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 81 Boys Knives
Every boy needed a knife. Back to my first schooldays in the North School again, though I still have to do the Central School where I did my last three years at Stronsay Schools. And in this present day “no knives” culture, we lived then when the ownership of a knife was such a distinguishing mark of a very young boy’s growing up. To own one was a matter of great pride.
At School we had slate pencils of course, mentioned in the North School article of 18th April 2008, which sometimes needed a bit of sharpening. And lead pencils which needed frequent sharpening as the lead either wore down or broke.
Pencils came in many guises, thick, thin, hard, soft, AA, BB, crayon and coloured pencils. An indelible pencil of a purplish shade which was frowned upon as it could not be rubbed out with any ease at all.
They all needed sharpening, and all the boys had penknives, though some were a bit older than others before getting one, and the trust of their parents. My very first one was a present from my surgeon Uncle John who had a professional interest in knives anyway!!! I was rising six in 1935 when he came on a visit home from Invercargill in New Zealand, and I had just recently started the North School. Mother-of-pearl handle, two bladed, neat, one large blade at one end, one smaller blade at the other. It made for a certain deal of self importance which I have never lost – so they say !!!.
That I now had a knife like the other boys and like my father made for a feeling of being quite grown up. To be trusted with a knife was great.
With the knife came instructions and demonstrations on its use, do it this way, do not do it that way, and shown the reasons why. How to open and close your knife without cutting yourself. How to sharpen your knife. What kind of stone off the beach made the best sharpener. Whetted with a bit of spit when needed. Learning to do simple every day things then was a part of life which seems to be getting neglected in some ways today in this computer age, but all is not yet entirely lost.
And so to School, able now to sharpen my own pencils. There were many ways of so doing. A really sharp knife worked well with the away stroke, but we had to go to the iron stove to do so and sharpen the pencil into the coal bucket to keep the floor clean. A blunt knife was still usable, but not with the away stroke, you were guaranteed always to break the new point just as you had got it properly sharp. !!
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Still, even a blunt knife had it’s own method. Support the pencil tip with your thumb and with the knife held in the curled four fingers of the same hand cut towards the thumb. Amazingly, and H.S.E. would not allow such a thing today, it was just impossible to cut yourself or your thumb this way. Your thumb supported the tip so you could cut towards yourself without danger. Total control. Done carefully there was no breaking of a treasured newly sharpened point, and to have a really sharp pencil point was again a matter of honour. Some boys had a talent for pencil sharpening, Jim Stout from Linksness comes to mind. A good seaman and coxswain of the Stronsay Lifeboat later in life. Some, myself included, just got by.
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A razor sharp knife was a matter of pride. Frequently someone was challenged as to who had sharpened his knife, and in my case it was Ould Pat Shearer who was the magician. He always had and treasured a special small beach stone in his pocket, just the right shape, a shallow groove worn into it from much use. The stone had come from the beach at Skaeval, a superb sheltered picnic spot on the Westside of Rousam Head, one of our favourite spots. A peculiar hard pebble stone could be found among the many others on the beach.
Spit on the stone, a few rubs and razor sharpness. Yet when we tried it ourselves we could not do it. Never ever. The final test was to be able to cut a hair, or with grown men to shave a little hair off their forearm, showing off a bit. I do not think modern knives are made of the same steel, and will not take or keep the same edge, too soft.
Pencil sharpening by the girls was totally different. No knives but here and there one of the girls had a pencil sharpener. They were actually very efficient but infectious pride forbade any of the boys from using one, cissy.
The penknife had many other uses. Surreptitiously carving your initials on many a long suffering school desk was one, difficult to deny to the teacher when the initials were your own and on your own desk. Some desks in the old school were really a lexicon of bygone scholars, some we knew but were now grown men.
Pick out a thistle from your finger, a careful job. Or a splinter of wood. Clean and trim your finger nails!!. Dissect a flower to see how it worked. Peel the outer sharp bristles from a Scotch Thistle flower head to get at the tiny tasty cheese inside. Skin and gut a rabbit caught in the dyke on our way home from School, presenting our mother with an oven ready carcase. We were always humoured by having it cooked, tasted like good chicken if the rabbit was young enough, just above half grown was best.
Pick a tiny hole with the sharp point of the small blade in either end of a bird’s egg to blow it and add it to our small amateurish collection. A hanging offence today of course, but birds do seem to be much less plentiful now. We were taught never to take more than one egg from any one nest, leave the others to hatch in due course. We were indeed environmentalists before the word was invented.
And whittling. Find a bit of drift wood on the beach that looked like something or other and better shape it. Carve a wooden pipe and bore a hole through the stem with a thin wire heated at one end in the farm smiddy forge. Time consuming and a few burnt fingers. Gouge out the bowl with the brace and bit in the farm workshop. When completed cadge a bit of baccy from Jock o’ Sound the cattle man to try it out. Sick as a dog afterwards. Put me off smoking for life. A good cure.
There were many other uses for a knife of course, but far too many to try to enumerate. A boy’s life long ago without a knife was just impossible.
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