No 43. Horses tied by the neck.

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 48. HORSES TIED BY THE NECK.

In the stable each horse had its own stall, strong straight-grained pitch pine wooden board partitions we called trevasses between each one. A square outer end post with bevelled edges, pitch pine again, was fixed up right up to the rafter cross beams for strength. On these posts a wooden peg or two held the bridle, the leather and stuffing collar to fit snugly onto the horse’s shoulders, and the shiny steel hems to fit over the collar with the hooks for pulling.. The saddle, the backband - self explanatory - and the britchen to hang over the backside, hung on their respective pegs on the back wall, a man’s reach high. Too high for we boys. On the side of that trevasse post there was sometimes a metal plate on which to knock the back of the grooming brush to get the dust out of it. Saved the wood. These trevasses were higher at the end next the head wall, curving nicely in parellel to match the back and the high arch of the horse’s neck and keep each horse from reaching over to bite the next. Probably kept them more composed not seeing each other, though they could and did often talk to one another.

At the head of each stall was a small crib barrier enclosing the manger and enough space to hold a huge armful of fresh straw, or sometimes a small armful of good sweet hay, not musty or mouldy. Any such was given to the cattle who were less fussy and may have had better lungs. At least they were less valuable. And in the left-hand corner of each a glazed earthenware feed box container to hold grain or the occasional swede turnip or any other titbit. For the horses could be spoiled rotten by their horseman, even pinching some oats from the locked loft to give them, to which father rightly turned a blind eye. At Greenland Mains there was actually a small wooden funnel from the grain loft to the stable below through which oats could be dropped to a bin in a corner of the stable, or a slide on the end of the funnel allowed controlled access to feed for the horsemen, very handy.
The stalls were reasonably wide to allow good access without being crushed, though one horse I knew had the knack of coming sideways to crush the horseman, or give him a good friendly squeeze anyway. And she was a mare too, funny thing. That extra width gave easy access up either side for grooming and cleaning the horse, though again there was one horse who just did not want to move to the left. Had to be persuaded a bit. With often very muddy conditions, particularly when carting turnips out of wet fields in winter or ploughing, horses legs could get quite muddy. Feed them, go home for your own dinner, and then back to the stable in the evening when the mud had dried a bit and was more easily brushed off. Took quite some brushing time too.
The horses were tied by a halter and a rope which slid and moved through a ring in the front of the manger with a heavy round wooden weight on the end which kept the halter rope from getting tangled as the horse raised or lowered its head. There was also a loose box at the end of the stable which usually held a foal or two, or a young horse not yet fully trained.
From that loose box I remember our father putting a rope to the halter which one particular young foal had on at all times and leading it out for a walk-around, taking it down to the horse pond for a drink of water, getting it accustomed to man and all his moods, a great beginning to the eventual training of a horse, a true horseman’s gift. That particular foal when it came to real trainng was so easy to deal with, it practically trained itself. In those days the horse had such a huge part to play in farming, the motive power of the whole industry, so special it is impossible for most people today to even imagine their importance. I always remember as a boy looking at photographs of huge teams of horses, or even mules, in North America pulling the massive ploughs and even binders and combine harvesters which, though capable of cutting and threshing the prairie wheat crops, were not yet self propelled and were pulled by these multi-horse teams. These photos are still wonderful to see, the teams are long gone.