No 50. The Spoot Ebb.

RAIN ON MY WINDOW.
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. A long time ago, but yesterday too.
Morris Pottinger

Spoots. A Spoot Ebb. Spring Tides. Sharp dry sowing days on the land. Month of March and the tides just right. St Catharine’s Bay in Stronsay was and perhaps still is the very best bay in Scotland for spoots, flat sand going far out with a good ebb tide, the sea not coming in on the flood too fast but don’t dawdle. Spoots are a sea shell known by the knowledgeable as razor-shells, a bi-valve meaning two sides, about 12 inches long, a bit over an inch wide, slightly less through, looks like a slightly bent ruler. Or better, each individual half like the old fashioned cut throat razor our father used, hence the name. You will still find the open shells washed up on most sandy beaches in Stronsay, very attractively banded in browns and pale ivory colours, single sides mostly as what you will find are remains. They are, however, no longer there in the numbers we formerly knew.
Mostly the men had their land work to do, or other jobs, and only in the evenings of a March Spring tide did they go to the spoots. And some were crack hands. Robbie Miller o' Hunton was by far the best I remember, effortlessly filling his two buckets while others struggled to fill one. Not that our father was a slouch at the spoots, but some people had the magic touch. Robbie did. We boys could go when we liked during the day if the tide was right, though evenings always seemed to have the best results. A Spring Tide went far out on the ebb leaving a flat sandy beach, facing west and south, a bay sheltered from the cold north and east by the Island itself. So we wanted to be at St Catharine’s when the tide was still going out on the ebb, which gave us about three hours maximum, quite enough next the cold sea.
About two miles to walk from Whitehaa. We normally met up with Jackie Stevenson and Hecky Marshall from Yernesetter, same ages as David and I and our buddies. Rubber boots essential, thick warm gansey and a good scarf, an old coat, balaclavas on our heads. Because it would be very cold later when the flood tide turned back to the land and evening came on. A tin pail and a gully, which was a long-bladed sharp slightly curved knife mainly used by butchers in their trade, and also on the farms for the same purpose.
Spoots were incredibly succulent when cooked properly, which was a very short time in a butter-laden very hot frying pan. If too long in the pan they turned to leather. They were first put in a metal pail and boiling water poured over the closed shells. In about a minute the shell opened and the inside was stripped out with a thick thumb along the inside of the shell. The bits we were after were called the flute, a long white fleshy end which extended down into the sand and anchored the spoot in place. The other end which was the head and mouth and stomach was just below the surface. When it was covered with sea water the mouth was just level with the surface and the spoot fed itself with whatever the sea brought to its stationary position, sucking in nutrient rich water and expelling it again. If one went ever so quietly into the shallow water and looked down one could see some of them just showing, but they were super-supersensitive to vibrating footsteps, be it human or a marauding gull, and would vanish downwards under the sand in an instant. When the tide went out the spoot pulled itself just below the surface to safety from marauding gulls, or men, waited there till the next tide. Which is where we came in.
The drill was to walk slowly backwards, pail in one hand, gully in the other, with a keen eye to see the tell-tale mark in the sand where the spoot was just pulling itself down. Sometimes merely a small dimple in the sand. Sometimes it gave a little “spoot” of a water which gave it the name, an upward spit as it began to pull itself down. That was the key, which way was it going, spoot one way, razor shell going the other, judge the angle. Rather like hunting submarines. Absolutely no time to think, a quick stoop, a slice with the gully through the sand in the calculated direction, try to catch the side of the spoot. Not too much power or one could slice right through the shell. The method was to catch the spoot on the shell with the gully knife and hold it from descending further out of reach, while with the other hand scrape away the sand till the shell was seen, then grip it and carefully and gently draw it upwards. Too quick or strong a pull and the desired fleshy flute could be left behind under the sand, still get-at-able but much more hand digging.
The sands would at times be well covered with men and boys each on his favoured spot. About a good mile of sandy beach so plenty of room, but the spoots would be more numerous in certain spots. There were also scallops and cockles and other delicacies but only by chance would we find them, the real quarry was the spoot.
Carrying our bucket home was a heavy task with many a rest along the way, and always a bit of competition to see who had been most successful.
The beach also provided us with a harvest other than spoots but more on the rocks of the shore. There were wilks in quantity, easy to fill a bucket. In days gone by my friends the MacPhees came to Isauld to ask if they could go down to the shore for wilks, a mighty heavy load to carry a full bag on your back up to the road. They made a part of their slender living with hard cold work. There are no wilks on the rocks today. There were limpets, the emblem of Stronsay whose people are nicknamed “Lempets” to this day. Always memorable on leaving Kirkwall on the Earl Thorfinn after the County Show, the Kirkwall people lining the pier to farewell us home and yelling “Lempits, Lempits” after us as we left the land. To which we shouted back “Stirlings, Strirlings” in contempt for these city dwellers, a name no doubt well earned by the propensity of roosting shitty starlings to sleep in the city. The lempit clung tenaciously to the rocks, not easy to gather at all, and we usually knocked them off with a hand held stone or a tackety boot, washed the lempit there and then in a pool of sea water and ate the fleshy foot by which it clung to the rocks. I do not remember anyone taking them home to cook but they were much used as bait in lobster pots, and also for baiting a hook to fish for sillocks or any other passing fish off the pier or off a suitable sea-rock. Also for chewing to bits and seeding the water with a spray of chewed lempit to draw sillocks into the hooped circle of the net. Lempits were quite plentiful in days gone by, and they could grow to quite a size if left alone. They were also plentiful under the water but not accessible to ourselves.
There were mussels, blue and beautiful clusters of them gleaming from a distance, easily gathered, now more of a fish-farmed delicacy. I like them stewed in a delicate white wine sauce. As boys we were not too wild about these sea-shore delicacies but now and again they found their way to the table. I think our father liked to provide a taste of Stronsay for his visiting doctor brothers, John and David from New Zealand (2), Steven from England (1) and his sister Nan from Edinburgh, to remind them of the salty taste of their Island roots, washed down of course with copious jugs of Home-brew. And we had to gather them.