No 39. Half Yoking Rembered.

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.

HALF YOKING REMEMBERED.
The sheer humanity of days gone by still catches me, the many people on the farms, their lives and times, on our farms and many others. I can merely touch on it here and there as best I can, with a lump in my throat sometimes. One of the special moments is not too often remarked upon amid the many old farming stories one might chance to hear. I read again a short time ago a small private obituary written by my wife Sharon for our good friend and neighbour George Mackay of Buldoo, who died 14th May, 2006, aged 90. She quoted an interlude George and I had shared. It was called “Half Yoking”.
Half Yoking was so much a part of farming it never was commented upon, it was just there. The working days were long and hard and physical, who today ever sees anyone with sweat on their brow. But for man and horse half-yoking was a welcome if short rest, a time for the nose bag for man and beast. Indeed many a time we heard the men refer to their own half yoking bag as their nose bag. Or piece bag, or just half yoking bag. And the horses also had their own well named nose bag with a feed of oats, the origin of the title. Kept them quiet while their horseman had his. Often enough it was an old kacki Army hard-canvas shoulder bag with a strong buckle strap, or two, capable of many long years of wear and tear.
My own memories of Half-yoking were at neep singling time, sitting at the top of the field with our backs to a dry stone dyke, sheltered from the almost incessant wind, hoes tidily leaning against the wall beside us. We were but boys giving a helping hand but to have our own nose bag was great as we felt so grown up. The paramount item in the bag was a thermos flask of hot tea, a dangerous item as the glass vacuum flask inside was expremely delicate and a fall to the ground brought instant and explosive comment as it meant a broken flask. Unscrew the top and a rattling mixture of hot tea and glass fell to the ground. I never rememeber coffee, I do not think it had been invented in my early days, not at least for the men. I do remember highly concentrated Bantam Coffee on a small tin or Camp Coffee in a bottle, used in the farm house, but we were not keen on coffee anyway. Too sharp. Now I live on it!!
Today we have thermos jugs with metal insides or indeed complete metal flasks capable of extreme treatment, but great care was taken then by the men of their fragile thermos. Choice words would inevitably follow a disaster.
A bottle of milk and a small screw topped jar of sugar completed the beverage. Milk was never put in the tea at home as it tasted differently than when just added, and the flask held that much more hot tea if the milk was extra. The screwed on top of the flask served as a cup.
Their pieces were thick home baked well buttered bere bread, or flour scones, or oat cakes, home made cheese on the bere bread or on the oat cakes, rhubarb jam on the buttered scones, all wrapped up in a bit of old newspaper. Or kept in a small tin box inside the capacious bag. Perhaps a slice or two of baker’s loaf-bread from the Village, Jock Stout or Swanneys, with some cold mutton and a bit of pickle, or H.P. Sauce, or Daddies Sauce. .I have seen a bit of cake appear at times, indeed we could say “All’s grist to the mill”.
If milk was plentiful some of the men would have a full bottle to drink straight, or even butter-milk which was a great thirst quencher on a hot day. Some of them had their own cow, kept on the farm by father as part of their wages and had extra milk on that account, but not all. The keep of a cow was not free but the charge was minimal, and every year a calf for the worker to bring on a bit and sell at a few weeks old was an added bonus. Sometimes sold to father if he needed a replacement, or to put on a cow with a copius udder and capable of nursing two calves.
Half yoking was not to be rushed and always time for a fag after food, or light a pipe and have a contemplative smoke. The half yoking rest for the horses when they were working hard was a bonus, and they deserved it.
I remember the afternoon half yokings well, but cannot remember the morning ones at all. Not every worker took a half yoking with them, but all shared the welcome break at the dyke.
Time was called by the foreman with a look at his watch on it’s ornate gold chain out of hs waistcoat pocket, a slow rising to his feet, a wordless command to get going again.
Of course not only singling neeps meant half yoking. Haymaking sitting against a hay cole, or against a stook at harvest, taken by the horsemen in the sheds when carting neeps, the cattleman having his sitting on the bruised oats kist in the byre, even threshing stopped for half yoking. Indeed there was not any job done on the farm wthout it’s attendant short break. When men started worlk at 6 am, broke for top of the day from 11am to 1 pm, finally stopped for the day at 6 pm, their long 5 hour shifts needed a break. But my most memorable half yoking came at Lower Dounreay many years later.
I had just finished our own combining in a field next the main UKAEA entrance and across the road at Buldoo George Mackay had a field of oats half cut by the binder round the outside and stooked, the rest waiting for Johnny Mackay from Skail to come with his combine to finish the field. The sun was shining, the day was warm, the oats were dry, too good a chance to miss. So I crossed the main road and drove my old Ransome Cavalier combine across one grass field and into the one of oats, to be dryly greeted by George with “Have you missed the road home?” We got his small trailer and, after changing the combine settings for oats, set about getting the job done in the ripe standing crop.
Getting on just fine, round and round with no stops, and then I spied George's wife coming down from their house at the corner of Buldoo to the field with a basket on her arm, covered with a tea cloth.
Half yoking, which I had not had for many a year. Home made scones warm and fresh from the oven, home made jam and rich farm butter and hot tea and milk to cool it and plenty sugar, and George and I had our half yoking sitting with our backs to a stook of sheaves and the sun on our faces.

As Sharon wrote in his memory:- “Long after Morris had forgotten the day, he was reminded of it because a little kindness is often long remembered, and stories of home made scones and jam and butter after a hard day's work in a neighbour's field are worth telling and retelling. Each day contains so many stories, so many heartbeats. How do we measure a life at the end of the day? The number of people standing in the cold grey afternoon in and around his little house are one measure, but more telling for a farmer are the fields who gave him his name and to which he gave his life. As we drove past his farm, Morris pointed with pride to George’s fields that contrasted sharply in their lush greenness with the rough ground adjacent to it.”