No 12. Billy the Horse.

RAIN ON MY WINDOW.

No 12. BILLY THE HORSE.

Billy was our very own farm horse, not one of your huge Clydesdale working horses but a big red horse in his own right, a gelding of no particular pedigree if any at all, our transport. I mentioned him earlier when we went to Church in the gig before the advent of our very first motor car, but dare to rewrite that aspect again. The Church was also a meeting place for many of the island horses, and do not tell me they did not welcome their weekly get-together and wee blether while their respective masters and mistresses were at Divine Worship. Even among these horses there would be one or two specifically looking for Billy, greeting him with a horse’s hello as we turned off the road into the Church surrounds. There was a pecking order among the horses, the quiet ones, the noisy, the long, the short and the tall, and the ponies too, but after saying hello to each other they would settle to their nosebags and stand patiently slip-hipped the two hour service. The gigs were as varied as the horses, the fancy one from Henry Maxwell of Holland, largest farmer in Stronsay, polished to perfection, the rather functional one from Whitehall (ours), the simple pony traps which would hold but two people, some old and well worn, some of more recent provenance. Always clean and polished for Sunday, though some of them had a working week on the old stone grit roads and muddy farm tracks which did not lend to cleanliness. Some had a canopy which would be erected for rain, I do not remember one on ours though it I am quite sure there was one lying around, I just cannot bring it well to mind. Two polished brass carbide gig lamps at the front corners, collectors pieces if we still had them. Most people walked to Church, and some for many miles at that, rain, shine or snow. We had the leather gig rug to cover our knees, good coats to keep off the showers. Mr Ramage was our Minister who later came to Wick to St Andrews Church.

There was one other horse drawn conveyance in the Island.. That was the ornate black hearse, fringed, four polished carriage lamps at the corners, drawn by two wonderfully caparisoned black horses. I followed it once when we buried a schoolmate, Steven Coleman, aged about ten who I think died of a burst appendix. Risks of Island living was distance from Hospital in Kirkwall, as we found with our sister Anne, but she survived her appendicitis by a miracle. We older boys joined the cortege as it passed the Central School on it’s way from Whitehall Village to the Bay Cemetery near Rothiesholm, walking the two miles in silent and sombre mood. I vividly remember it was a dry day, the sun was shining, the wind was gentle.

Billy was extremely functional and the gig was our only conveyance for everything that today would be by car. But Billy had many other things to do on the farm other than take us to Church. He went to Whitehall Village pulling the open milk float with Ned Norquoy, our then milk boy as well as a normal farmworker, and we went on that adventure too when Saturday came, or I did. Ned came to Caithness with us in 1944. We went from door to door in the Village delivering milk, not in fancy cartons or bottles but in pure liquid form by a measuring jug from the milk churns and as many pints or quarts as a customer wanted, poured into their tin milk cans or jugs or bowls at their doors and on request, paid in copper pennies. Ned had a bell to ring as we went along the single village road, or street, the sea on our left, the houses on our right. In season we sold milk to the herring drifters clustered around the two piers, the New and the Old, the many gutter girls in the curing yards, so many other herring workers. The herring fishing was a time of furious activity for a short 6 weeks or so in late June and July when the herring migrated from Shetland to shoal east of Stronsay on their migratory way southwards, then onwards off Wick and further south to end their journey off Lowestoft and Yarmouth in late autumn. In Stronsay we at Whitehall, Jeemie Chalmers at Clestrain, Robbie Miller at Hunton, vied with each other to supply the demands of Whitehall Village and the many boats and herring curing yards. There were other smaller farms selling milk and though I mention them not do not take it as an oversight, I just do not remember their names.

Billy had another more romantic place as our father’s riding horse. He must have been quite large though smaller in comparison to the Clydesdales, looking quite noble and handsome and proud when father was in the saddle, and Billy knew it too. I really think it was his favourite occupation. Father had the correct clothes, riding jacket, breeches, polished leather gaiters, proper boots, waterproof riding coat for rainy days, hat. With Billy he rode down to the Village and to the Ness to look over our sheep, rode around the farm to keep his eye on things, to visit in passing other farms. A riding horse was as natural for a farmer then as today’s cars or pickup trucks are today. We never sat on Billy, far too high for small boys, if we did no memory remains. Where he went eventually I cannot say, he served us well even after the car came.


Horses were in those days essential for everybody, their only means of transport in a social sense. We small boys did not have too much interest in them, just part of life anyway. But here and there one remembers some special aspect. Perhaps a new horse came to Stronsay for someone, to be inspected and found fault with or praised as need be. Where from, what price, what breeding , if any, possibly some famous horse in it’s lineage. For very great pride was given to one’s horse, to be better if possible than one’s neighbour. Yesterday’s equivalent to today’s supercar. .And of all those aficionados I remember best Wullie Peace of Holin near Airy in the Southend of Stronsay was paramount. Nothing but the best would do for him. Living unmarried with his brother and sister at Holin, they kept a tidy farm and a small shop and did their livestock well. But Wullie had an obsession with horses, they were his life. The one I best remember was a big black horse, a natural pacer, rare indeed to find, both legs either side moving together as you can still see in the American pacer races. Fast and smooth. I do not remember his name, but he was a beauty. Wullie much liked a dram, and legend has it that if he had overstayed in the pub in Whitehall Village then his friends loaded him in his gig, untied his horse and told the horse to go the three miles home. With Wullie sound asleep in the gig the horse took off, meeting and passing other gigs on the road without mishap, arriving at his own front door when Wullie would wake up at the cessation of movement. A lovely man, a real character of whom we have now all too few. He later visited us at Greenland Mains several times, loved to go with father to Hamilton’s Mart in Thurso on a sale day, equally loved to “news” with our local Caithness farmers. Predictably he would turn the conversation to horses, could not pass a horse in a field if you dragged him.

But Billy was our horse, and we thought he was the best.