft on the outer edge of Rousam, and a cartload or two of neeps, a load of straw or some oats, would equate for his three bolls oatmeal. His son Jim went to school with me.

THOS: MILLER , £9. Had the standard three boals meal, but also one boal bere meal at 11/-. Had 2 bu and 4 bu and 2 bu oats, eight bushels weighing 3 cwt, over the 6 month term and called a "quarter" even into my day, price 18/-. Therefore oats were priced at 6/- the cwt of 112lbs., £6 the ton. The old bushel measure was a feature of all farm lofts, today a much prized and polished wooden ornament if still surviving, better still with the original levelling roller, both stamped with the Imperial Crown.

JANE STEVENSON Paid £6 for six months. No meal. I cannot tell if she was an outworker or not, but if she worked in the "Big Hoos" I would not think she would have had a wage of this size. Probably one of the "Steinsens o’ Burragate” on Rousam Head.

MAGGIE J. DEARNESS. £5. As above. She was a young girl of 15 in May 1907 when she had £5, in May 1908 she had £5.10/-, in Nov 1908 £6. Of full wage by then. She is special for me as I remember her, unmarried, living in and working her croft just beyond the old and now abandoned Rothiesholm School. I was in Stronsay in June this year with Sharon to show her my native land and the croft is still alive and kicking, though we did not call at the door. An incomer is in the house, someone else is grazing the land, Maggie is long gone. A visit to her with our father was an event, “The Slap” was her farm, the old Norse name for the gateway onto the heather hill grazings of Rousam Head. She kept "gob stoppers” in a tin on the mantel shelf above the peat fire and we boys were kept quiet with one of these well named enormous pandrops while the adults yarned. She ploughed her patch with a yoke of a cow and a stot, reaped it with a scythe, the everlasting peat fire with its well remembered and evocative smell permeating the whole house. I think our father regularly bought her stot when she was ready to sell it, several years old and with another beast coming onto work. Her cattle were kept at grass on a tether. She and our father were ages, grew up together, died together, she slightly before our father’s own death on 23rd Nov.1958. He never visited Rothiesholm without calling on her.

These are the entries for the first term in the book, the staff of the Bu', no outworkers or hirers mentioned, though there must have been many extras at singling neeps and at harvest time and possibly other times like a threshing day. The cottars of Rothiesholm were not so well off that they would or could refuse some labouring when occasion offered. In the herring fishing season some of them made the long six mile daily trek with their own horse and cart to the Village to earn a £1.
There was always the creels for the crofters, lobsters and crabs, always a bit of fishing, to salt cure or to dry their catch for winter, haddocks, sillocks, which were young cuithes - or coalfish to be correct, cuddings in Caithness, ling, cod, skate, dogfish. Always the peat reek even off their Sunday clothes at Kirk. If they worked at the Bu' the crofters must have been paid as they went as casuals, in cash or in kind, a load of straw, a load of neeps, some oats or bere or meal, a bull service for their cow, an old cast ewe fit for yet one more season if looked after.
This is but a look back over my shoulder, touches only the first half year in the old ledger. There are other snippets as I scan the Bu of Rousam Wages Book, opening other lines of comment or thought as time moves on, I must leave it for another time as this article is already long enough.. To do the Ledger justice would need many other articles, not to rush too hastily over the past but take some time to gently digest it, as do all good meals. I must admit to a deep feeling of awe that this was farm life a mere century ago, the times of my grandfather whom I never knew but who was still alive when I was born, the early working days of my father, the farm from whence three of his brothers became doctors, one a surgeon, the fifth brother William to farm finally in Cleat in Westray after sojourning in Canada and in Redhill. Rothienorman, Aberdeenshire..
There were stories of these Rousam men. One had the strength of hand that allowed him to grip the cross beams on the rafters from underneath between thumb and fingers, and pull himself up to chin the same. In the loft one day with a disagreement over some trifle he took one of his fellows and thrust his head deep into a heap of grain, almost suffocating the poor soul. Sam Brown, shepherd, was a small nuggety man, but once my Uncle John, on holiday from his medical studies in Edinburgh University, was sent to help him dose some ewes. Without noticing it my Uncle John found he was doing all the hard work, Sam standing by the while and meanwhile telling him “You’re doing a grand job, maister.” Could not teach that ould dog new tricks.