THE MEN O' WHITEHAA NO 1.

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.

The Men o’ Whitehaa No1. revised 2nd March 2009.

We left Hobbister for Whitehall in Stronsay on 18th Nov. 1919. The War was over. The Hobbister wages book closed with final entries for the last 6 month half year at Hobbister up to November, 1919, of £30 for Peter Guthrie and Kemp, £26 for David Swanney, There was £10/10/- for James Scobie, a halfling or lad, £10 for Maggie Miller. All that is left for me of Hobbister is the thought that Highland Park, my favourite Malt Whisky, is still made with peats cut on the Hobbister Hill where our family cut theirs so very long ago. Though the family were in Hobbister but a short six years, it was a time of great significance for the family other than mere farming. From there the final scattering of my grand-parents family into the outer World as so very many Scottish families scatter on growing up. Some had already gone before Hobbister. John, their first born, went to New Zealand as a surgeon in Gisborne and then to Invercargill following a spell in South Africa, Bill to farm on the prairie in Alberta in Canada, to return later through Red Hill in Rothienorman in Aberdeenshire to finally farm Cleat in Westray in Orkney. David in his early days of the practice of Medicine after graduating in 1911 from Edinburgh, the hell of two World Wars in the R.A.M.C. still ahead of him. Nan got married in 1916 but stayed at Hobbister while her husband George Flett was in France in the Artillery. Jeannie had married Pat Johnston, a tailor in Stromness, only to die in childbirth. Their only daughter Thora was with us in Stromness till 2005, aged 90. Steven the youngest brother off to Edinburgh to study Medicine. Only our father Tom was still at home farming, which takes us to Whitehaa in Stronsay.

The first entry for Whitehaa was the six months to 28th May 1920, wages dropping from
the explosive last half year in Hobbister. First entry was £20 for Jamie Shearer, cattleman at Whitehaa in 28th May 1920. He remained in the Book until his last pay day in Nov. 1936 when he retired to live in the Village, still appearing at Whitehaa at times to see that his cattle were being looked after as well as he had done. I remember him well, still quite fit, stocky build, blue well-washed dungaree trousers and a thick hand-knitted pepper-and-salt gansey his usual uniform.
There was £18.5.1d for Sinclair Shearer, foreman as I knew him, back from the Great War in one piece with his medals, a smallish, neat, hard man, overshadowed by his wife Mary. Sunlocks Miller at £16.15.1d Jamie Miller at £20, Jamie Miller jun. at £12, Pat Shearer at £15. This would have been Ould Pat, as good a man with wood and a chisel as you could find. He made a creepie [ small stool] and a bairn's chair for us, showed me how to make a bow and arrow. As an old man and retired he would be found many a day in the workshop on the farm, repairing this or that. He gave my father as sharp a knife as ever I saw, kept by him for many a long year and much used for castrating calves or piglets, a very necessary farm task but not discussed round the dining table!!! .
The staff continued with Andrew Shearer, £20; John Hutchison, £16. Mary Tulloch, £12, Mary Shearer, £12. Both worked in the "Big Hoos" and also milked the cows. Mary Shearer died suddenly of her heart. And that completes the first payday on 28th May 1920, following November 1919 when they returned to Stronsay. Sinclair Shearer, "Sincy", had previously been with the family at the Bu' of Rothiesholm at £8 in the half year to May of 1913, a young lad then before going to War..
The handwriting changed in the Book in May 1920, an indication that my father's hand was taking over from his father, as sons tend to do. There was a story that my father said to his aging father that there was only room for one boss at Whitehaa, and it was going to be him!! I have tried, unsuccessfully sometimes, to remember that!! As my grandfather was 68 at the time of entry to Whitehall in Nov.1919, fair enough. That was the farm staff of Whitehaa, a good 450 acre farm, wages still paid on the half year basis. I have no accurate memory of how much crop was grown, or what stock of cows and ewes were carried. Certainly horse power held sway.
But now into the reckoning came an increase in worker's perquisites, either due as part of their wages or purchased from the farm. Jamie Shearer bought 2 stone of oil cake, he had bought a calf at £2.10/- from the farm, and was presumably rearing it for himself. The oil cake cost 7/- for the 2 stone - 14 lbs the stone. Forget about kgs. He could also have had his own milking cow. He had 15cwts of coal, easily got in Stronsay with the herring fishing going full bore. Davie Chalmers the Stronsay coal merchant had his coal-yard at the head of the pier and his coaling ships or hulks for the herring drifters lay at anchor below Whitehall in the Bay of Franks. Oats were being bought by the men, a sign of hens being kept. Coal at 2/6d the cwt., oats at 12/9d the bushel of 42lbs. Insurance was still at 8/8d for the half year. Sunlocks Miller had 10cwts coal. With a name like Sunlocks it must be stated that there was not a blacker haired man in all of Stronsay, jet black. And when I remember him later, no longer working for our father but with a small farm of his own in the South End, a lover of a right smart horse in the gig. And a real cracker of a horse at that. We would watch from the House on steamer day to see his gig going home across the Ayre o’ the Myres, and from nearly a mile distance we would recognise the beautiful spanking gait of Sunlock’s horse. Wildly beautiful.
James Miller had 14cwt 2 st. of coal on Nov. 28th, again 15cwts coal on Feb. 1st., also at 2/6d. Peter Shearer 14cwt 6st. coal. This provision of coal went on for many years, not part of the wages but supplied by the farm and charged for. Coal was a big thing, my memory takes me to the horses and carts getting coal direct off the coal boat at Whitehall Pier, weighed on the Weigh Bridge at the head of the pier, and the bridge is still there. Even further, it takes me to Greenland Mains where we went even in my day the ten long miles into Thurso with horses and carts to get our coal supply off the railway wagons, a job I did myself one time on holiday from school. A definite bath needed thereafter!!
On Nov. 10th 1920 Andrew Shearer had a barrel of coal as well as the more normal weight measure. Barrels as a measure had been used for centuries, were going into disuse but still crop up for bulk measure at times for coal, peats, potatoes and oats. Andrew also had 5 lbs of wool, James Miller had 14lbs, James Shearer 5lbs., all at 6/3d a lb. Their wives must have spun and knitted. From distant memory 3 tons coal rings a bell with me. I am guessing when I state that the men got three tons supplied by the farm per half year as part of thier wages, extra being charged for by the farmer. There was an obvious requirement for cash in hand with small advances being paid here and there. Most of the men purchased oats, in my memory they all had hens, most kept a pig, usefully fed on house scraps, killed and cured for themselves. A whole pig was a bit much for one household but the system was much of sharing, perhaps half a pig to some one else who in due time returned the compliment. They made good use of the farm dairy to do their butchering, plenty room and good solid flagstone shelves.

The "girls" at £12 each would have been dairy milkers as well as the house work they did, butter to churn, cheese to make, homebrew to bottle, and drink!!. The seasonal summer herring fishing workers needed a large amount of milk, and the farms of Hunton, Clestrain, Whitehaa, possibly others I know not of, kept milking cows for that summer trade. And when the herring moved south to shoal off Wick and the fishing boats and the workers followed, then the milk was made into all the products one can think of. Girls who worked in the "Big Hoos" did not get much wages, surviving on room and board and a little cash. .
So much for the first six months at Whitehaa. There is much to study and perhaps to guess at in the Wages Book, I cannot ask for corrections from those who knew better, now all gone. I try my best, hoping it is enough.
We move on to 1920, James Moodie starts on 18th August but was paid previously on June 28th and July 10th. He must have worked for my father during the herring season, and then became a full time employee on the farm on 18th August when the season had closed? That is my guess.
Time moves on a bit, and entries appear for coal "ex store", which was from Chalmers coal yard in the Village. Conversely, it could have been out of the tarred roof coal-shed store on the farm. It was vastly more convenient to cart coal straight from the coal boat rather than load into a cart by hand off the storeyard floor, and I remember just that operation. Whitehaa was a mile from the pier-head, and providing carts to carry direct from the coal boat was easy enough, though a very black and dusty job.
The year 1920 saw a blip in Wages, James Shearer went up to £30, as did James Moodie, Sinclair Shearer to £30, Sunlocks Miller to £28. This did not last long as farming went into one of it's periodic slumps, and by 1922 £30 had dropped back to £26 in the half year, and then to £24, levelling off by 1926 at around £22 for Sinclair Shearer. Each man made his own bargain, variable, reflecting whether foreman, horseman or cattleman. The date of 1938 is the first I came across the phrase "Minimum Wage", no doubt a milestone in farm worker's welfare and reward, if that is the correct word. And that can later be our concluding part of this "Men O' Whitehaa", with the "Minimum Wage" for the next article.