Читать книгу Footsteps in the Furrow - Andrew Arbuckle - Страница 16

Although this is a practice long since departed, throughout the first forty years of the century, farm workers moved on an almost annual basis. In Fife the moving term was generally Martinmas, 28 November, while north and south of the county, the preferred term time was Whitsun, or 28 May. There were complaints against the Martinmas term, especially when the weather was severe and people had to move in cold and wet conditions.

For those who had taken a new job, the move entailed putting their worldly possessions on a cart supplied by their new employer. If the ‘flitting’ day was wet or cold, every stick of furniture, every piece of clothing and everyone involved was soaked. Making the situation worse was the fact that the move often ended up in an unheated, damp house. To compound this, the outgoing ploughman had often left it in a mess, meaning the new tenant could not move in without cleaning up first.

A country minister at the time said he always dreaded a wet term as invariably there would be deaths in the days and weeks following the move. Often, those worst affected with pneumonia were the biggest and strongest of men.

If death occurred, it was usually the Co-operative Funeral Service that carried out the final duties. Most workers were members of the ‘coopie’, where they could get a dividend on their purchases, but as one ploughman remarked, ‘The Co-op always has the last say on what happens to you.’

The resistance to changing the moving date away from November to the better weather that might be expected in May was that moving during the Whitsun term meant that gardens would not be put in. This was an important consideration in those days when a goodly proportion of the family’s food came from the cottage garden. To get round the problem, in Roxburgh, in the Scottish Borders, men fee’d would have a day off to put their garden in at the new farm.

For those on the move the formula was straightforward. As term approached, the farmer would enquire of his staff, ‘Are ye biding?’ If the question was not asked, then it could be taken the farmer did not want his employee to stay.

It was almost taken as a rule that men moved every term. This constant movement was described as a ‘restless spirit within the workforce’ by the 1893 report into labour in the agricultural sector. The report added that, ‘in many cases it is alleged the wife is to blame.’

All the moving from tied cottage to tied cottage did nothing to improve the quality of the accommodation. In 1901, a building expert quoted in the Royal Highland Agricultural Society Journal stated that, ‘Farm labourers shift a great deal and the cottage is their house for the time being. It therefore follows they have little interest in taking care of the structure.’

On the feeing day itself at the Fluthers, the traditional fairground area in Cupar, there was a wide assortment of itinerant showmen and numerous stalls. In this throng were the farmers and farm servants, the latter often holding their hands out, palms upward, in a depiction of someone willing and able to work.

One farmer interviewed said that his yardstick was, ‘a good small man was always better than a big man.’ His reasoning was that many bigger men suffered bad backs as a consequence of the heavy work involved in farming in those early days of the century.

If a bargain could be struck over wages and conditions, then the farmer would hand over a coin to seal the deal. Although feeing markets were long past, I recall in the 1960s my father still paying this bargain cash, or arles, to a new employee. His handing over of a £5 note may have been well beyond the Is fee money of the 1930s, but the deal was just as effectively sealed.

For many farm servants, going to the feeing market without knowing whether they could get a ‘fee’ must have been unnerving. It is no coincidence that the local paper always reported army recruiting agents attending the Cupar Fair to snap up men willing to take the Queen’s shilling rather than go home empty-handed.

To try and avoid any imbalance between the supply and demand for farm workers, in 1926 the Fife Agricultural Society set up an employment register for farmers and workers. While it got off to a good start, this was not an unqualified or long-term success. In 1934, only 17 farmers registered and 67 ‘servants’ – as they were called in those days, where the year-long contract defined the worker as ‘servant’. Fees that year were £70–£75 per annum for grieves, with foremen getting up to £70 and others, as the NFUS minutes record, being paid £60–£65.

Once the fee was taken, it was understood to be effective for the year. In 1941, a court case was heard in Cupar over an employee who had deserted the farm to which he was fee-d. A neighbouring farmer accused of ‘harbouring’ this individual stated in evidence that the house that the man was offered was uninhabitable. The Sheriff dealing with the case decided the employee had broken his contract, but as no money had changed hands, there was no case to answer.

The last feeing market in North-East Fife was held in Cupar in 1939. During the war years, there was a Standstill Order in place preventing farm workers from moving from farm to farm unless there was mutual agreement. Such a move also required the sanction of the War Agricultural Executive. These restrictions were eased in 1950 so that farm workers could take up employment outside the industry.