THE JOYS OF LAMBING.

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.


Lest one thinks all our farming in Stronsay was with cattle and horses, let’s look at sheep. Cattle were the main livestock on 450 acre Whitehall Farm but 200 ewes lived easy with us, living mostly on grass and following the cattle around the fields. Only in winter on the grazings of Gryce Ness behind the Village did they get a cartload or two of yellow turnips a day later on in the winter, getting grain – oats - in feed boxes about two weeks before lambing began. Additionally they got some bought in supplements at lambing time, a feed mixture to help bring on their milk. Fish meal was one, bought pre-war from the herring gut fish-meal factory on the Island until the herring fishing finally finished about 1938, and mighty smelly stuff it was too. Still, the ewes ate it mixed with grain, along with the bought in feed. The gut factory struggled on with imported offal for some years more after the War and the demise of the Stronsay herring fishing but it was a losing battle. It was just about a mile from Whitehall Farmhouse and with an easterly wind we knew it was working. Phew!! I remember the tall iron chimney stack, not tall by modern standards but we thought it was.
Gryce Ness was almost always clear of snow, low lying behind the Village, a narrow projecting neck of land with the sea on either side. It was also Fresson’s landing strip for his De Haviland Rapide Air Service, so the sheep had to be temporarily off the field when he was due to come in on his twice daily service.
The ewes were big Half-breds bought as ewe lambs out of the neighbouring Island of Eday, a cross between Border Leicester rams and Cheviot ewes. With very much less dense stocking rates than in Caithness, in Stronsay the sheep were used more to tidy up fields of grass after the cattle had been over them. When we came to Caithness our father was appalled at how the Caithness farms were totally subservient to sheep with the cattle following to tidy up a field. .
Huge Oxford rams were used by father, black-brown faces and broad white-wooled backs, wide enough and flat enough to lie on or ride stride-legs on some of the quieter ones. Peaceful for most of the year, when the breeding season approached in November they became seriously aggressive, and we used to watch them in the Front Park. They would back off from each other and then charge head-to-head with a ferocious clatter. Broke one’s neck once, fatal.
Lambing was of course our special joy, little bundles of white wool to carry to the field, mamma walking behind and treading on our heels with motherly protective thoughts. Could give you a good butt on your bum with her head at times in her anxious desire to protect her lambs. They were easy mothers and no way as temperamental as the Caithness North Country Cheviots we later came to know. We did not lamb nearly so early as in Caithness at Greenland Mains. Late April and early May was good enough, the grass growing well by then in a practically frost free Island.
The ewes came into the sheltered stackyard at nighttime and Wullie Peace, one of the two cattlemen along with his pipe-smoking father Jock, was night shift man. Wullie smoked fags, Gold Flake usually. He had a small red paraffin-oil lantern to show him the way, latterly getting a Tilley Lantern which was a big improvement. Most houses used the Tilley but our mother did not like their constant though soft hiss, so we made do with Alladin Mantle Lamps.
The straw barn was Wullie’s haven, taking newly-lambed ewes into its shelter if the weather was stormy though the stack yard was well sheltered with stone dykes around the outside. The steading lay all of one side, and some stacks not yet used added to the shelter. That straw barn was the cause of one tale against Wullie. Father came out early one morning and asked Wullie “Whit like, Wullie?” “Weel, a good night, Boss. I got three fours, two triplets and ten singles.” “Wullie, thoo’s been soond asleep again in the straw barn, were thoo no? “ “Maybe I dropped off chuist for a few minads”. The total mix up was all too apparent, it took some little time to sort it out. I would not guarantee that all the mothers got their own lambs but at least every mother had some.
The propensity of well-wintered ewes, with plenty milk in their udders, to steal another ewe’s newborn lambs and then have her own, was and still is an over-riding maternal instinct. It had beaten Wullie while he snoozed. In some slight defense of Wullie, he was also one of the cattlemen, his father the other, and had his full day to do with his cattle after being allowed some morning sleep. He might get some help if the horsemen were not too busy. There is no doubt at all that a good barn with freshly threshed sweet straw to lie down on would be mighty dangerous, even “Chuist for a few minads”.
Twins were usual with us, often triplets, and heavy they were for small boys to carry. Usually they were up and walking so an easy gentle driving to the field, two or three ewes with their lambs at a time. Sometimes carry one on a bit, then back for the other, dog-legging the ewe and her lambs towards the field.
All sorts of small pens or corners were used for the newly lambed ewes, some stalls in one of the byres made use of with a wooden flake across it. Did not take long for the ewe to mother up to her own lambs, their coats dry from lambing and suckling established. The ewes were milky and some needed a bit of help to get the lamb going, though when it did get the idea there would be no stopping them, their tails wagging furiously. Then get them outdoors as soon as possible.
Ewes with single lambs got no such luxury. There was no mothering problems with one lamb unless the ewe had been stealing, so straight to the field.
It always amazed us how quickly a lamb grew, in a few days they looked at least twice their birth weight, and probably were.
During the day the ewes were in the Front Park and fed there. We would be given the task of walking round to see what was doing. Usually a ewe went off to a corner on her own, private like, and lambed in her own sweet time. These Half-bred ewes were big and easy lambers, needing very little help, unlike the Caithness North Country Cheviots we later came to know. Only if we saw anything wrong did we call our father. And with us came old Spot our favourite dog, a big shaggy-coated cattle dog of which we see all to few today. I do think he knew more about lambing than we did, and would nose a lamb gently on its way when needed. A very canny dog indeed.
One other part of lambing was the pet lamb. Here and there a ewe had too many and no other ewe would accept the wanderer.Or a ewe might die in these days before our wonderful usually successful drugs and her orphans had to be looked after. So these became our pets, bottles of milk warmed, a teat fitted, then out we went to a pen on the tennis lawn, no longer used for proper tennis as such but still there. The lambs came arunning and would nearly knock us down in their frantic desire to get to the bottle, boxing each other out of the way. Took quite a time to feed them all, back to the kitchen for more bottles until satiated.. Furious activity, sucking a bottle dry in seconds.
Today we have no time for such luxuries, feeding orphan lambs out of a bucket with many teats around the bottom, a pail of warm milk tipped in. Then weaned as soon as possible onto dry feed and water. The magic of lambing must still be there, but the many helpers we had are no longer available. And so the countryside empties. They call it progress