No 29. DINNER TIME

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.

No 29. DINNER TIME. Pb 27.11.2009

Today I believe that meals taken as a family are now few and far between. No doubt Christmas will be celebrated round the table, maybe birthdays, but when we were young meals were not a case of snatching something out of the fridge on the way to watch the Tele. We had neither. If we had I have no doubt such practice would not have been allowed by our mother. Eating in the kitchen was the province of the bothy boys and the servant girls as they were called, and for occasional workers such as harvest hands.
At Whitehall our meals were always in the dining room, even on school days, proper sit down meals at proper times. Whatever ploy we had on outdoors, teatime was teatime. Or dinner as we called the midday meal which no one now recognizes save maybe as lunch.
Big solid dining table, horse hair padded chairs, massive sideboard, big mirror on the wall behind it, with a pair of ornate brass candlesticks. A standard oil lamp in the corner. Our in her eighties grandmother, whom we called Ma, ate with us as the dining room was also her day room with a good coal fire going. Above the fire was an ornate mantlepiece with World War 1 odds and ends, a British pomegranate hand grenade, heavy, some brass shell and cartridge cases, empty of course. A few small photos of her two doctor sons in uniform from WW1. Two deep armchairs either side, one for her and one for any visitor. A green-glass-bowl oil wick lamp sat on a small table beside her chair.

Meal times were meal times. Hands washed, hair combed, though we boys hair was short enough with but a fringe in front, a dossan we called it, and into the dining room. Many a boy was gripped by the dossan by an irate schoolmaster in those days. Not allowed now I fear. Did not do us any harm. Rather like a Red Indian getting ready for a scalping, little more indeed than a scalp lock.

We usually had three “girls” of various ages at Whitehall. Such were the times that it was normal for most houses to have some household staff, however great or small they were. A girl would leave school at 14 years old in my early days and go into service as it was called. There was no other work to be had in a small island though many would work at home, absorbed into the work of the farms and crofts. And when they married no change in that either.






Some work might be got in Kirkwall, getting into a shop or as an apprentice to a dressmaker, some girls had an aunt in the Toon and would go there to try to get a job. Sometimes it was as a servant girl in some house. Many others of course went in from Stronsay to Kirkwall to the Grammar School to get their Highers and in due course go on to University or to Murray House in Edinburgh to train as a teacher. Some bursaries helped with poorer families, and there was also a competitive Bursary Competition.

Going into service was the norm for many girls as soon as they left school and until such time as they got married. They got a bed, they got their food, good company, hard work, precious little money. Today we would have been accused of being filthy rich to be able to have such a thing, but it was just normal practice in those days, even for poor tenant farmers such as ourselves. Few houses did not have some indoor help.

The dining table was set by one of the “girls”. White linen tablecloth, napkins in their rings, our initials on some of them. Still got mine, along with my silver christening mug and the gold half sovereign I got as a present from Mrs Chalmers in the Village when I was born!!! Actually found both when moving out of Isauld House and clearing out so very much after over 53 years in that house. Scary.

Water jug and chrystal tumblers, the water cold from a bucket just drawn from a well down the road which tasted so much better than the piped supply. That piped supply was from the water supply for the Village, drawn from the Ayre of the Mires next the sea, well named. It was fed uphill by a red painted windmill, not todays huge three bladed turbines but the old small multi bladed ones you will still see spinning away in old photographs of the Australian Outback. It turned as the wind dictated, kept facing the right way by a large steering vane at the back, pumping water up the hill to the Reservoir. The Reservoir was covered with an also red painted corrugated iron roof, so too the sides where we used to take a stick and run along making a dreadful clatter. Once we did it while someone was inside doing some maintenance. Not popular but forgiven. He said he had done the same when he was young, made us laugh after scaring us speechless. Did not last, the speechless part!! !
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The day to day work of the Reservoir which fed Whitehall Village by gravity was looked after by our father on his way to the Village. If the levels were down he went to the windmill at the Ayre of the Myres and set it going, then on to the Village, stopping the windmill on his way home. Sometimes he got a man to do that for him. It did not pump a huge amount ot water but working steadily with even a small breeze it did the job. When the herring season was on a lot of water was needed, running almost constantly. The herring steam drifters needed a daily top up and a pipe down each of the two piers gave them the needed supply. A full time job for someone to look after the water at the Harbour and get payment from the drifters.

After Grace said by our father, dinner. Soup, often cock-a-leekie as we had plenty old fat hens. Or potato soup. Real potato soup that your spoon would stand up in!! Then the meat course with father carving the joint, or the hen, or whatever, ostentatiously sharpening the carving knife with the steel which you can still see your butcher doing, but I have not seen one used in a house for a long time. Showing off a bit I guess, but the table was always set with the sharpening steel sitting right beside the carving knife. Vegetables in big tureens with lids in the middle of the table, boiled tatties, whole with early tatties but mashed later in the year, cabbage, neeps. All home grown of course. Gravy, lots of it.

Pudding. I remember rice pudding with raisins or bread pudding with currants. Bread pudding was easy, the baker usually had some loaves past their best but still useful, so father took a few throw-away ones home from the village from time to time, not believing in waste. Made good bread and butter puddings.
Curds and whey. Tapioca. Macaroni but with sugar and sometimes raisins, never with cheese. Stewed rhubarb with some tapioca in it and sweet new cream. A big jug of fresh milk. None of your pasteurized attenuated modern watered down or thinned out rubbish, just a good jug of fresh milk straight from the cow with sometimes a layer of cream settling on the surface. Clean up your plates, no excuses. And everything carried through from the kitchen by one of the girls.

We were always on edge to leave the table when finished but not allowed. I fear I have no memory of helping to clear the table, or carrying anything through to the kitchen, but I do remember sometimes helping to dry the dishes for one or other of the girls at washing up time. Sometimes!!!!!