THE MADHOOS at AIRY.

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.

Sometime in my boyhood our father built “The Madhoos”. He bought Airy Farm in Stronsay in 1933, an additional 300 acre farm to his home base of Whitehall, selling Airy to the Spence brothers of Millfield. in 1943 in preparation for leaving Stronsay for Caithness in 1944. Sharon and I were in Stronsay in July, 2008, staying in the former cattleman’s cottage at Airy for an enchanted weekend with the sun shining to introduce Sharon to my native island and some of my still surviving friends. Johnny Cooper the cattleman is long gone, but his greatly enhanced cottage and “The Madhoos” are still there.
It must have been about 1938 that our father took the plunge to build the “Madhoos”, begun in ‘38, finished in ‘39. Never before had cattle been loose housed in Stronsay, previously all were tied by the neck in stalls in the byres, from the smallest calf to the largest bull. The foreman at Airy was Jeemie Moad, a spectacularly blue-eyed neat hard man capable of doing anything. Apart from him the farm staff were Johnny Cooper, his sons Wullie and Jackie, Wullie Stevenson o’ Burragate on Rousam Head, perhaps on occasion other casual workers. Anyway in those days no Building Warrants or Plans or .Officialdom to contend with. As father went over to Airy from Whitehall most days we had many opportunities to go and see the work in progress

First all hands up to the old Hundy quarry at the top end of the farm from whence most of the stone for the steading, and the dry stone dykes too, had been quarried, good flagstone rock, easy to lift or prise from the stone face. Horses and carts to take it down to the Farm. Then lay off the foundations parallel to the existing long feeders’ byre wall. The Madhoos was about 100 feet long, 22 feet wide internal, 16 feet to the A-framed ridge, timber rafters and asbestos sheeting. The 80 year-old sheeting is still there in good condition, we saw it in July.
A load of cement from Kirkwall, carted by horse and cart from the Earl Thorfinn from the pier the four miles to Airy. Gravel and sand off the nearby beach. Mix the concrete or mortar with hand shovels on site, nothing mechanised. It fascinated us to watch the circle of dry sand and gravel and cement being turned over and over again by spades to get it properly mixed, then a hole made in the centre for water, a well we called it, banked around with the dry mix, and slowly add more water as the mixing went on. Mix from the centre out, keep all possible leakages blocked until all was properly wetted and ready, not too wet, not too dry. And of course we wanted to help with the mixing, probably more of a hindrance than help, but we bairns were humoured.

Jeemie Moad was the Master-builder with everything being brought to him by the rest of the farm staff. We watched as tight lines of twine gave a straight edge to work to, plumb lines to keep everything verticle. The walls grew rapidly when time allowed but was fitted into the normal farm work so there were times of rapid progress and times when all was at a standstill. However, in due course the walls were up to eaves height, and the gables built
All the scaffolding was wooden A-frame trestles, with battens of heavy wood lying across them, no Health and Safety either, one tier set upon another as work progressed. Quite simple, no guard rails, and no-one fell off. Most farms in Stronsay had some of these trestles and lent theirs to any who needed them.
Every stone had to be man-handled up, no front loaders or JCBs then, nor mechanical shovels whatever. A simple rope pulley from a beam was fitted temporarily to help. Mixed cement and more stones were lifted up in buckets or on small square timber trays with a rope attached to each corner, simple but effective. Spades and shovels and trowels. Hammers to rough shape or trim a stone to fit. Then flat wall-head stones just the right size to finish off the top of the walls, but the Hundy Quarry was as good as Castlehill for flagstone, the right natural size or width for tabling as we called it being easily found. This finished off the walls with a level top ready for the rafters.
Next the A-frame timber rafters, made on site by Jeemie Morrison and again man-handled into place, stayed with ropes until nailed securely together with a few crossed purlins or boards. Seemed effortless, and as every man knew his part to play then it was indeed effortless. Most farm workers could turn their hand to almost anything, I never heard anyone say I can’t do that. The cross purlins were of 4”x2” timber, then finally asbestos sheets to roof over everything. The ridge was left open to give ventilation except over the rafters. A doorway was built in the gable end next the farm road, good enough then for a horse and cart but now enlarged to allow for tractors. A big day when all was finally covered.
Inside a feeding passage was built end to end from the straw barn and neep shed along the byre wall, about 4 feet in width, with straw hecks or racks and wooden feed boxes built between the cattle and the passage. Feeding was done from the pass and no need to go in beside the cattle, indeed bedding was usually just pitch-forked loose over the heck and the cattle spread it themselves. No straw bales then, just carried loose from the mill, or in windlins which were good for throwing over. There were internal partitions to separate groups of differing sized cattle into more manageable numbers. The Madhoos was for the younger cattle who next year would be the big feeders and neck-tied in the feeders byre.
About the same time father built a stone-walled water tank about 25 feet wide and 60 feet long and 8 feet deep, same construction as the Madhoos but many inside coatings of cement to make it water tight. I thought when we went to Airy this year in July it would be long gone but not so, it is still there, still water tight, still in use, fed by the rain water gutters from the steading roofs. Recycling and environmentally friendly, no pumping required.
The entertainment value was high, visitors turning up as occasion offered to see this miracle of loose housing called quite appropriately “The Madhoos”.. Slowly the unbelievers changed but in their own time. I think salient to this loose housing was the Orkneyman’s adherence to the value of straw, not to be uselessly thrown under the cattle for bedding, much too valuable as feed. And they made straw go a long way. The neatest bedding I ever saw was one farmer who bedded his cattle for the night with a small pail of chaff, a handfull sprinkled under each pair along the byre after cleaning, and the cattle settled down for the night as if on a spring mattress.
The Madhoos is still there as a monument to progress, the building as sound as ever, though now fitted with modern cubicles and a drive-through passage for tractors, yet another innovation in cattle farming and housing.