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.
SHEARING THE EWES PART TWO.
Shearing sheep was a skilled task. Not everyone was good at it. No matter, someone had to catch the sheep, someone had to look after marking them with hot tar with a marking iron, called a “buist” in Caithness, but if we had a name specific to it in Stronsay I cannot remember other than just a marking iron. Ours for Whitehall was a capital WH joined together, the last leg of the W being the first leg of the H. I cannot print it, but it made a good mark and was also a mark used to clip the hair on the plate of the left hip of cattle being shipped out to Aberdeen, using a nice sharp curved scissors to do so which I still have, a memento of the past!! Someone had to do this, someone had to do that.
Wool bags had to be tied up in place on the upraised shafts of an upended cart for filling. Woolbags had to be stitched when full, woolbags had to be carried to the lower neep shed. Sheep had to be separated from their lambs and driven into the catching pen, dogs barking and snapping or nipping at their heels the while. Much shouting and whistling, but eventually into the catching pen they went. Even the predictable very smart old dodger who had seen it all before!! The modern sheep fanks with wonderful pens and gates and fittings was still much in the future.
Then catch your sheep. Big Half-bred ewes bought as ewe lambs out of the Island of Eday, and a two man job to haul them from the pen over the grass to each shearer as needed. Often also a two man job to upend them, one man holding and twisting the head, the other reaching under the ewe’s belly to grip the far-off hind leg and a quick heave to turn it over. As if the Caithness Cheviot was not big enough, these Eday born Half -bred ewes were even more massive. Get the ewe balanced on its bum and start clipping. Open at the throat, down the belly and into the left side, clipping towards the backbone. And so on and on into the fleece. keeping on going round in that direction with the sheep going one way and the fleece the other. It left a better fleece for wrapping with no breaks.
That is still the way modern sheep shearing goes, once called the Bowen technique after New Zealander Godfrey Bowen who pioneered modern sheep shearing though his record has been long surpassed.
On January 6, 1953 Godfrey broke the world record for shearing sheep: 456 full-wool sheep in nine hours. New Zealand was still living high on the sheep’s back, and this feat turned him into an overnight celebrity. He went on to teach his system around the World, Edinburgh Highland Show and Moscow among other venues.
My brother David, now in Western Australia in Pemberton growing grapes, was fortunate in being there watching that day in New Zealand when Godfrey Bowen clipped his historic record. David, then a member of Halkirk YFC, was on a Young Farmers trip to New Zealand though he had to pay his own fare at that time. Great trip, I was quite jealous!! We had both applied for the trip but David was the lucky one. ( see GODFREY BOWEN on the internet, all sheep shearers should see it.)
Caithness hand shearing when we came here was anathema to our father. He maintained they did it all the wrong way round, beginning just behind the right ear and taking small bites until the fleece was opened up. Then open the shears for a full bite, shears snipping away with a sharp click, click, click, working from just over the back bone round the right side to the front. Then change over to do the other side. Some shearers fastened a small cork into their shears so they would not quite fully close, and they reckoned the sheep were just that much more settled. A skilled shearer
This Caithness change-over from right side to left side was a risky manoeuvre in most cases. The ewe, sensing a possible chance to escape, kicked and struggled, the fleece sometimes breaking down the back rendering it just that much more difficult to later properly roll it up. Allow a hind leg to kick and it got entangled in the fleece, chunks of wool going every-which-away, at its worst total disintegration. Someone would quickly step over and help restore as best he could the sheep and the broken fleece to their proper position, almost. At times the ewe would seize its chance, a quick twist, get to its feet and take off. The greatest episode I ever saw on that was at Knockdee at the 1949 clipping when we were temporarily tenants of Stemster. The shearing stance was in a field to the right side of the sloping road up to Will Gunn’s Knockdee shepherd’s house. One of the Fraser boys of the other Knockdee, I forget which of them, was last seen taking off down the slope well seated on a half clipped Cheviot ewe and holding on like Lester Piggot. On the credit side he did not let go, and the ewe was eventually taken back from the hedge at the bottom of the field to finish her disrobement. Took us quite a time to get over laughing.
Do not think he was the only one to do so, it happened many a time to a lot of people on a lot of other farms. Worth seeing, provided it was not your sheep!! The principle was not to let go, just hang on, help would arrive, eventually!! A big Cheviot ewe could take some handling. Still do, but todays shearers are very well trained indeed.
The Bowen technique is now standard and universal World wide. Sheep shearing owes a great deal to him, and to his brother Ivan, who was at least his equal, sharing the top spots in many shearing competitions.
Having shorn the sheep, and called for a buist in Caithness, mark in Stronsay, the ewe would be put into another pen and a fresh sheep brought to the shearer, usually held ready by the catchers. No time to waste, though many a shearer dodged at times by saying he had to sharpen his shears, whether needed or not. Stretched his back at the same time.
His new clipped fleece would be gathered up by a gatherer, often women or boys and girls helping for the day, or sometimes the shearer himself would sweep up his fleece and deposit it on the wool table. Properly done, this entailed a sweeping throw that spread the fleece out to perfection for the rollers, new shorn side underneath. Then a quick skirting and trimming, rubbishy bits under the table, dags or dirty bits torn off, but do not take too much of the fleece with you. One folding and winding the trimmed fleece from the tail end, the other, because two rolling were usually needed, winding a band out of the wool of the neck ready to finally tie the fleece. Well rolled fleeces were an art form.
When shearing was in full flow with a lot of good shearers going full tilt it was no easy task to keep up with the rolling. Unrolled fleeces piled up around the table. Rolled fleeces piled up against the dyke while a full wool bag was taken down and an empty one tied in place. Six inch nails spiked through the tops held full ones together until they could be stitched. Half yoking was well received. End of day meant nothing if the ewes had not been finished. “Clip on, boys, we’re nearly done”. And eventually they were.
Shorn sheep went back to their lambs and out to the field. Lambs looked for their mothers with much bleating, this new clean mama could not be theirs. But after half an hour all was quiet, lambs suckled correctly, sheep spread over the field.
All over for another year.
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