Читать книгу Footsteps in the Furrow - Andrew Arbuckle - Страница 13

In those days, my friends on the farm were the ploughmen’s children who lived in the row of farm cottages. Their accommodation was better than the bothy, and by the time I ran in and out of them with my friends in the mid-1950s they had running water and inside toilets.

Earlier in the century, however, it was very much a case of going to the shed at the bottom of the garden, or indeed into the cattle court whenever a toilet was required. Water was also taken from a common tap or a pump that could invariably be traced back to a nearby stream. It was not unusual to find the water pipe blocked, and on investigation to find a small frog wedged in the pipe. To this day, more than half the farms and former farm cottages are on private water supplies. A number of them have higher levels of nitrates or bacteria than would be allowed in the public system.

Generally, the floors of the scullery and the washroom were just flagstones laid on top of the earth though by my time the living rooms had wooden floors and were covered in carpets or linoleum. This, though, was not always the case, and many older cottages only had the flagstones throughout the building, which did nothing for hygiene or dampness in the house. This was not helped by a lack of insulation in the buildings. Many walls were just a single brick in width, a poor protection against the rigours of winter.

Recognising the poor condition of many farm cottages, the British Government put in place a rural house-building programme at the end of World War II. At that time, it was reckoned that 1 in 10 of all farm cottages were not fit for habitation. Fife Council decided that small groups of houses should be built in rural areas and although these are now in private hands, they can still be seen at locations such as Foodieash, outside Cupar, and Rossie, near Auchtermuchty. It was suggested these developments be called ‘clachans’, after the Gaelic word for a small hamlet.

On the farms themselves in the 1950s and 1960s improvements took place to the farm cottages as farmers realised that working conditions had to be raised if they wanted to keep the good workers. In earlier years, before these works were carried out, life in the cottages could be quite raw and damp, especially when the work outside involved cold or dirty jobs. Returning home after a wet working day that involved pulling turnips in frosty weather or ploughing in the rain was a very miserable experience indeed.

Chronic diseases associated with damp conditions such as rheumatism were the lot of the farm worker. The rural doctor had to deal with the consequences and a doctor’s visit cost money right up to 1948 when the National Health Service was introduced, providing free health care for everyone. Illness or accidents were a constant concern as there was not the safety net for workers that there is now. There was no need for the farmer to pay any sick pay, although most did without compulsion, but a long-term illness or injury was a major worry for the wage earner, especially those with large families.

A long-term illness often meant expulsion from the farm cottage as the farmer would need it for an able-bodied worker. To make matters worse, in those days there was no obligation on the local authority to house homeless people.

Within the farm cottages, the work routine was equally harsh and lengthy. While wives were often working themselves, they also had the responsibility of feeding their menfolk and children, although this latter task was quickly passed down to the older children, who also helped look after their younger siblings.

By mid-century, during my youth, there was no central heating, but all the cottages had a boiler in which to wash the clothes and blankets. Many were not connected to an electricity supply until the mid-1950s, and before rural areas were connected to the national grid, many received their power from the generator on the farm.

Before electricity came along, the lighting came from paraffin lamps or even just candles. In those pre-electric power days everyone was more accustomed to going to bed early, especially in the winter months. Without electricity, the hobs on the fire were used for kettles and for cooking the meals. Sometimes a hanging chain was used for the cooking pots over the open fire.

The diet of farm workers has been described as basic, but as early as 1893 it was reported that they had given up the old diet of oatmeal, potatoes and bannocks (oatmeal cakes), and were buying meat, sometimes as much as 5/-, or 25 pence, worth every week. Vegetables from the garden supplemented basic foods such as potatoes and oatmeal, and this was especially true in the winter, with leeks, carrots and kale helping to make the base for many a plate of soup.

For any other food, there were two buying options: these were the circus of small vans, or prior to them the horse-drawn grocery and butcher-meat carts. On farms close to built-up areas, there might be bakers’ and butchers’ vans every other day. One housewife declared that such were the number of vehicles selling around the farms, ‘Yer hands were never oot o’ yer purse.’

And yet they had to be, because until the 1940s wages were paid only at the end of the first 6 months in work. Normally there would be no income until then and most households survived by local van men allowing credit to be built up until the wage was paid. This cycle of debt was then repeated on a 6-monthly basis. To go cap in hand to the farmer and ask for money to be advanced in order that the family might get through to the next payday was seen as proof of a wife’s fecklessness with money.

For the working man, his morning ‘piece’ would usually be sandwiches with fillings of cheese or jam. Fillings such as corned beef or fish paste were also favourites. As was often said in a parody of The Beatitudes, when the men sat down for their morning break, ‘blessed are the piece makers for they shall inherit the earth’. The pieces would normally be wrapped in a sheet of an old newspaper or some greaseproof paper. They would be put inside a tin so that the farm dog, or any vermin, would not be tempted to have an early feed at the ploughman’s expense.

After World War II, every piece seemed to be carried in an ex-army khaki coloured knapsack, which often served the secondary purpose of providing a dry seat on a damp field headland during break time. Former military clothing was also used by many farm workers during the post-war years: before cabs became an integral part of the tractor, it was quite common to see the driver swathed in an army greatcoat as he tried to keep the cold or the rain, and sometimes both, at bay.

At least these coats were an improvement on the old sacks that the horsemen threw across their shoulders in wet or cold weather. Sometimes, during a heavy shower or spell of rain, the horsemen would actually take shelter under the belly of their horse.

Summer wear was invariably the bib-and-tucker set of dungarees. It took a long time for the non-farming public to adapt to denim with their wearing of jeans and they have still to adopt the bib part of the dungarees.

If they were working in wet muddy fields, the workers would invariably wear ‘nicky tarns’. These were created by the simple measure of tying string just below the knee, thus keeping the top half of their trousers clean and dry. Some workers, who had been in the Army, also wore bands of protective material around their legs in the manner of puttees. Today’s farm workers also wear a uniform. Generally it is an overall that keeps most of the dirt and dust out; often complete with a sponsor’s, or tractor manufacturer’s logo. To top this off, most of today’s workers wear a baseball cap, an import from the USA.