Friday 23 September 2011
No 105 A Tea to Remember.
No 105. A tea to remember.
A bowl o’tea was standard in many houses of my early aquaintance. Along with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar, though I have often seen an empty 1lb jam jar doing sterling service as a sugar bowl.
The bothy men had bowls filled with milk and set aside at night for their porridge in the morning. Then the same bowl held their tea to finish their breakfast with oatmeal bannocks or beremeal or flour scones.
Most farmhouses used bowls or mugs rather than teacups but would always have a set of best china for visitors or for the Minister. This was often a set passed down from a previous generation. If so it was treasured and washed only by the Mistress. If any damage was done it was her own fault!!! Kept safely on a shelf in a locked sideboard in the dining room.
We used to admire the different patterns on the fancy tea sets when visiting but as children we never got a cup for ourselves. Far too precious. Always some mugs would be found for us to have a “glass of milk”. The Mugs of 6th May, 1935 of George Vth and Queen Mary’s Silver Jubilee were much in demand, and we all got ones from school as a memento of a special day. Some are still treasured, most I guess are now broken but definitely not all!! I saw one quite recently, it brought back memories.
I never did like having a cup of tea and a saucer in my hand or on my lap, much too precarious. Still don’t!!!
Along with the bowl of tea a table would be blessed with new baked scones, flour scones, bere bread, oatcakes. Cheese and crowdie. Drop scones thickly covered with home made butter and spread with crowdie. Drop scones covered with butter and jam.
Home made jam at that, mostly rhubarb which grew wild as well as in the gardens, often with a bit of ginger in it. Or blackcurrant.
Bringing me back a long way, I was in a house just lately where the bowls appeared, beautifully patterned in deep blue. An empty glass had held a malt whisky, and a good one at that. An adventure with tea in a bowl. Drop scones new baked with crowdie on top, oven scones with thick butter!!! Most enjoyable it was.
I have had other adventures with tea in a bowl.
Going home to Stronsay from Wartime school in Inverness and going out on a very early sailing from Kirkwall on the old S.S.Thorfinn, I had breakfast on board. The galley was indeed small but warm. Another older Stronsay man I knew was also going home for a bit of leave from the Army.
Cooking was done beside us on the galley stove, the smells of Horne’s Orkney Bacon making the mouth water. Thick slices, no modern water cure then!! Fresh eggs. Thick sausages from John T. Flett’s butcher shop. Fried bread. Though rationing was now the order of the day, there was no sign of it on the Thorfinn!!
Orkney butter, Orkney cheese, jam, loaf bread in thick slices. Nestles Condensed Milk in a tin. Sugar in a jar. And scaldingly hot strong black tea in a bowl.
The other memorable tea in a bowl I had was many years later at the Dounby Show. David Leggat of Macdonald Fraser Marts from Perth, by then United Auctions, was going to Dounby to judge at the Show. I got a lift from him from the St Ola at Stromness in his hire car. It was early, the pens were just beginning to fill and judging not yet begun.
The tea tent, actually making use of an old slate roofed building, was open. I was first in, getting No 1 ticket off a roll of raffle tickets being made use of. Orphir W.R.I. was doing the catering that year, though I believe it rotates around the branches.
Trestle tables and stackable chairs. On the table home baked thick flour scones, beremeal bannocks, scones, oat cakes, loaf bread, home made butter and farm house cheese. I filled myself. And then one of the lassies topped it all when she came over to me and asked me “Wid thu like some fancies??” No chance, no room.
And to top it all, scaldingly hot strong black tea in a bowl.
A bowl o’tea was standard in many houses of my early aquaintance. Along with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar, though I have often seen an empty 1lb jam jar doing sterling service as a sugar bowl.
The bothy men had bowls filled with milk and set aside at night for their porridge in the morning. Then the same bowl held their tea to finish their breakfast with oatmeal bannocks or beremeal or flour scones.
Most farmhouses used bowls or mugs rather than teacups but would always have a set of best china for visitors or for the Minister. This was often a set passed down from a previous generation. If so it was treasured and washed only by the Mistress. If any damage was done it was her own fault!!! Kept safely on a shelf in a locked sideboard in the dining room.
We used to admire the different patterns on the fancy tea sets when visiting but as children we never got a cup for ourselves. Far too precious. Always some mugs would be found for us to have a “glass of milk”. The Mugs of 6th May, 1935 of George Vth and Queen Mary’s Silver Jubilee were much in demand, and we all got ones from school as a memento of a special day. Some are still treasured, most I guess are now broken but definitely not all!! I saw one quite recently, it brought back memories.
I never did like having a cup of tea and a saucer in my hand or on my lap, much too precarious. Still don’t!!!
Along with the bowl of tea a table would be blessed with new baked scones, flour scones, bere bread, oatcakes. Cheese and crowdie. Drop scones thickly covered with home made butter and spread with crowdie. Drop scones covered with butter and jam.
Home made jam at that, mostly rhubarb which grew wild as well as in the gardens, often with a bit of ginger in it. Or blackcurrant.
Bringing me back a long way, I was in a house just lately where the bowls appeared, beautifully patterned in deep blue. An empty glass had held a malt whisky, and a good one at that. An adventure with tea in a bowl. Drop scones new baked with crowdie on top, oven scones with thick butter!!! Most enjoyable it was.
I have had other adventures with tea in a bowl.
Going home to Stronsay from Wartime school in Inverness and going out on a very early sailing from Kirkwall on the old S.S.Thorfinn, I had breakfast on board. The galley was indeed small but warm. Another older Stronsay man I knew was also going home for a bit of leave from the Army.
Cooking was done beside us on the galley stove, the smells of Horne’s Orkney Bacon making the mouth water. Thick slices, no modern water cure then!! Fresh eggs. Thick sausages from John T. Flett’s butcher shop. Fried bread. Though rationing was now the order of the day, there was no sign of it on the Thorfinn!!
Orkney butter, Orkney cheese, jam, loaf bread in thick slices. Nestles Condensed Milk in a tin. Sugar in a jar. And scaldingly hot strong black tea in a bowl.
The other memorable tea in a bowl I had was many years later at the Dounby Show. David Leggat of Macdonald Fraser Marts from Perth, by then United Auctions, was going to Dounby to judge at the Show. I got a lift from him from the St Ola at Stromness in his hire car. It was early, the pens were just beginning to fill and judging not yet begun.
The tea tent, actually making use of an old slate roofed building, was open. I was first in, getting No 1 ticket off a roll of raffle tickets being made use of. Orphir W.R.I. was doing the catering that year, though I believe it rotates around the branches.
Trestle tables and stackable chairs. On the table home baked thick flour scones, beremeal bannocks, scones, oat cakes, loaf bread, home made butter and farm house cheese. I filled myself. And then one of the lassies topped it all when she came over to me and asked me “Wid thu like some fancies??” No chance, no room.
And to top it all, scaldingly hot strong black tea in a bowl.
Friday 16 September 2011
No 105 Fanners.
No 105. FANNERS.
At Whitehall we had a fanners in the loft, hand powered, every farm had one. Some farms had two, much used to clean up grain for selling or for seed. Many farms had two lofts if not three, and each loft had its own fanners as they were relatively cheap and it was easier to have one in each loft rather than tediously moving one around. Not too heavy but a bit clumsy for moving through doors and down and up stairs to different lofts although moving along the floor of a loft to each heap of grain was easy. At Lower Dounreay from Nov. 1953 to May 1956 we had three lofts each with its own fanners, though we did not use them much.
At Isauld we had a good fanners taken up from Lower Dounreay in 1956 but we had an excellent new Garvie threshing mill that cleaned grain to perfection. Full finishing, double fan, adjustable wire screen, loft conveyer, bruising as we threshed.
Fanners preceded proper thrashing mills by quite some time and were the forerunner of the threshing mill. In 1784 Andrew Meikle, a Scotsman, put together the simple hand mill and the even older fanners to build his first proper threshing mill. This he patented. He improved his design which has lasted the test of long years and is still the basis of most threshing machines and then on to the combine. The only attempt to move away from Meikle’s old straw walker system was Massey Ferguson who quite some years ago built and sold a cylindrical straw walker combine which worked well enough but is I think now forgotten. It did not do too well with damp straw, Caithness has plenty!! It worked well enough in North America where the harvest conditions were so very much drier, but that machine did not last long in production.
Winnowing grain consisted of throwing it into the air and letting the wind blow the chaff and bits of straw to one side. Still done outdoors in some of the poorer parts of the World for rice or millet. There is the well known feature of two opposing winnowing doors in nearly all old roofless croft barns still to be found everywhere. The old system of having two doors opposite each other in the barn for winnowing only worked if the wind was blowing. Often grain was taken outdoors and winnowed on a clean flagstone-floored stance kept for that purpose. Or on a bit of hard beaten clay ground outside the barn door.
The invention of the fanners was much needed, but it was a tedious task, one man turning the handle, one man filling the hopper with a scoop box from the grain heap and taking away the cleaned grain. Then they would change round for a spell. They were a much needed adjunct to the flail and to early threshing machines which did not do a good job of cleaning chaff from grain.
I have done that work in my younger days, turning the fanners handle at a certain measured pace, not too fast, not too slow. That determined the force of the blast of air which separated the grain from the chaff and controlled the quality of the grain you wanted to sell or put to the meal mill. It was quite heavy work if you were at it all day.
I was told there was a design of fanners where there were two handles, one either side. The idea was to maintain a steadier flow of air from the fan as with the handles being opposed one man was pushing while the other pulled. It would have needed three men to work it and did not find favour. I never saw one.
At first there was only one grain outlet at the side but fanners soon developed into two outlets with heavier grain out of one and lighter out of the other. Chaff and bits of straw flew out over the end. There is an excellent fanners at Laidhay Museum, supplied by W. & A. Geddes Wick , Agents. I was informed they made their own fanners long since but they could have sold on ones made elsewhere. Back a 100 years ago many farm articles were made locally by skilled men. To make fanners in Wick would not have been difficult.
The Foundry in Thurso, McKidd followed by Hutchinson, made many bits for them and for others.
Two Shearer brothers who came from Canisbay went to Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and set
up in business as Millwrights. They could have learned their trade with Geddes. They
manufactured and distributed many good small hand mills suitable for crofters and also
made good fanners. Like so many other small businesses, as a firm they are long gone.
At Whitehall we had a fanners in the loft, hand powered, every farm had one. Some farms had two, much used to clean up grain for selling or for seed. Many farms had two lofts if not three, and each loft had its own fanners as they were relatively cheap and it was easier to have one in each loft rather than tediously moving one around. Not too heavy but a bit clumsy for moving through doors and down and up stairs to different lofts although moving along the floor of a loft to each heap of grain was easy. At Lower Dounreay from Nov. 1953 to May 1956 we had three lofts each with its own fanners, though we did not use them much.
At Isauld we had a good fanners taken up from Lower Dounreay in 1956 but we had an excellent new Garvie threshing mill that cleaned grain to perfection. Full finishing, double fan, adjustable wire screen, loft conveyer, bruising as we threshed.
Fanners preceded proper thrashing mills by quite some time and were the forerunner of the threshing mill. In 1784 Andrew Meikle, a Scotsman, put together the simple hand mill and the even older fanners to build his first proper threshing mill. This he patented. He improved his design which has lasted the test of long years and is still the basis of most threshing machines and then on to the combine. The only attempt to move away from Meikle’s old straw walker system was Massey Ferguson who quite some years ago built and sold a cylindrical straw walker combine which worked well enough but is I think now forgotten. It did not do too well with damp straw, Caithness has plenty!! It worked well enough in North America where the harvest conditions were so very much drier, but that machine did not last long in production.
Winnowing grain consisted of throwing it into the air and letting the wind blow the chaff and bits of straw to one side. Still done outdoors in some of the poorer parts of the World for rice or millet. There is the well known feature of two opposing winnowing doors in nearly all old roofless croft barns still to be found everywhere. The old system of having two doors opposite each other in the barn for winnowing only worked if the wind was blowing. Often grain was taken outdoors and winnowed on a clean flagstone-floored stance kept for that purpose. Or on a bit of hard beaten clay ground outside the barn door.
The invention of the fanners was much needed, but it was a tedious task, one man turning the handle, one man filling the hopper with a scoop box from the grain heap and taking away the cleaned grain. Then they would change round for a spell. They were a much needed adjunct to the flail and to early threshing machines which did not do a good job of cleaning chaff from grain.
I have done that work in my younger days, turning the fanners handle at a certain measured pace, not too fast, not too slow. That determined the force of the blast of air which separated the grain from the chaff and controlled the quality of the grain you wanted to sell or put to the meal mill. It was quite heavy work if you were at it all day.
I was told there was a design of fanners where there were two handles, one either side. The idea was to maintain a steadier flow of air from the fan as with the handles being opposed one man was pushing while the other pulled. It would have needed three men to work it and did not find favour. I never saw one.
At first there was only one grain outlet at the side but fanners soon developed into two outlets with heavier grain out of one and lighter out of the other. Chaff and bits of straw flew out over the end. There is an excellent fanners at Laidhay Museum, supplied by W. & A. Geddes Wick , Agents. I was informed they made their own fanners long since but they could have sold on ones made elsewhere. Back a 100 years ago many farm articles were made locally by skilled men. To make fanners in Wick would not have been difficult.
The Foundry in Thurso, McKidd followed by Hutchinson, made many bits for them and for others.
Two Shearer brothers who came from Canisbay went to Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and set
up in business as Millwrights. They could have learned their trade with Geddes. They
manufactured and distributed many good small hand mills suitable for crofters and also
made good fanners. Like so many other small businesses, as a firm they are long gone.
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