Threshing Day in the Morning.;

No 5. RAIN ON MY WINDOW, TEARS IN MY EYES. Morris Pottinger sent

Threshing day in the morning .

The 50 years of pocket diaries of the late William Tait of Ingsay, Birsay in Orkney, brother of my father’s mother, are presently with me. Dipping into them recently I came across the succint entry for:-
Thursday, 27 November 1919.
“Pottinger flit to Stronsay. Showery day.”
That was the start of our 25 years in Whitehall Farm, first our grandfather David in partnership with our father Tom until David died in 1930, then our father until we moved to Greenland Mains in May 1944, moving the family by flying farm to farm from a field on Whitehall with Capt. Fresson in a De Haviland 7-seater biplane Whitehall Farm was finally vacated by us at the Nov. term 1944.
Friday 28th.
“Flit from Bay. Left Bay at 3.30 am. arrived at Ingsay. Cattle 7 pm. Carts 9 pm. Fine day. roads frosty”
The Bay Farm in Stronsay was a good four miles from Whitehall Village and the cattle and the carts would have to start very early indeed. On the 28th Nov. they would have set off in the dark, and it would be still dark when they got to the pier. Entries by William Tait for the few days previous referred to moving various farm implements and household items from the Bay Farm in Stronsay to the pier in Whitehall Village for shipping on The Orcadia steamer to Kirkwall pier ready for his move ( or flitting ) to Ingsay in Birsay..
Saturday 29th..
“Thrashed at Ingsay. Getting things sorted up about house”
Ingsay was a long 20 mile sea voyage from Stronsay in the North Isles to Kirkwall in the Mainland, over two hours sailing if going direct, but much longer if going by Sanday and Eday, then the equally long 20 miles by road to Ingsay in Birsay in the West Mainland. That was William’s last flitting, ending his days there.
The diary went on with Sunday blank, being the Sabbath day. Then:-
Monday 1st Dec “Took in some sheaves & thrashing mill fanners broke.”
Tuesday 2nd Dec. “Got mill mended. carted some dung am P. Shearer went to town ( Kirkwall ) with gig (and horse) for some of his clothes etc.
Wednesday 3rd. Thrashed am dressed oats 7 sacks. 5 bu. (bushel) tails (second quality light oats ) fair day.
. And so on and on and on it went, thrashing corn stacks, carting turnips, dressing oats, feeding cattle. The everlasting cycle of farming, still with us. The next few days were a succession of entries regarding his flitting, paying 25/- (shillings) to W.Cooper who went home, presumably back to Stronsay after helping William with the move to Ingsay, the Orcadia for freight for flitting £25, George Wick for an ox £8/10/-. On Monday 8th Dec “ lorry came with some flitting.”.
On 11th Dec. the threshing mill again broke down. And again on 12th Dec. “the mill broke down”. The diaries themselves are a fasinating if repetitive insight of 50 years of the farming of one man. William was a brother of James Tait who with their cousin William founded J. and W. Tait in Orkney. These excerpts from William Tait’s diaries illustrate the everlasting demands of farming, out of one field or task, into another without cease, out of one farm into another. The so very frequent refences to threshing brings me to my own boyhood memories, though threshing was part of my life for a very long time.
At Whitehall threshing day was an event, everlastingly repeated as with William Tait. For me it went on through Greenland Mains to Lower Dounreay to Isauld when finally overtaken by the combine. At Whitehall we boys knew threshing day was upon us, all hands to the job. Horse and cart to the stackyard to begin loading sheaves for the mill, indeed sometimes the first cart was loaded the afternoon before and loosed off, shafts on a barrel, to stand ready at the sheaf window for an early start next morning. Two carts, one to load at the cornstack, one to stand at the window and fork in the sheaves to the next man, or woman, who then forked them onto the sheaf board for the foreman to cut the binder twine and feed the sheaves into the mill. Marvellous how every part of the barn and of the mill was named, be it ever so small, but part of the working chain. The foreman on threshing day got up early to get the paraffin blowlamp going to heat the hot spot of the oil engine red hot in preparation for starting, then oil everything while waiting, fill the paraffiin tank for the day, check and fill the water in the two huge cooling tanks. Smell of oil and paraffin and dust everywhere, emotive and evocative. The rubbery smell of the long and broad driving belt which took the power of the engine to the threshing mill, running first on a loose pulley, then moving across to drive. This hot spot heating took some time, the roaring hiss of the blowlamp, indeed as late as 1955 we did likewise at Lower Dounreay with Jamie Wares our foreman before we moved to Isauld, and only in 1956 finally finished with the old oil engines I grew up with which drove the threshing mills of every farm. Campbell engines they were, well built and long lasting. I doubt if any are now left, scrap merchants took them all.
Next task, the hot spot glowing red, was to start the engine, massive iron driving wheels with one wide pulley always next the wall for safety among other reasons such as alignment for the flat belt to drive the mill. That belt and pulley ensemble was usually safely encased by a wooden partition. As many men as could get around the wheels then pushed and pulled against compression, this way and that, until the engine exploded into life with a slow deep thump. thump, thump, then as it caught power quickly accelerating to working speed. Care was taken that one did not hold on too tightly in case the engine ran backwards, taking a man around with the wheel. It did happen on occasion, once to my Uncle Hamish at Inkstack. Then the engine settled to it’s rapid deep beat with the single piston in full view, a noise that could carry for many miles downwind so we knew which farm was threshing that day. The engine was cooled by two or three large water tanks, all by convection and no pumping. Boys keep clear. See that the oil was dripping slowly onto the top of the open piston, adjust if need be. These oil engines lasted for many hard years, simple enough but sturdy and easy to maintain.
Then all hands to their assigned posts, engine running smoothly, and the foreman, who also fed the sheaves into the drum, moved a lever across so that the driving belt moved sideways from the idling pulley onto the driving pulley for the mill, slowly at first, whispering and slipping, then, as it picked up the load quickly, catching speed with an accelerating sound of slipping belts until the high speed drum was singing at around a thousand revs per minute, every part of the mill moving in it’s preordained manner.
We boys then had to go in to the Farm House, too many moving and dangerous parts for small boys to stay around. Today we boys would not be allowed near the threshing mill by Health and Safety Regulations, and quite right too.