No 82. RULE OF THUMB. pb 3rd Sept. 2010

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 82 RULE OF THUMB. pb. 3rd Sept. 2010

“Rule of Thumb”. Such a well known phrase, such a challenge to determine just what it is, or was. So what is it?


My earliest recollection of Rule of Thumb was the way in which the farm hands measured their requirements. Rules and measuring tapes were unseen, though perhaps sometimes a bit of string out of a deep pocket came in handy. Some men had a three foot 4 piece folding wooden ruler down the special narrow ruler side pocket on the right leg of dungaree overalls, but many a time just measured by span of hand.

At school on the playground we experimented with a piece of string, quoting and paraphrasing Jonathan Swift in his Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1726.
“They measured my right Thumb, and desired no more; for by a Mathematical Computation, twice round the Thumb is once around the wrist, twice round the wrist is once round the neck, twice round the neck is once round the waist.” And so the Lilliputians made a shirt for him that fitted perfectly. I may say that formula did work with us at school. I tried it today, and it did not work on my waist !!!
Women knitters seemed to know just exactly what they needed, how many stitches to drop, how many to add on. Always magic to watch, impossible to explain the unseen mental template doing it’s work, but work it did. Tailors used much the same standards for long enough, adding the “ell” to the sequence, 40 ins. The measure of an “ell” varies over time and country, and over many hundreds of years, but with us was reckoned to be from elbow to fingertip, hence “ell” from elbow. You do not have to believe that, but the ell was much used in my early days, especially for measuring cloth.
Farm hands used Rule of Thumb with uncanny accuracy. A thumb breadth was an inch, so thumb above thumb was used to measure a small distance, sometimes measuring some article and making an exact copy. The blacksmith never seemed to use a rule, just a quick glance, perhaps the span of his hand, and the horse shoe was made. Or chosen from the many horse shoes already made and hanging handily on spikes on the smiddy wall. There was no standard, a shoe might need a tiny touch this way or that to fit the many differing hooves of farm Clydesdales. A quick heat in the forge, a tap or two on the anvil, and a perfect fit time after time. Quite uncanny, and utter magic to watch.
A hand was 4 inches, the span across the palm of the hand. Used to measure the height of a horse to the shoulder, still used in horsey circles. A riding horse of 16 hands is quite high, not for beginners. Cart horses were measured the same way, from the ground at the fore foot of the horse to the crest of the shoulder. No marking needed, just hand over hand upwards from the ground. Still used, but at horsey shows arguments are settled by a Judge, or by a Vet on his day off, by use of a special measuring stick. The hand over hand method is not quite accurate enough when a red First Prize Ticket is in prospect, or indeed the Challenge Cup. The same measurement was the length from the knuckle to the tip of the first finger, 4 inches. Again, I have often seen that method used.
Next came the span of eight inches. Spread hand and measure from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger. Do not over-stretch, just an easy spread of an average hand. Men with huge hands soon learned just how far to stretch their hand, adjust it to the “use and wont” system.
Next to my memory was the cubit, elbow to fingertip. Biblical in use, many measurements were so many cubits high, or long. One arm only, with the fore finger tip of the other hand marking the last point, end over end. And so on and on. A cubit is the first historically recorded unit of length and was one of many different standards of measurement used throughout history. It was originally based on measuring by comparison to one's forearm length, though it varied over the centuries. For our use the forearm did well enough.
Finally, still making use of your arms, the fathom. Outstretched arms, finger tip to finger tip, 6 feet Imperial Measure. Used if course by seamen with a wealth of “Full Fathoms Deep”. Depths at sea were measured in fathoms, also ropes, rigging and anchor cables. Ships were tied at Staxigoe with 50 fathom cables to either side of the narrow harbour, suspending the ships to load their cargoes of grain, exported from Caithness to merchants in Edinburgh through it’s port of Leith, to Norway, Glasgow and Strathnaver, that sad though beautiful Strath who even in 1734 could not feed its population without grain from Caithness. [ Aeneas Bayne 1734 ]
But on land and on the farm we also used the fathom. Stacks were measured by pulling out a handful of straw as a marker, then fathom by fathom round the stack till the marker was again reached. Valuers gave their opinion of the yield of the stacks on change of a tenancy in November, a valuer being appointed for each tenant with an oversman to sort out any disagreements. Valuers took great pride in working out the answer between them without need of a referee to adjudicate. They measured the circumference of the stack by the fathom, a quick glance at it’s height, and then estimated what the yield would be. By such rudimentary methods a yield was agreed.
A 12 ft wide stack steddle as favoured by Caithness was just over 6 fathom, a 14 ft stack steddle – steathe - as favoured by Orkney was just over 7 fathom.
Harvest time. New ropes for the carts where needed were usually 6 fathoms, cut from a huge ball of rope home-made earlier in the loft. For tractor trailers, as we later moved to, ropes were normally 7 fathoms. Two to a cart or trailer, tied at the back and then thrown over the completed load to be fastened tight to the cart shafts or to rings or hooks in the case of trailers. A skilled man would splice the new cut rope ends to stop fraying, sometimes so neat you could hardly see it.
Not to forget the feet. Toe to toe, end over end, 12 inches a time. Not for nothing is a foot called a foot !!! The yard, or pace, was a good long step, practice made perfect, The foreman would set out the bags of seed along the top of the field, and come exactly right. At times a field was not square, but no matter, he still placed them in the exact spot for filling the broadcast sower.
And the ultimate field measurement, setting out your starts for the plough. No tape measure, just that easy pace across the land, and when the finish was near and the strip of land narrowed, rarely was any adjustment needed. The final narrow strip of land might be measured by the foot, just to get the inches right for a perfect finish.








.