Ni 77. Lighting in the Steading.

No 77. LIGHTING IN THE STEADING.

As the dark days of Mid-winter close around us, and I see lights from horizon to horizon, I think of my early days and the wee glimmers that saw us through a winter to next summer. You might see a light in a far off cottage window, or a dancing light as someone carrying a lantern crossed to the steading. We did not think on lighting in the steading, we knew no other than the square paraffin oil lantern and the occasional Tilley lantern possessed by many if not most of the farmers. There were also a number of other makes of Hurricane Lanterns, I cannot recall the makers.
The dwelling houses of course had good lamps, some very ornate indeed, at least good enough to read by. Single wicks and double wicks in some fancier ones. Green or clear glass oil bowls which let you see the oil level, clear glass chimneys in many forms from totally utilitarian to very ornate indeed. Glass bowl chimneys on some. Fancy shades on some, but the one at the top of the stairs sitting in a recess outside our bedroom door was quite simple, basic you could say. On his way to bed our father blew that one out. No more reading in bed through a chink in the door jamb with the book held sideways to catch the light. These are now collectors pieces.
We did not have a Tilley lamp but they did give good light. The steading ones were a bit heavy on fragile gauze mantles which did not stand too much banging around, but they were good stationary lights. There was a house version on a high stand for sitting rooms and one for setting on a table or sideboard, and of course the outdoor version capable of withstanding the fiercest storm. Most of the men had them, but I think our mother could not stand the everlasting hissing of the Tilley, soft though it was. She preferred Aladdin Mantle Lamps which gave a kindly and very good soft reading light, though capable of sooting up and actually going on fire. Could leave a room needing repapering, at least once to my recollection!!. Or was it a good excuse for some new wallpaper !!
The ubiquitous square red paraffin-oil lanterns would give a slender warm glow where-ever they were in the steading, but their range was limited. Every building had at least one, normally a lot more, hung on high from small pulleys with metal wheels or just a polished groove in a wooden pulley block through which a thin cord ran to raise or lower the lantern, tied securely to a small bracket high on the wall. These pulleys would be as high as possible to give the maximum spread of light, suspended either from the cross beams of the rafters or the couple legs themselves, high enough to be well out of risk of accidental damage. In the byres they were positioned more at the back wall out of the way of pitchforkfulls of straw or hay being thrown into the cattle hecks or racks over their heads.
The feeders byre, with the milking cows in their stalls at the end next the house and the dairy, our first stop on many a morning, had one next the connecting door into the adjacent turnip shed and four spaced along the byre. Most buildings had several along their entire length. A box of matches was obligatory. The thrashing mill had one just above the feeder at the drum to better let him see what he was doing, though his instincts were sharp. They needed to be. I knew one man, Bob Lennie of Nearhouse, who had a hand taken off at the age of 19. Years later his remaining hand was like a vice if you were stupid enough to shake it.
These lanterns were serviced in a wee shed well away from the rest of the buildings, part of the free standing cart sheds. Health and Safety would approve I think. Soft clean cloths to clean and shine the lamp chimneys and the glass sides and a can of paraffin lamp oil and a filler to refill the bowls. The paraffin was usually got from one of the Vans. There were always a few spare lanterns with newly trimmed wicks and ready filled, the total number on the farm must have been great. I think one of the house girls looked after them, neater and tidier than most of the men anyway!!!
In use the lamps had to be watched, a wick could get over exited and the lamp go up in smokey flame. Wicks needed fairly frequent trimming too, had to be level to give good light. .
The Annual Ploughing Match of Vintage Tractors with Andrew Mackay at West Greenland when the old timers get going, both men and machines in some cases, brings back to me the warm evocative smell of paraffin oil, not unlike that of the lanterns. The soft whisper of the old petrol / paraffin tractors is worth listening to in the field as a change from the hammering diesel of modern tractors. The starting handle sticking out the front is an added punctuation mark reminder of Times Gone By.
In Stronsay there were knackey men who fitted a small wind generator to their house gable end and had electric light from a bank of Sulphuric Acid batteries. I think Stroma was much in that category too.
Time moved on, and at Greenland Mains in the Spring of 1951 we finally got a Lister Electric Instamatic Generator. Farm House only. It started automatically when a light was switched on, stopped when the last light was switched off Installed by Aulds of Halkirk, who also wired the House. If any of us came home late, tiptoe in and DO NOT switch on a light. After the Hydro Board installed Mains power about 1953 that Lister Instamatic finally found its way to Stronsay, who got it I cannot recall. I think one is still working in Rackwick in Hoy where they have no Main Line electricity. We were at Rackwick last summer and I heard the old familiar Lister song from one of the nearby houses.
At Lower Dounreay we had a lighting plant with a really sweet diesel engine, put in pre War by the late Jack Davidson, running quietly for an hour or so a day to charge a range of large glass acid batteries to give us 110 volts for lights in the House, though no power points. No supply to the steading where we had what I grew up with, the ubiquitous paraffin lantern. Filled in the oil shed next the massive Campbell Thrashing Mill engine, but do not mix the paraffins. Lamp oil was cleaner.

Only in May 1956 when we moved to Isauld did we get Hydro Power. The Hydro Board said they would not put it into Lower Dounreay as we were scheduled to move out of our first home shortly anyway to make way for the U.K.A.E.A. Isauld House and Farm Steading were wired and we moved in to switches and floods of light everywhere. Power points too. Quite a change.