No 92. DROVING CATTLE to CARLISLE.
A Long Time Ago I wrote in The Orkney View about John Tait of Campton. He was one of my great grandfathers, born in Grotistoft in Caithness, a 93 acre farm in the Hill of Barrock. The two old houses and the steading there were cleared in 1843. They now lie deserted, roofless, the walls broken down, another fading monument to the past. He was the father of my grand uncle William Tait of the Diaries, and it is from William that I got the story of their far off days cattle droving from Orkney to Carlisle. That entailed boats. In his own words my great grandfather wrote :-
“Two weeks ago, after making my will in Kirkwall on the 18th of July, 1894, and prodded by my wife Jessie Steven, I wrote down a few words about my early years, dealing and shipping cattle from Orkney to Caithness, then droving them South to Thomas Morton in Brough near Carlisle. I was born in Grotistoft in 1822 so it is a long, long story.
My father James Tait, tenant of Inkstack after May 1843, my elder brother William and my brother-in-law John Tait married to my sister Janet, were staying the Census night of 1841 at the Ferry Inn in St Marys in Holm in Orkney belonging to a man called Annal. Two Swanson lads were with them and they were enumerated as cattle dealers. They were going round the Orkney farms to buy cattle where they could.
.
William was born in 1809 in Dunnet and was followed by five daughters before four
more sons appeared. Never was that close to him, though, with that 13 year gap, and
he was grown up and had left school before I remember him. He was pretty much our
father's boy and he was away with our father most of the time I mind, dealing for cattle
and droving them south. He was the first of the Grotistoft Taits to move to Orkney. Our
father James and brother William often went to Orkney to buy cattle, usually in early June when the grass was growing and the cattle were picking up a bit after the hard wintering the Orkneymen gave them. The weather was also better for shipping by then and grazing them on the long way South. This dealing and droving went on for a lot of years and they must have done well enough at it, or at least “Got by”.
Anyway, William saw a chance in 1845 to establish himself better in Orkney when Quanterness came up for let. It had been the Town Moor of Kirkwall, just poor grass and a lot of heather. It had been sold in 1836 by the Town Council to Leut James Cumming, rtd on half pay. Cumming died a young man suddenly and accidentally in Quanterness House, newly built by him. So the farm was put up for let on an improving lease by his brother William Cumming, Commissariat General for the Forces and living in Regents Park in London. An “Improving Lease” was on utterly untouched land with no buildings. That had to be built by the incoming tenant. The first seven years of an “Improving Lease” were rent free, the next seven at a third of a rent, the final seven at two thirds. After 21 years the land was expected to bear full rental. And the Laird had a farm.
They used to load the Mainland cattle on Orkney boats on the Ayre at Skaildaquoy Point, holding twelve cattle each, running the boats aground about the last of the ebb tide, a gey coorse loading job needing strong men. The boats were pretty dour to sail against the wind with a dozen cattle aboard, but the Orkneymen knew their tides.
The year after the Census of 1841 when I was 19 year old I went with them to Orkney dealing, and most of the time I was in the North Isles. I got on better with the North Isles men, some of the Mainland men were pretty sharp.
We made a bargain where we could and the terms were that the North Isles men had to take their cattle within a certain ten days to Camess near Kirkwall which was rough grazing ground at that time and part of Kirkwall Commons. They were herded and grazed there until it was time to load for Caithness.
The North Isles men got paid for their cattle when they delivered them to Carness and some of their boats stayed on to get the hire from us to take the beasts over the Firth. I think at that time they got about £4 for a good beast, less for a smaller one.
We had lads out of Kirkwall to herd the cattle on Carness and had many a good laugh with them. One of the biggest lots we had was about 216 cattle and we hired eighteen boats to carry them at 12 cattle each, mostly North Isles boats. They loaded inside the Bay of Work, usually on the beach.
There were no harbours then along the coast, all we needed was a sandy or gravelly beach to run the boats ashore. We then tied a rope to the top of the mast and pulled the boats over on their side and the cattle literally walked on or off. All that was needed was some strong men who knew the sea. When loaded the boats floated off on the rising flood tide and got into the east going flood through the String which took them round Mull Head in Deerness in no time at all, and then set southerly off Copinsay and ran through Lamb Sound at St Mary’s in Holm into Scapa Flow, and then to Caithness if the weather held. Otherwise they could go into St Margarets in South Ronaldshay into Longhope in Hoy to shelter for a while and wait for better weather.
About 2,000 cattle a year went out of Orkney that way in my early days but now with steam navigation most of them are going South by steamer to Aberdeen and some to Leith. A lot of farmers liked to get a price for their beasts on the farm, especially in the North Isles. We took the cattle to Grotistoft to rest up after the crossing and shoe their hooves with iron plates for the long walk South. At times we had other grazing in Caithness if we had a lot of cattle to hold because Grotistoft was only ninety acres. After we went to Inkstack in 1843 we did less dealing.
Carlisle was about 400 miles to drove the cattle to Morton and we used to take about four weeks to move 250 cattle south. We could hurry them if need be but they did not travel so well. Mostly we stayed overnight in bothies or at inns on the way, but sometimes we slept rough with the cattle. It was a tough life.
My father thought Morton had consumption as he died early at the age of fifty-two. Morton knew a man called John Tate in Carlisle who had been a Topsman or Conductor of Drifts of cattle in his early days but I doubt if there was any connection.
Morton came from Ayrshire originally though around Carlisle.there were some Taits/Tates. Most of the Orkney cattle were grazed by Morton at Brough on the saltings of the Solway. Then they were driven across the Pennines into Yorkshire and even into East Anglia to be winter finished on better land. Leicestershire was also a good market in summer, rich grazing farms.
The Orkney cattle fattened very easily but they were poor sorts when I first saw them. They were of the old native black breed and I have seen first the Argyle or Highland coming in and then the Shorthorn and now the Aberdeen Angus. No doubt in another hundred years there will be other breeds coming into Orkney but the Aberdeen-Angus crosses I see now are very good cattle, no comparison at all with the little black runts I used to drove. Come to that the farming has changed as well beyond recognition. So that was how I spent my early days, brought up and farming in Caithness, dealing in Orkney for cattle, taking them across the Pentland Firth in small open boats of about twenty-four feet keel with one mast and a big lug sail and six oars when we needed them to get off or on the beach, then droving the cattle 400 miles to Carlisle. Later we did not go so far, mostly to Falkirk as the English buyers came north to meet us. I think I could walk that old road in my sleep.”
John Tait died at Campston, St Andrews, Orkney on 21st November, 1901, aged 79. .
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Sunday, 17 April 2011
No 91. A Bigger Boat. pb 15.04.2011
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 91. BIGGER BOATS.
At Midgarth in Stronsay Dod and Alex Tait, our granduncles, had several small boats and a towed flat bottomed barge for carrying sheep and Shetland Ponies to and from now deserted Midgarth Holm. The old houses once lived in are still there. More usually called Linga Holm, our gulls eggs Island, now taken over by the RSPB and a Grey Lag Goose sanctuary with devastating effects on nearby Stronsay farms!!
Dod and Alex also had the Hindenberg, the Admiral’s boat from the German Battleship of that name, scuttled in Scapa Flow with the German Grand Fleet in 1919. Many ship launches survived as they were used to take the German sailers ashore from their sinking warships. Only a few sailers were shot in the kerfluffle and lie forever in the local Cemetary at Lyness. A beautiful boat as befitted an Admiral’s Barge, but also very well built and practical, fitted with a superb engine. Used by Dod and Alec for towing the barge to the Holm and sometimes for special trips.
There was one occasion when our Uncle Steven from Birmingham in Staffordshire was home at Whitehall on holiday. Actually he came from Willenhall where his medical practice was but we always said Birmingham as that was the Big City for which Willenhall was and is an outlying town.
The Midgarth men, Dod and Alex,, our father, his brother Steven, and I think one or two more for company, went with the Hindenberg a day to Eday to visit Jamie Stevenson in Carrick House, then farming there. He eventually moved to Midhouse in Evie on the Mainland,.still family owned.
Carrick House was spectacularly positioned on the Eday shore of Calf Sound and from it’s own small pier the boat came out to the Steamer when it did not call at Eday Pier, lying at slow speed in the Sound till loading and unloading was done. On the west going ebb tide it always fascinated us as the ship turned round to face the ebb tide but the wrong way round for us going to Westray,, keeping position as need be with the engine slowly turning at half speed or slower.
In bad weather narrow Calf Sound could be spectacularly and notoriously a sea-sick passage, with the Red Head on the Eday side and the Grey Head on the Calf of Eday on the other. Indeed there were not many places in the North Isles where a bad passage could not be encountered when wind and tide declared it.
Calf Sound also always fascinating for us on our way to Westray to visit our uncle Bill as it was there that the Wick born pirate John Gow and his vessel “The Revenge”, ran aground on the Calf of Eday by missing stays in the narrow tidal channel. They were captured on February 17th 1725 by his so called friend James Fea of Carrick House, also of Clestrain in Stronsay. Gow and seven of his crew were subsequently hanged together at Execution Dock in London.
Quote- “Gow had asked for a speedy dispatch so the executioner pulled him by the legs, but so hard that the rope broke. So Gow, still alive and sensible enough to climb the ladder a second time, returned to the gallows to be hung for a second time. Their bodies were left in the Thames for "three tides" after which the corpses of the two ringleaders were bound in chains and tarred before being hung on the river bank of the Thames - a grim warning for those who might follow in the footsteps of the Orkney Pirate”
John Gow was the hero, if you can call him that, for Capt Cleveland in Sir Walter Scott’s Book “The Pirate”, set in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Scott was given credit for coining the modern name “Jarlshof” for that wionderful Archeological site at Sumburgh Head in the South End of Shetland. There we find well preserved remains of Stone Age dwellings right through to the Viking Age and on to a Middle Age Mansion House, now a roofless ruin and sitting on top of a very ancient Brough.
.
The trip from Midgarth on Linga Sound to Carrick on Calf Sound must have been memorable and Jamie Stevenson and his wife provided a sumptious dinner centred around very fat roast ducks. It would be described as “A Grand Feed, boy.”.
I do not know what they had to drink but it must have been copious, probably Home Brewed Orkney Ale, deadly at times. Our father, who was nornmally an excellent sailer, admitted to being sick on the way home across the tide. A man’s stomach can only take so much!!! His brother Steven was quite unsympathetic!!
One of father’s friends was Robbie Stout from Linksness, a good smallish farm at the western tip of Stronsay. He was originally from Westray and a very good. seaman,
David and I went out with him in his boat one evening long ago to have a quiet night’s fishing in Eday Sound. We were equipped with long bamboo rods we called wands, three hooks on each, white goose feather lures, no reels. . We used various other lures for fun but all were taken. The white goose feathers were the best though. It was a good night, we caught almost too many fish to handle. Baskets of them.
Robbies son Jim, a yamal and old school mate of mine, in later years had a seine net fishing boat working out of Stronsay. He was in Kirkwall one time long after we had come to Caithness when I was looking for a passage out to Stronsay, so I hitched a lift, so to speak. He said it would be a rough trip. So I wedged myself tight into a corner of the wheelhouse for the 2½ hour voyage. The sea between Islands could be quite ferocious depending on the tides and the wind, Stronsay Firth being notorious. It lived up to it’s reputation that night.
After safely getting to Stronsay and on dry land once again, I asked Jim just how bad he had seen it. Quite laconic, he said he once took the Stronsay team to an Inter-Island football match with Sanday. On the return trip late in the evening with a bad sea running, he said his seine boat had been laid totally on her side. He thought she would not come upright again. But it did !! Such was Island life. Jim was for a time Coxswain of the Stronsay Lifeboat.
Tom Sinclair of St Catherines near Rousam, on 26 May 1954, set off from St Catherines at the inner end of Rousam Head in Stronsay for Kirkwall in his 23 ft converted ships lifeboat. He was last seen near the Green Holms in Stronsay Firth. It was thought his boat was overwhelmed there by a sea in the strong tide. Wreckage came ashore near the Black Craig in Shapinsay and on Deerness on the Mainland, but Tom’s body was never found. The Stronsay Lifeboat, Edward Z. Dresden, under command of Coxswain Tom Carter, searched the area for 24 hours. Of Tom’s boat they found the mast and some other wreckage but of Tom there was never a trace. He had gone right through the War in the Navy I believe without harm, and was an accomplished seaman.
The last word belongs to Valtheof Olafson, a brother of Swein Asleifson, Asleif being their mother’s name. He was a wealthy Viking farmer in Breck or Brekkur in Stronsay, the old name for Whitehall Farm. A field at the back of the Village is still called Corcubreck. . With his men and a ten oared boat he was heading for Kirkwall en route for the Yule Feast with Earl Paul in his Great Hall in Orphir,.of which traces still exist..
. Crossing the Stronsay Firth towards Kirkwall for the celebrations, about 1100 A.D., they were overwhelmed and never heard of again!!. It was reckoned a sad loss as Valtheof was very accomplished and well thought of.
You never do know with the Sea.
No 91. BIGGER BOATS.
At Midgarth in Stronsay Dod and Alex Tait, our granduncles, had several small boats and a towed flat bottomed barge for carrying sheep and Shetland Ponies to and from now deserted Midgarth Holm. The old houses once lived in are still there. More usually called Linga Holm, our gulls eggs Island, now taken over by the RSPB and a Grey Lag Goose sanctuary with devastating effects on nearby Stronsay farms!!
Dod and Alex also had the Hindenberg, the Admiral’s boat from the German Battleship of that name, scuttled in Scapa Flow with the German Grand Fleet in 1919. Many ship launches survived as they were used to take the German sailers ashore from their sinking warships. Only a few sailers were shot in the kerfluffle and lie forever in the local Cemetary at Lyness. A beautiful boat as befitted an Admiral’s Barge, but also very well built and practical, fitted with a superb engine. Used by Dod and Alec for towing the barge to the Holm and sometimes for special trips.
There was one occasion when our Uncle Steven from Birmingham in Staffordshire was home at Whitehall on holiday. Actually he came from Willenhall where his medical practice was but we always said Birmingham as that was the Big City for which Willenhall was and is an outlying town.
The Midgarth men, Dod and Alex,, our father, his brother Steven, and I think one or two more for company, went with the Hindenberg a day to Eday to visit Jamie Stevenson in Carrick House, then farming there. He eventually moved to Midhouse in Evie on the Mainland,.still family owned.
Carrick House was spectacularly positioned on the Eday shore of Calf Sound and from it’s own small pier the boat came out to the Steamer when it did not call at Eday Pier, lying at slow speed in the Sound till loading and unloading was done. On the west going ebb tide it always fascinated us as the ship turned round to face the ebb tide but the wrong way round for us going to Westray,, keeping position as need be with the engine slowly turning at half speed or slower.
In bad weather narrow Calf Sound could be spectacularly and notoriously a sea-sick passage, with the Red Head on the Eday side and the Grey Head on the Calf of Eday on the other. Indeed there were not many places in the North Isles where a bad passage could not be encountered when wind and tide declared it.
Calf Sound also always fascinating for us on our way to Westray to visit our uncle Bill as it was there that the Wick born pirate John Gow and his vessel “The Revenge”, ran aground on the Calf of Eday by missing stays in the narrow tidal channel. They were captured on February 17th 1725 by his so called friend James Fea of Carrick House, also of Clestrain in Stronsay. Gow and seven of his crew were subsequently hanged together at Execution Dock in London.
Quote- “Gow had asked for a speedy dispatch so the executioner pulled him by the legs, but so hard that the rope broke. So Gow, still alive and sensible enough to climb the ladder a second time, returned to the gallows to be hung for a second time. Their bodies were left in the Thames for "three tides" after which the corpses of the two ringleaders were bound in chains and tarred before being hung on the river bank of the Thames - a grim warning for those who might follow in the footsteps of the Orkney Pirate”
John Gow was the hero, if you can call him that, for Capt Cleveland in Sir Walter Scott’s Book “The Pirate”, set in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Scott was given credit for coining the modern name “Jarlshof” for that wionderful Archeological site at Sumburgh Head in the South End of Shetland. There we find well preserved remains of Stone Age dwellings right through to the Viking Age and on to a Middle Age Mansion House, now a roofless ruin and sitting on top of a very ancient Brough.
.
The trip from Midgarth on Linga Sound to Carrick on Calf Sound must have been memorable and Jamie Stevenson and his wife provided a sumptious dinner centred around very fat roast ducks. It would be described as “A Grand Feed, boy.”.
I do not know what they had to drink but it must have been copious, probably Home Brewed Orkney Ale, deadly at times. Our father, who was nornmally an excellent sailer, admitted to being sick on the way home across the tide. A man’s stomach can only take so much!!! His brother Steven was quite unsympathetic!!
One of father’s friends was Robbie Stout from Linksness, a good smallish farm at the western tip of Stronsay. He was originally from Westray and a very good. seaman,
David and I went out with him in his boat one evening long ago to have a quiet night’s fishing in Eday Sound. We were equipped with long bamboo rods we called wands, three hooks on each, white goose feather lures, no reels. . We used various other lures for fun but all were taken. The white goose feathers were the best though. It was a good night, we caught almost too many fish to handle. Baskets of them.
Robbies son Jim, a yamal and old school mate of mine, in later years had a seine net fishing boat working out of Stronsay. He was in Kirkwall one time long after we had come to Caithness when I was looking for a passage out to Stronsay, so I hitched a lift, so to speak. He said it would be a rough trip. So I wedged myself tight into a corner of the wheelhouse for the 2½ hour voyage. The sea between Islands could be quite ferocious depending on the tides and the wind, Stronsay Firth being notorious. It lived up to it’s reputation that night.
After safely getting to Stronsay and on dry land once again, I asked Jim just how bad he had seen it. Quite laconic, he said he once took the Stronsay team to an Inter-Island football match with Sanday. On the return trip late in the evening with a bad sea running, he said his seine boat had been laid totally on her side. He thought she would not come upright again. But it did !! Such was Island life. Jim was for a time Coxswain of the Stronsay Lifeboat.
Tom Sinclair of St Catherines near Rousam, on 26 May 1954, set off from St Catherines at the inner end of Rousam Head in Stronsay for Kirkwall in his 23 ft converted ships lifeboat. He was last seen near the Green Holms in Stronsay Firth. It was thought his boat was overwhelmed there by a sea in the strong tide. Wreckage came ashore near the Black Craig in Shapinsay and on Deerness on the Mainland, but Tom’s body was never found. The Stronsay Lifeboat, Edward Z. Dresden, under command of Coxswain Tom Carter, searched the area for 24 hours. Of Tom’s boat they found the mast and some other wreckage but of Tom there was never a trace. He had gone right through the War in the Navy I believe without harm, and was an accomplished seaman.
The last word belongs to Valtheof Olafson, a brother of Swein Asleifson, Asleif being their mother’s name. He was a wealthy Viking farmer in Breck or Brekkur in Stronsay, the old name for Whitehall Farm. A field at the back of the Village is still called Corcubreck. . With his men and a ten oared boat he was heading for Kirkwall en route for the Yule Feast with Earl Paul in his Great Hall in Orphir,.of which traces still exist..
. Crossing the Stronsay Firth towards Kirkwall for the celebrations, about 1100 A.D., they were overwhelmed and never heard of again!!. It was reckoned a sad loss as Valtheof was very accomplished and well thought of.
You never do know with the Sea.
Monday, 11 April 2011
No 90. A Small Boat. pb 4.04.2011
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 90. A SMALL BOAT.
Our grandfather David Pottinger of Rousam was called “The Skipper” by his family. As boys we did not know exactly why but our father said he was “a good man in a boat.” I think in retrospect that was an Orkneyman’s understatement, really a well-earned compliment not carelessly bestowed. I think Stroma men would know what he meant.
At Stenaquoy in Eday, on june 03 sat 1905, Wm Tait wrote
Harrowing & rolling all day - Fine dry day - Mr Pottinger, [ David, his b-in-law] Bill Pottinger [David’s son ] G. Drever [ his brother-in-law] & Miss A.J.Drever [ his sister - in - law] came here today in their boat – Miss Drever stayed till Monday.
Our grandfather, then living at the Bu’ of Rousam in Stronsay, kept his boat at the Bay of Bomesty, a good sheltered small bay lying on the west side of Rousam Head and facing Eday about six miles away across the tides. Knowledge of these was essential and second nature. The boat noust at Bomesty was said to date from Viking times, big enough for a Longship. Grandfather’s Rousam boat would be hauled up the beach when not in use, winter.stored in the Noust. From there they would have sailed across to Eday on the west-going ebb tide to visit his brother-in-law Wm Tait for the day. The Drevers, who were Wm’s in-laws, came from the neighbouring farm to Rousam, The Bay of Stronsay.
The Bay of Bomesty had another use as on:-
1898. June 08 wed 2 plows, 6 carts, 1 rolling and sowing some drills neeps am - Boat came today with posts and wire for Craig - 502 posts, 27 coils of wire landed at Bomesty - laying down neeps in West Park - fine day.
1898. June 17 frid morning soft, dressed some oats, 1 pair horses at smiddy - carted some peat mould from stack. Bill set up marks for strainers at the Craig - rainy day.
Bill was our father’s elder brother, second of the family, latterly at Cleat in Westray after sojourns in Canada and in Redhill, Rothienorman, in Aberdeenshire..
Looks like they were putting a new fence along the cliff edge on past the Ossen and Millgrip to keep sheep or cattle from falling over to their deaths. Checking up with Eion Stevenson the present owner of Rousam confirmed that guess, the fence is still there, though no doubt the posts and the wire have been replaced after 110 years.
.
Back in those far off days many small boats worked out of Kirkwall and Stromness. Robert Garden, General Merchant in Kirkwall, who was of great note and came originally from Rayne in Aberdeenshire, had several shopping boats that went as far as Tongue in Sutherlandshire as well as servicing the many small Islands of Orkney. A load of fencing posts and wire from Gardens, or from J. & W. Tait, would have easily been taken out from Kirkwall, the boat run up on the beach at Bomesty at half ebb, the cargo off-loaded onto carts and the boat refloated on the incoming flood tide. Those who can still remember the Vital Spark will easily mind-place [visualise] such.
Later the Diary refers to:-
1896. Dec 23 wed. Thrashing a.m. - 2 men sorting Furgus boat - 3 roofing Lochend byre – Delday 2 carts at Hill for turf for the garden
1898 Apr 04 mon. Morning rough - carting dung am - repairing Furgus boat pm - cold showery day.
“Furgus” has no meaning for me, whether the name of the boat or a type of boat I do not know. Anyway it was being repaired at home by the men. They could turn their hand to almost anything in those days.
A story from the past still going the rounds in Stronsay was that David Pottinger was not happy with the condition of the rabbits in his Rousam Links and came to the conclusion that they were in-breeding too much. He took some of his servants, set off in his boat from the Bay of Bomesty and sailed to Auskerry, a small offshore Island lying to the South East of Stronsay complete with Lighthouse. There they dug out a load of buck rabbits, took them back to Rousam and released them in the Links, thus bringing new blood to the rabbit warrens.!! Genetic engineering in its very infancy.!!
His boat would be a sailing boat which were so common a mode of transport between the Islands in Orkney. Islanders were not dependant solely on the steamer.
Stronsay had many “sma’ bots “, and still does. The Village and the Station was peppered with them, hauled to safety above the water on the beaches. A few men each side and the boat was run up quite easily. For bigger boats they would run them up on roller logs laid across their path. They also had the two piers of the Harbour with safe tying alongside. One or two boats would lie at anchor between the piers, a small skiff boat to take the men out to them, leaving the skiff tied to a buoy till their return from the lobsters. A matter of choice, but the boats at the pier had long ropes fore and aft to tie them up, leaving room for tidal rise and fall, a few old tyres tied to their sides to keep them from chafing on the pier.
We had a small boat below Whitehaa in the Bay of Franks, hauled above the tide on the beach during summer, taken up to the steading for winter. A fourteen foot larch Orkney dinghy, strongly built in the old Viking clinker tradition. Two pairs of oars and rowlocks, two rowing benches, one stern seat, one bow seat, a square stern with a mounted wooden rudder with hand tiller, a single stepped-in mast easily raised and lowered, a standing lug sail on a yard.
We once took it out to explore the concrete barge lying sunk on the shallow bottom in Franks Bay, but paid the penalty of being “resued” by a boat from the village sent out by our mother. Towed in ignomy back to the pier. Father was “in theToon” !!! We did not do it again!! Though the rowlocks were kept up at the house we had put small sticks we found on the beach in the rowlock holes and had got on very well, we thought!! None of us could swim!! .
Our father liked that boat so much he took it to Greenland Mains with him when we emigated from Stronsay in May 1944. I will admit he did not sail it over, though it would make a nice story all the same!!
As boys we sailed it many a time on Loch Heilen, our transport the mile across the Loch to Lochend to see our friends. I am afraid the stronger the wind the better we liked it, laying the boat over till the gunwales lipped the water. It was a good sailing boat too, not a racer but a good handy boat. The standing lug sail, the yard of which did not have to be moved to the other side of the mast on changing tack, meant it could be sailed by one person sitting in the stern, simply moving the halyard across to the other side and switching your seat meantime.
For singe handed sailing we had a few stones to put in the bow as ballast to balance the boat to a good trim. It was a very common style of small boat for Orkney, easily handled, quite broad and very safe, though never ever take the sea for granted.
That boat did us well for many years but eventually ended its days turned over and used as a jump on a cross country course for the North of the Tay Competition held at least twice at Greenland Mains.
Sarah-Ann Gunn, Gerston, clearing the old boat circa 1980S at Greenland Mains at the North of the Tay Competition.
No 90. A SMALL BOAT.
Our grandfather David Pottinger of Rousam was called “The Skipper” by his family. As boys we did not know exactly why but our father said he was “a good man in a boat.” I think in retrospect that was an Orkneyman’s understatement, really a well-earned compliment not carelessly bestowed. I think Stroma men would know what he meant.
At Stenaquoy in Eday, on june 03 sat 1905, Wm Tait wrote
Harrowing & rolling all day - Fine dry day - Mr Pottinger, [ David, his b-in-law] Bill Pottinger [David’s son ] G. Drever [ his brother-in-law] & Miss A.J.Drever [ his sister - in - law] came here today in their boat – Miss Drever stayed till Monday.
Our grandfather, then living at the Bu’ of Rousam in Stronsay, kept his boat at the Bay of Bomesty, a good sheltered small bay lying on the west side of Rousam Head and facing Eday about six miles away across the tides. Knowledge of these was essential and second nature. The boat noust at Bomesty was said to date from Viking times, big enough for a Longship. Grandfather’s Rousam boat would be hauled up the beach when not in use, winter.stored in the Noust. From there they would have sailed across to Eday on the west-going ebb tide to visit his brother-in-law Wm Tait for the day. The Drevers, who were Wm’s in-laws, came from the neighbouring farm to Rousam, The Bay of Stronsay.
The Bay of Bomesty had another use as on:-
1898. June 08 wed 2 plows, 6 carts, 1 rolling and sowing some drills neeps am - Boat came today with posts and wire for Craig - 502 posts, 27 coils of wire landed at Bomesty - laying down neeps in West Park - fine day.
1898. June 17 frid morning soft, dressed some oats, 1 pair horses at smiddy - carted some peat mould from stack. Bill set up marks for strainers at the Craig - rainy day.
Bill was our father’s elder brother, second of the family, latterly at Cleat in Westray after sojourns in Canada and in Redhill, Rothienorman, in Aberdeenshire..
Looks like they were putting a new fence along the cliff edge on past the Ossen and Millgrip to keep sheep or cattle from falling over to their deaths. Checking up with Eion Stevenson the present owner of Rousam confirmed that guess, the fence is still there, though no doubt the posts and the wire have been replaced after 110 years.
.
Back in those far off days many small boats worked out of Kirkwall and Stromness. Robert Garden, General Merchant in Kirkwall, who was of great note and came originally from Rayne in Aberdeenshire, had several shopping boats that went as far as Tongue in Sutherlandshire as well as servicing the many small Islands of Orkney. A load of fencing posts and wire from Gardens, or from J. & W. Tait, would have easily been taken out from Kirkwall, the boat run up on the beach at Bomesty at half ebb, the cargo off-loaded onto carts and the boat refloated on the incoming flood tide. Those who can still remember the Vital Spark will easily mind-place [visualise] such.
Later the Diary refers to:-
1896. Dec 23 wed. Thrashing a.m. - 2 men sorting Furgus boat - 3 roofing Lochend byre – Delday 2 carts at Hill for turf for the garden
1898 Apr 04 mon. Morning rough - carting dung am - repairing Furgus boat pm - cold showery day.
“Furgus” has no meaning for me, whether the name of the boat or a type of boat I do not know. Anyway it was being repaired at home by the men. They could turn their hand to almost anything in those days.
A story from the past still going the rounds in Stronsay was that David Pottinger was not happy with the condition of the rabbits in his Rousam Links and came to the conclusion that they were in-breeding too much. He took some of his servants, set off in his boat from the Bay of Bomesty and sailed to Auskerry, a small offshore Island lying to the South East of Stronsay complete with Lighthouse. There they dug out a load of buck rabbits, took them back to Rousam and released them in the Links, thus bringing new blood to the rabbit warrens.!! Genetic engineering in its very infancy.!!
His boat would be a sailing boat which were so common a mode of transport between the Islands in Orkney. Islanders were not dependant solely on the steamer.
Stronsay had many “sma’ bots “, and still does. The Village and the Station was peppered with them, hauled to safety above the water on the beaches. A few men each side and the boat was run up quite easily. For bigger boats they would run them up on roller logs laid across their path. They also had the two piers of the Harbour with safe tying alongside. One or two boats would lie at anchor between the piers, a small skiff boat to take the men out to them, leaving the skiff tied to a buoy till their return from the lobsters. A matter of choice, but the boats at the pier had long ropes fore and aft to tie them up, leaving room for tidal rise and fall, a few old tyres tied to their sides to keep them from chafing on the pier.
We had a small boat below Whitehaa in the Bay of Franks, hauled above the tide on the beach during summer, taken up to the steading for winter. A fourteen foot larch Orkney dinghy, strongly built in the old Viking clinker tradition. Two pairs of oars and rowlocks, two rowing benches, one stern seat, one bow seat, a square stern with a mounted wooden rudder with hand tiller, a single stepped-in mast easily raised and lowered, a standing lug sail on a yard.
We once took it out to explore the concrete barge lying sunk on the shallow bottom in Franks Bay, but paid the penalty of being “resued” by a boat from the village sent out by our mother. Towed in ignomy back to the pier. Father was “in theToon” !!! We did not do it again!! Though the rowlocks were kept up at the house we had put small sticks we found on the beach in the rowlock holes and had got on very well, we thought!! None of us could swim!! .
Our father liked that boat so much he took it to Greenland Mains with him when we emigated from Stronsay in May 1944. I will admit he did not sail it over, though it would make a nice story all the same!!
As boys we sailed it many a time on Loch Heilen, our transport the mile across the Loch to Lochend to see our friends. I am afraid the stronger the wind the better we liked it, laying the boat over till the gunwales lipped the water. It was a good sailing boat too, not a racer but a good handy boat. The standing lug sail, the yard of which did not have to be moved to the other side of the mast on changing tack, meant it could be sailed by one person sitting in the stern, simply moving the halyard across to the other side and switching your seat meantime.
For singe handed sailing we had a few stones to put in the bow as ballast to balance the boat to a good trim. It was a very common style of small boat for Orkney, easily handled, quite broad and very safe, though never ever take the sea for granted.
That boat did us well for many years but eventually ended its days turned over and used as a jump on a cross country course for the North of the Tay Competition held at least twice at Greenland Mains.
Sarah-Ann Gunn, Gerston, clearing the old boat circa 1980S at Greenland Mains at the North of the Tay Competition.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
St Magnus loading. pre 1918.
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 90. LOADING CATTLE - OR HORSES.
Our North Isles shipping began for us at Stronsay Pier and ended at Kirkwall. The Earl Thorfinn went in on Mondays from the North Isles with cattle on board, either destined for the Kirkwall Auction Mart in Junction Road or for onward passage to Aberdeen.
The Thorfinn would tie up in Kirkwall on the west side of the pier, and on the East side would be the St Magnus, the “Sooth Boat”, lying behind the Storeshed and waiting to load cattle direct from the North Isles ships.
There was an underpass through the pier against the entrances of which the ships were positioned to allow cattle to cross between them.
Sailing time for the St Magnus was 6 p.m. to get to Aberdeen next morning. Iit was a bit of a social occasion as people went down the pier ro see off their friends, or just to have a look at what was going on.
. A bit of good-natured banter passed between ship and shore as she cast off.
on her journey. The cattle on arival in Aberdeen were then driven in a loose mob up the streets of Aberdeen to Kittybrewster Market.
. Alex Mackay, of Thurso Harbour Fish Shop, was crane boy on a later. I did not know him then though he must have been on the Magnus in my time, or a little bit later. Crane boy meant that he was responsible for swinging the derrick from ship to shore, and vice versa, raising and lowering the beast and all the other cargo by a steel wire rope on the winch.
The steam operated winches were housed in a central booth or mini-cabin which swung around with the derrick, giving good all round vision.
A heavy rope-edged canvas sling with two strong heavy horizontal wooden poles to keep the canvas taught and four substantial chains to lift it by the corners was passed under the beast’s belly.
Then the cable was hooked on and the craneboy began his lift, a very responsible task. The beast’s head was held tight by a strong man on the halter and the animal was steadied by men on either side. The halter was let go when the animal had it’s feet off the ground and at which point it ceased to struggle. The halter went with the beast onboard to tie it up in the pens below deck.
Loading cattle one by one using a sling was a slow process but the men were good at it, and the cattle disappeared down the hatch for penning in the hold below.
On the North Isles ships we saw such loading or unloading, often dependant on the state of the tide. Horses and cattle both.
On occasion a beast was loaded off a small boat coming out from Papa Westray, which I do remember, and sometimes in Calf Sound.
Shetland ponies were also on the list, and Dod and Alec Tait, our grand uncles at Midgarth in Stronsay, had a small herd of them on Linga Holm that sometimes needed shipping out.
A typical year of cattle shipping from our grandfather David from the Bu’ of Rousam in Stronsay on the old S.S.Orcadia, is recorded in Wm Tait’s Diaries.
The year was 1899 and he writes of shipping 36 cattle and two horses and receiving 13 cattle and a pony.
How they loaded them I do not know, but there is no reason to doubt that the same method pertained.
The tidal rise and fall in the North Isles could be as much as 15 feet on a Spring Tide - so sometimes the ship would be level with the pier and the cattle could be walked onboard over a gangway.
At other times loading must have been by the crane. Sheep and pigs were loaded in crates holding quite a number at once.
Live poultry in crates also.
With several Islands to call on during the day the ships had to take whatever tide there was, high or low, though they could vary their route to best advantage to avoid the awkward Islands with shallow piers such as Sanday and particularly Eday..
No 90. LOADING CATTLE - OR HORSES.
Our North Isles shipping began for us at Stronsay Pier and ended at Kirkwall. The Earl Thorfinn went in on Mondays from the North Isles with cattle on board, either destined for the Kirkwall Auction Mart in Junction Road or for onward passage to Aberdeen.
The Thorfinn would tie up in Kirkwall on the west side of the pier, and on the East side would be the St Magnus, the “Sooth Boat”, lying behind the Storeshed and waiting to load cattle direct from the North Isles ships.
There was an underpass through the pier against the entrances of which the ships were positioned to allow cattle to cross between them.
Sailing time for the St Magnus was 6 p.m. to get to Aberdeen next morning. Iit was a bit of a social occasion as people went down the pier ro see off their friends, or just to have a look at what was going on.
. A bit of good-natured banter passed between ship and shore as she cast off.
on her journey. The cattle on arival in Aberdeen were then driven in a loose mob up the streets of Aberdeen to Kittybrewster Market.
. Alex Mackay, of Thurso Harbour Fish Shop, was crane boy on a later. I did not know him then though he must have been on the Magnus in my time, or a little bit later. Crane boy meant that he was responsible for swinging the derrick from ship to shore, and vice versa, raising and lowering the beast and all the other cargo by a steel wire rope on the winch.
The steam operated winches were housed in a central booth or mini-cabin which swung around with the derrick, giving good all round vision.
A heavy rope-edged canvas sling with two strong heavy horizontal wooden poles to keep the canvas taught and four substantial chains to lift it by the corners was passed under the beast’s belly.
Then the cable was hooked on and the craneboy began his lift, a very responsible task. The beast’s head was held tight by a strong man on the halter and the animal was steadied by men on either side. The halter was let go when the animal had it’s feet off the ground and at which point it ceased to struggle. The halter went with the beast onboard to tie it up in the pens below deck.
Loading cattle one by one using a sling was a slow process but the men were good at it, and the cattle disappeared down the hatch for penning in the hold below.
On the North Isles ships we saw such loading or unloading, often dependant on the state of the tide. Horses and cattle both.
On occasion a beast was loaded off a small boat coming out from Papa Westray, which I do remember, and sometimes in Calf Sound.
Shetland ponies were also on the list, and Dod and Alec Tait, our grand uncles at Midgarth in Stronsay, had a small herd of them on Linga Holm that sometimes needed shipping out.
A typical year of cattle shipping from our grandfather David from the Bu’ of Rousam in Stronsay on the old S.S.Orcadia, is recorded in Wm Tait’s Diaries.
The year was 1899 and he writes of shipping 36 cattle and two horses and receiving 13 cattle and a pony.
How they loaded them I do not know, but there is no reason to doubt that the same method pertained.
The tidal rise and fall in the North Isles could be as much as 15 feet on a Spring Tide - so sometimes the ship would be level with the pier and the cattle could be walked onboard over a gangway.
At other times loading must have been by the crane. Sheep and pigs were loaded in crates holding quite a number at once.
Live poultry in crates also.
With several Islands to call on during the day the ships had to take whatever tide there was, high or low, though they could vary their route to best advantage to avoid the awkward Islands with shallow piers such as Sanday and particularly Eday..
Saturday, 5 March 2011
No 88 Kelp Making.
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 88. KELP MAKING.
Kelp making was one of our pre-War tasks in Stronsay, though it had a very long history going back to 1719 when James Fea of Whitehall began the Industry in Stronsay. It provided iodine, potash and soda used in glass and soap manufacture, and was at times in short supply due to various American and French Wars. The Industry finally ended just prewar, about 1937 I think.
Kelp was produced by burning dried seaweed in stone lined pits above the beach. Gathered at low tide, or thrown up by storm, the seaweed was first spread and dried on low open stone dykes to be ready for the kilns. The burning was a slow smoky process taking about two days for a full kiln with constant replenishing.
There were many crofters in Rousam who made a bit of their living by burning kelp when they could. Though no longer then living at Rousam, our Father during the First War wrote a poem in 1914 while stationed in Stronsay with 20 different crofters mentioned in Rousam. Not all would be kelpers. The work would go on all summer as other work allowed, fitting in with farm work and the herring fishing season. Even if the men were down in the Village carting herring or employed in other work the croft women would be gathering sea weed for kelp burning as available, carrying it laboriously above the beach.
We looked out from Whitehall down to the Ness, part of the farm anyway, and saw the spirals of heavy acrid grey-white smoke drifting skywards. I remember going down to the Ness with our father who was oversman for the kelp workers. He weighed the finished product, checked that no stones were included, kept order where needed, determined if some one had strayed onto someone elses stint, marked by this rock or that. I do not know if stints were changed or not, I do not think it was a free for all but each would have his own drying dykes and his own kiln pit. Certainly when the sea weed was in it had to be snatched before the next high tide took it out again. Wet heavy material to work with, cold too.
The crusted burnt kelp ash was broken up, raked over and then carted to store to be ready for shipping at the end of the season. Normally that would be late in August as from Rousam in 1900. Then harvest and wetter weather would put a stop to kelp work, the men returning each to their own harvests.
Father told us how, when he was young, they did the same kelping at Rousam as at Whitehall, the work being done by the many crofters on Rousam Head and their wives. The eventual buyer could have been the Balfour Estate who owned much of Stronsay. Our grandfather shipped kelp from Rousam on Sat. 21st and Mon. 23rd August 1896, possibly onto a small coaster going round the various Islands collecting whatever kelp they had. Though the Diary does not state, our Grandfather must have been oversman for the whole of Rousam Head, collecting each man’s work, weighing and storing it at Rousam for eventual shipping.
The season must have started early as in 1896 Rousam was in the Diary “Apr 14 thur Carting ware to kelpers am - Carting ware to land pm.”
So with carts and men available now and then our grandfather David was carting kelp for others in the morning of that day and in the afternoon carting kelp onto his own fields for fertiliser. Sanday lying to our North was also a good kelp Island with extensive beaches, and Patrick Fea of Whitehall and of Stove in Sanday left a wonderful diary dating from1766 to his death in 1796, now edited by W.S.Hewison and published.
The shallow seas around the North Isles were excellent sources of seaweed, washing up on the shores after storm, good holding beaches. At its peak Orkney was exporting 3,000 tons of kelp per year during the boom years lasting from 1780 to 1830. Kelp was used in the making of glass, dyes and soap in the north-east of England, particularly in Newcastle. It brought much money to the landowners, some of which was invested in farm improvements. It also led to two kelp wars in Stronsay as sea weed had traditionally been carted onto the land as fertiliser. Without it the crops were the poorer. Kelp pits can still be seen at many places round the shore in Stronsay, particularly where we were concerned on part of Whitehall Farm at Grice Ness behind Whitehall Village, also much along the beaches on neighbouring Huip Farm owned by our brother David for a few years before he went to Australia.
The Napoleonic War gave impetus to kelp when imports from the Baltic were suspended and British Industry had to replace it. In Caithness there was kelp burning along the shores from Castlehill to Murkle Point, but the Orkneys had so many good beaches. Kelp making is an emotive subject going back many years, tales of Landlords making big money and their tenants being impoverished by having to burn the sea weed that they had previously used to fertilise their fields, severely reducing their grain yields.
Stronsay had well documented Kelp Wars, two at least, when the tenants rebelled at having their seaweed fertiliser burnt and their crops ruined, all to line the pocket of their landlord.
William Tait at the Bay, Stronsay from 1907 to 1919, recorded in 1909 carting ware that year on 20 days onto the land, mostly from December through to April. He made no mention of burning ware for kelp himself but he did cart kelp to the pier for shipping from Aug 20th to 26th 1909 for various people, mostly from Rousam Head.
aug 20 frid Draining all day - put 2 loads of kelp to pier.
aug 21 sat Took in 3 loads of hay, opening drains & put 1 load of kelp to pier for J.Scott a.m. 2 loads kelp from Lodge to pier p.m. - fine day
aug 25 wed Put 4 loads Kelp to pier for A. Moodie, Grind - got home a stirk from Eday -
aug 26 thur Put 3 loads kelp to pier for A. Moodie, Grind [Rousam Head]
So it appears that August 20th to 28th would have been the regular time for exporting kelp from the various North Isles to Newcastle.
However, 1898. July 11 mon Shipping Kelp all day. Got home 5 tons coal
So there were other shipping days than late August.
But, like so many other cottage industries that once sustained the Countryside, the Kelp Industry is now long gone.
No 88. KELP MAKING.
Kelp making was one of our pre-War tasks in Stronsay, though it had a very long history going back to 1719 when James Fea of Whitehall began the Industry in Stronsay. It provided iodine, potash and soda used in glass and soap manufacture, and was at times in short supply due to various American and French Wars. The Industry finally ended just prewar, about 1937 I think.
Kelp was produced by burning dried seaweed in stone lined pits above the beach. Gathered at low tide, or thrown up by storm, the seaweed was first spread and dried on low open stone dykes to be ready for the kilns. The burning was a slow smoky process taking about two days for a full kiln with constant replenishing.
There were many crofters in Rousam who made a bit of their living by burning kelp when they could. Though no longer then living at Rousam, our Father during the First War wrote a poem in 1914 while stationed in Stronsay with 20 different crofters mentioned in Rousam. Not all would be kelpers. The work would go on all summer as other work allowed, fitting in with farm work and the herring fishing season. Even if the men were down in the Village carting herring or employed in other work the croft women would be gathering sea weed for kelp burning as available, carrying it laboriously above the beach.
We looked out from Whitehall down to the Ness, part of the farm anyway, and saw the spirals of heavy acrid grey-white smoke drifting skywards. I remember going down to the Ness with our father who was oversman for the kelp workers. He weighed the finished product, checked that no stones were included, kept order where needed, determined if some one had strayed onto someone elses stint, marked by this rock or that. I do not know if stints were changed or not, I do not think it was a free for all but each would have his own drying dykes and his own kiln pit. Certainly when the sea weed was in it had to be snatched before the next high tide took it out again. Wet heavy material to work with, cold too.
The crusted burnt kelp ash was broken up, raked over and then carted to store to be ready for shipping at the end of the season. Normally that would be late in August as from Rousam in 1900. Then harvest and wetter weather would put a stop to kelp work, the men returning each to their own harvests.
Father told us how, when he was young, they did the same kelping at Rousam as at Whitehall, the work being done by the many crofters on Rousam Head and their wives. The eventual buyer could have been the Balfour Estate who owned much of Stronsay. Our grandfather shipped kelp from Rousam on Sat. 21st and Mon. 23rd August 1896, possibly onto a small coaster going round the various Islands collecting whatever kelp they had. Though the Diary does not state, our Grandfather must have been oversman for the whole of Rousam Head, collecting each man’s work, weighing and storing it at Rousam for eventual shipping.
The season must have started early as in 1896 Rousam was in the Diary “Apr 14 thur Carting ware to kelpers am - Carting ware to land pm.”
So with carts and men available now and then our grandfather David was carting kelp for others in the morning of that day and in the afternoon carting kelp onto his own fields for fertiliser. Sanday lying to our North was also a good kelp Island with extensive beaches, and Patrick Fea of Whitehall and of Stove in Sanday left a wonderful diary dating from1766 to his death in 1796, now edited by W.S.Hewison and published.
The shallow seas around the North Isles were excellent sources of seaweed, washing up on the shores after storm, good holding beaches. At its peak Orkney was exporting 3,000 tons of kelp per year during the boom years lasting from 1780 to 1830. Kelp was used in the making of glass, dyes and soap in the north-east of England, particularly in Newcastle. It brought much money to the landowners, some of which was invested in farm improvements. It also led to two kelp wars in Stronsay as sea weed had traditionally been carted onto the land as fertiliser. Without it the crops were the poorer. Kelp pits can still be seen at many places round the shore in Stronsay, particularly where we were concerned on part of Whitehall Farm at Grice Ness behind Whitehall Village, also much along the beaches on neighbouring Huip Farm owned by our brother David for a few years before he went to Australia.
The Napoleonic War gave impetus to kelp when imports from the Baltic were suspended and British Industry had to replace it. In Caithness there was kelp burning along the shores from Castlehill to Murkle Point, but the Orkneys had so many good beaches. Kelp making is an emotive subject going back many years, tales of Landlords making big money and their tenants being impoverished by having to burn the sea weed that they had previously used to fertilise their fields, severely reducing their grain yields.
Stronsay had well documented Kelp Wars, two at least, when the tenants rebelled at having their seaweed fertiliser burnt and their crops ruined, all to line the pocket of their landlord.
William Tait at the Bay, Stronsay from 1907 to 1919, recorded in 1909 carting ware that year on 20 days onto the land, mostly from December through to April. He made no mention of burning ware for kelp himself but he did cart kelp to the pier for shipping from Aug 20th to 26th 1909 for various people, mostly from Rousam Head.
aug 20 frid Draining all day - put 2 loads of kelp to pier.
aug 21 sat Took in 3 loads of hay, opening drains & put 1 load of kelp to pier for J.Scott a.m. 2 loads kelp from Lodge to pier p.m. - fine day
aug 25 wed Put 4 loads Kelp to pier for A. Moodie, Grind - got home a stirk from Eday -
aug 26 thur Put 3 loads kelp to pier for A. Moodie, Grind [Rousam Head]
So it appears that August 20th to 28th would have been the regular time for exporting kelp from the various North Isles to Newcastle.
However, 1898. July 11 mon Shipping Kelp all day. Got home 5 tons coal
So there were other shipping days than late August.
But, like so many other cottage industries that once sustained the Countryside, the Kelp Industry is now long gone.
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