No 38. The Men o' Hobbister

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.




"The Men O' Hobbister."

I wrote of the “Men o’ the Bu’” as an introduction to my grandfather’s wages book, which ran from 1906 to 1942, and an introduction to the men and women who kept the farms going for us with their hard labour. Later we come to the “Men o’ Whitehaa” where I spent my early days, and knew most of the men. Meantime as a family we spent six years in Hobbister in Orphir before returning to Stronsay, from Nov. 1913 to Nov.1919, spanning the 1914 – 1918 Great War. .This relatively short period began changes which leapt out of the Wages Book, reflecting the rapidly altering face of agricultural wages and prices during that time, and worth a look on that account.
Some of the names reflected that men came with my grandfather to Hobbister from The Bu’ in Stronsay, staying in employment with the family. In May 1914 on pay day we find Benjamin Norquoy, £12 in the half year, John Norquoy, £10, Robert Youll, £10, William Norquoy, £5, (a boy), but with his three bolls of oatmeal, all from the Bu’ in Stronsay to Hobbister. Other names appearing on payday 28th May 1914 were Miss Clouston £8. Mrs Norquoy £1.10.6d, Mrs B. Norquoy, £0.18/-d, and again Mrs Norquoy £2 for milking and three days work at the hill, obviously at the peats. Peat cutting was interesting as the Highland Park Distillery in Kirkwall still has its peats cut from the Hobbister Hill, making it my very favourite Malt Whisky. That was the first pay day on 28th May1914 after they went to Hobbister the previous November. All the above sums were for six months work, quite incredible.
Other names appeared over the six years, John Muir, James Gunn, Alex Laurison, [ a Shetlander] William Scollie, Mary Clouston, John Mowat, Andrew Linklater, Alex Rendell, James Sinclair, Robet Croy, Alex Swanney, Herbert Shearer, Tom Owen, Tom Clouston, David Forsith, James Rossie, *** Kemp, Peter Guthrie, David Swanney. These names over the six years in Hobbister I mention because over many years I would meet someone in Caithness whose forebear had once worked at Hobbister. Teachers, bankers, policemen, other good people, who had all come a long way from farm workers at £10 for half a year’s work. Which is nice.

National Insurance appeared for the first time in 1912 at the Bu’ with stamps at 4d a week, 8/8d for the half year, deducted from the worker’s wages. That rate stayed all through their time at Hobbister, and was still at that rate in Nov. 1919 when they moved back to Stronsay.

Through 1914 little change took place, wages staying at the same levels. John Muir came in at Nov 1914 to May 1915 at £10, paid £1 on June 14th 1915 on leaving. Did he go to War, did he come back? His wage at £10 was a man's wage.

Moving on to 1915, William Scollie at £5.10/- was still a boy, Alex Laurison at £15, a man, indicating escalation of wages, John Mowat at £15; Alex Rendell at £14.10/-, John Gunn, at £15; Mary Clouston at £8 was an outdoor worker, William Norquoy at £5, still on a boy's wage. Mary Norquoy got £2 for milking, and also 3 days at the "Hill", had to be the peats again. At Nov. 1915 Andrew Linklater comes in at £16, to £18 at May 1916, and moves on. Kemp appears, a local Hobbister man, at £21 in Nov 1918, £30 at Nov 1919. Met his grand-daughter in Caithness.
Robert Yule, spelling differed but not to worry, in May 1914 at £10, to £16 at Nov 1916, to £18 at Nov 1917 and 1918, £21 in Nov.1918. He was paid £3 on Dec.1918, with DESERTER written below the entry, obviously he left. My grandfather must have taken a dim view of his leaving betimes as replacements would have been hard to find between terms. I am very sure DESERTER was not from the army. Seems my grandfather took it personally. Yule had come with them from Stronsay in 1913. Maybe he got a better offer, wages going up, there was a War on. Or did he go to the Army?.
My father told me that all over Orkney men went to war, to be replaced in many cases by old men and young boys and women, to the detriment of farm work. He too was called up in 1914 with the Territorials, but was never sent to France, serving in Fort George, on the guns in Scapa Flow, heaving them on rope slings up the cliffs of the Barrel of Butter in Scapa Flow. He was then sent out to Stronsay with two other Territorials to patrol the Cliffs of Rothiesholm Head [ the Bu’], which he naturally knew like the back of his hand, local knowledge perhaps helping the posting. They had a small wooden hut and a good stove with plenty coal. Naturally he knew everyone locally in Rothiesholm, and had plenty of time on watch to put them all in a poem for posterity, a copy of which I still have.
On one occasion he was skiving off sitting in the farm house at the Bu’ of Rousam with his feet under the table when someone rushed in and told him his Sergeant had sneaked quietly out to Stronsay and was marching up to Rousam Head to check up on things. Arriving at the watch hut he found Private Pottinger missing. Back down to the Bu’ to find the miscreant. But father had dodged out the back door, crossed the “Peedie Loch“ by a causeway, back up to the watch hut in the Sergeants absence by a slender hill track. When the Sergeant came back from his abortive search father was marching up and down the cliffs with his rifle on his shoulder. When charged with “Desertion of his Post in Time of War”, he said he had been further along the cliffs as he had heard something suspicious, possibly a German Invasion. And that was that.

With so many ships being sunk and food growing scarce, men were sent home from the army in 1917 to the farms. Father was one of those, with no regrets, so perhaps my own presence in this World owes something to that. Many of his friends went and many did not come back. The same sending home was done in 1939 to 1945, with men coming back to the farm from the forces, two to the farm of Airy to our father. Farmers had to apply for a former employee to get them discharged.


Perquisites coming in more strongly were oats, no doubt bought to feed some hens, at 5/6d a bushel {42lbs.} in 1919, a rise from 2/-d a bushel in 1913, over double. The normal three bolls of meal was paid per half year. No bere meal appears nor was any sold to the workers, perhaps Hobbister did not grow any.


Other perquisites appearing were a barrel of potatoes on occasion, meal being bought over the three bolls standard half year supply, a cast ewe sold to Robbie Yule for £1.5/-. Meal in 1917 at 4/- the stone of 14lbs. There were a few extra payments, cutting peats in the hill, singling turnips, harvest, casual workers giving a hand. Peter Guthrie bought a stove for £1.4/-, a dear item against a half year's pay. Insurance was at 8/8d for the six months term. Kemp bought 8 lbs of wool at £1.3/-, about 2/10 a pound. Home spinning it had to be, knitting for the household.

An interesting entry was paid for Alex Swanney in 26th June, 1918, £1 cash to P.L.Johnston, it had to be for a suit. Known all over Orkney, P.L. was a draper and tailer who travelled all over the Islands selling his wares, mostly made-to-measure suits hand made in his shop in Stromness. He married my father’s sister Jeannie who died in giving birth to Thora, their only daughter. Thora lived to 88 in 2005, still in Stromness, married to Bill Tulloch, who predeceased her. Sharon came with me to her funeral, not knowing what to expect at her first funeral in this country. Thora’s funeral was a celebration of her long life, not an occasion for sadness. Full of years and full of friends. Perhaps the most touching moment was on our way from the Church to the Cemetary when the cortege stopped for a minute or two on the street below Thora’s house on the Hill overlooking Stromness harbour, a peaceful moment for quiet contemplation and reflection. Very nice, poignant, and it had been at her own request.


And so the family stay at Hobbister came to an end on 18th Nov. 1919. Not one of the farms my father spoke of most highly in an agricultural sense, but a very special farm in terms of the family, of growing up, of father’s doctor brothers Steven going to study Medicine in Edinburgh, of David on leave from the hell of a doctor in Flanders, of John, a surgeon far away on a Hospital Ship in Alexandria during Gallipoli, of sister Nan marrying George Flett, staying at Hobbister while he was also in France.

The final look we will have into Grandfather Pottinger's Wages Book will cover Whitehall, the period between the Wars, changes coming in but no great revolution in worker's pay and conditions. Still, changes there were, and this trilogy will finish, eventually, with Whitehall, 1919 to 1942.