No 14. Fairm Tools.

Morris Pottinger, Isauld House, Reay, THURSO. KW14 7RW 17.12.06

Rain on my Window. Pub Groat 04.04.2008

Some Tools of the Trade.

One abiding memory of my early days was the possessive claims of farm workers to his own tools. Simple they may have been by today’s technological standards, but woe betide the ill advised worker who borrowed or even touched someone else’s spade, hoe, graip or pitchfork. The tools in reality belonged to the farmer, though occasionally a worker had his own personal prized possession which went with him from one farm to another if he moved his employment. But each new tool was given to one worker, his to look after and cherish.
Not in order, but the first I bring to mind was the simple hoe. Was it a 5”, or 6”, or 7” blade? Was it shallow or deep? Did it have a long or short handle? How heavy was it? After all, a man might be 6 weeks in summer hoeing turnips, wet and dry days, weedy or clean rows. Some were cut away on the shoulders by the worker to lessen the amount of blade which in wet weather picked up earth or mud and was just that bit heavier to handle. Eventually manufacturers caught on and did likewise, but the first ones I saw were farm crafted. Small tho the amount was, after a day in a wet field it mattered. Even a hoe which looked much like another still felt different to the hand, and many a time two men would swap hoes just to get the feel and effect of the other. Maybe it sounds crazy today, but not at the time. The men, and some women too, worked in a squad at hoeing, or singling as we called it as the object was to leave just one seedling turnip plant every seven inches. Sometimes a dozen or more workers lined across the field in echelon with the foreman setting the pace in the lead. The banter was constant, often highly humerous. As boys we tailenders learned our trade, not appreciating a heavy hoe which got heavier as the day wore on, and the grieve at Greenland Mains, John Leith, on our tails to see we did not leave a “double” turnip, uttering in sorrow a low “Boys! boys!” when we did.
Before we leave the turnip field there were two other hand tools particularly pertaining to “neeps”, one the simple “docker”, a curved 15in sickle-like blade with a hook at the end with which one picked the turnip out of the ground, trimmed off the root and shaw to leave a nice clean. round turnip for carting home to the cattleman. On some farms, particularly in Aberdeenshire, the cattleman had to clean his own turnips depending on how many cattle he was tending. Forty cattle, clean your own turnips, sixty the horsemen did it for you. And they did the carting. The final tool for turnips was the ubiquitous “graip”, or four toed fork. Used for loading turnips into the farm carts for conveying to the steading, but even then, when turnips were to be pitted for storage, only the bare hands were used so that there was no blemish or broken skin on the turnip leading to rotting in the pit. It was also used to spread turnips from the cart for the ewes. It was all hard physical work, not seen today, nor could many now do it. That was by no means the only use for the graip, practically a worker’s third hand, other uses will be mentioned as we move along.
As we have reached the “graip”, we had better move on to some other uses of the four toed fork. Again, every man had his own, well looked after. Each graip also felt different, the handle worn and polished by hard hands over many years, some lasting for so long, some lighter, some heavier. Handles were of ash, hard, strong, straight grained, the toes of steel sometimes worn thin and short with work and age but still usable.
In stable or byre they hung from the wall each in place, toes pointing inwards, a safety feature drilled into us boys long before the Health and Safety Exec. Many a man cleaned his graip at the end of day with a wipe of an oily rag. It was used for loading and speading dung - farmyard manure to some, organic fertiliser nowadays, other names to most! When loading dung from the midden the graip had to be used just so, trying to use the toes the wrong way to lever loose a hard bit could result in a snapped toe, trouble for somebody. “Always lift by the handle, boys, never try to lever with it”. The cattleman used it for loading turnips into wire or wicker baskets to carry to the byre, up between each pair of cattle in most layouts, though at Lower Dounreay I had one byre with a feeding passage at the head of the cattle which made life easier. Low and warm under the grain loft, small light from North facing windows, a particularly good feeders’ byre for Jamie Douglas my retired but still working cattleman.
The graip was used to clean the byre, forking the dung onto a barrow to wheel out the door and up a plank and onto the midden. Even there the dung was frequently tidied up with the graip to please the cattleman’s eye. Sometimes. It was to all intents a third hand. At times a midden was built out in the field with carted dung and the ubiquitous graip was used to trim and square the midden. At times with field middens we turned the entire midden over, accelerating rotting down - composting they call it now. On North Bilbster the late John Morris told me they carted herring guts from Wick in season, shell sand or lime too, and made a midden of all three ingredients. A labour of love it had to be!!! We turned a midden over once at Isauld in the Links Field, I must have been mad.
Not finished yet, if you can bear with me. We also loaded dung from the midden with these graips, took a cartload to the field and pulled off the dung into heaps with a dung hack, an ash handle with a two pronged end-hook like a sabre toothed tiger. Later the graip was again used to spread the lines of heaps. At Whitehall my father once took a basket of home brewed ale out to the field and set a bottle at the end of every row. I do not claim he invented the phrase “A shower of s*** “ but he said he had never seen a field spread so quick.
The graip was used to carry straw from the threshing mill in the straw barn, from there to byre or stable, carrying a balanced “burden” of incredible size in the hands of long practiced experts. Used to clear chaff on threshing day, and take strumps away from the end of the mill.
Let’s move on to the other fork, a long ash-handled two pronged pitchfork. And the handle had to be straight grained. This again was one man’s pitch-fork and great pride sometimes in telling we boys that he had had it for ten years or more without any damage. Good hands. There were short toes, medium toes, long toes, even the pitch of the toes varied, and each individual had his favourite choice. Some toes were worn down with work but still a precious pitchfork. Used for many tasks, haymaking in all it’s aspects from making the small coles to larger ones and then to stacking. The height to which some men could throw a forkfull was outrageous. We can still see the art practiced at Halkirk Highland Games with tossing the sheaf, same technique as with hay but a sheaf carries higher. The pitchfork could be a deadly weapon in the hands of an expert in throwing a sheaf at some unsuspecting victim, friendly of course but with supreme accuracy!! It could also be a much needed defence with some fractious cattle beast, not too funny when being charged by an idiot bull or a newly calved cow. And the cattleman had his own byre one for pitching straw or hay over the cattle into the rack on the wall at their heads. Again, every tool had its proper place of storage, no excuses allowed.
Before we leave the byre, the cattleman had his own docker for picking turnips into a turnip slicer, an easy swinging picking of turnip with one hand and a single easy downward sweep of the handle of the slicer with the other, and the round turnip became thin slices for easier eating, usually for the feeders whose calf teeth were changing to adult and less able for a little time to bite into the round turnips. Hard work too. There was also the byre scraper like a very large heavy hoe about 15ins wide, used for scraping down the stalls, the cattleman then pushing the dung along the strand as far as strength would bear. Again the practiced hand could move small mountains of dung which we could only admire. And never ever leave it propped loosely against a wall blade outwards, if one stood on the blade a stinging crack on the head with the handle taught you not to do it again. You soon learned.