Читать книгу Footsteps in the Furrow - Andrew Arbuckle - Страница 9

WHEN travelling through towns nowadays, every so often you come across a children’s play area, filled with swings, chutes, roundabouts and climbing frames. They are in stark primary colours and mostly surrounded by a soft rubberised area, lest the children fall off. It all seems so distant from the play area of my own childhood and of those brought up on the farms of a generation or more ago.

For youngsters growing up in the country, farmyards were our playground – the buildings, the farm machinery and the goods stored about the place provided the landscape for rich adventure and risky escapades. One favourite starting point was the farm stables; the horses had gone from the farm but the stables in the farm steading still had a certain relevance.

The size or the number of stalls in a stable gave an idea of the scale and nature of the farm. A rule of thumb was that a pair of horse could cover some 50 acres on an arable farm and so a quick count of the number of stalls would tell the size of the farm.

Some farms in Fife had two stables. Unusual, until you consider that in World War I, often the military came onto farms, unannounced, and requisitioned the best of the horses. Farmers found it was far better to split the risk and hope that those responsible for taking away the horsepower of the country to the battlefields would not realise they were only seeing half the horses on the farm.

From an early age, we youngsters could open the half-hack stable doors, where the top half could be opened for ventilation, leaving the bottom still closed with a latch or a draw bolt. Once inside the stone-built building, we could climb up onto the food troughs at the front of the stalls, which were separated by wooden partitions. Even by this age our senses were heightened by the sharp smell of the creosote applied to every piece of wood in contact with livestock.

We did not know it then but this form of disinfection was applied on an annual basis to keep at bay contagious diseases such as ringworm. Nor did we realise at that time that there was a similar reason for whitewashing all the stone and brickwork with limestone. For some, whitewashed walls equate to cleanliness and good hygiene.

For myself, and others who applied the hot lime or the creosote during the summer months when the livestock were outside, there are memories of stinging faces whenever the brushes accidentally splashed preservative onto our skin. This routine work was not enjoyed. In addition to the discomfort experienced by wayward splashes and drips, working clothes were marked. There being no overalls in those days, the general practice was to cut a hole in the base of an old jute sack and then stick your head through it, leaving the wearer with the latest fashion: a bag advertising Bloggs Grain.

From the food troughs, with a slightly acrobatic swing we could get into the slatted hay haiks above the troughs. On some farms, there was a direct connection with the loft next door so that hay or oat straw could be fed through the boles. Crawling through these boles would then take you into the loft with its shiny wooden floor; smoothed and ribbed by years and years of forage being dragged along as it was filled and gradually emptied.

On some farms these lofts would be filled by straw conveyers slung from the roof rafters straight from the threshing mill; others had conveyors that took the bulk grain into the dry feed store that was also filled with sacks of various foods for livestock. In both, bags or bulk, there were a thousand dusty hidey-holes where youngsters might conceal themselves when playing hide and seek.

The loft was accessed by a set of stone steps. These steps were worn away by the tackets, or short nails in the soles of the boots of a generation of men who carried sacks of grain weighing more than 100 kilos. Pre-Health and Safety Executive days, there were no handrails on the steps and so, if brave or foolish enough, we youngsters could jump off the top step onto the cobbled yard below.

Below the loft was the cart shed where the coup carts, and later small tractor trailers were housed; each with its own beautifully constructed archway of stonework built in an arc with a keystone. At the highpoint of the arch was a hook, on which the carter would hang the shafts of the cart. Alongside each cart were hooks on which the extra cart sides were stored, in case the work involved a bulky crop. Above, on the wooden rafters were the flakes used when carting hay and straw.

At the other end of the loft were the cattle courts and again, we, as children out of sight of adult restraint, would climb into the troughs running along each side of the raised gangway. We would then climb into the hay haiks and up onto the couples, or roof rafters. From this high vantage point, it was a test of courage to crawl along these wooden batons looking down on the cattle below. Then, in a game of dares we would hang from the beams until an unsuspecting bullock wandered below. The aim was to land on its back, but more often we missed and fell onto well-trodden dung.

As we stepped from rafter to rafter we had little thought of the joiners of a previous century possibly having skimped on their nailing. In our escapades, we believed that accidents were for other people; any superficial damage would sort itself. That is why short trousers were always worn because skinned knees were cheaper to sort out than tears in long trousers.

Below us were the cattle that were spending their winter being fed and watered as part of the fattening process. Fife was, and still is, an area for finishing cattle and winter housing was required for this purpose.

On farms with breeding herds there would be some smaller buildings with stalls, where the cattle would be tethered by the neck. These buildings had large, vertical flagstones separating the stalls. There was a food trough in front and a dung passage at the back, where the day’s animal waste, as we never called it, could be swept along to the end of the shed before being barrowed out to the midden – the heap of waste and animal dung.

Milk cows were also tethered in the same type of stalls so that milking could be carried out in relative safety with only the danger of a kick from the hind legs, if the cow did not relish the milking process.

When we tired of the cattle courts or the milking stalls, with their warm, moist, sweet smell, we would play in the turnip shed, which was handily built next door so that the cattlemen had only short trips to make between shed and trough. The turnip shed was less fun and invariably led to excursions onto the roofs of the steading itself; the route was through a broken roof light, then a clamber up the pantiles, trying hard not to dislodge them.

Again, we seemed to care little for the robustness of the roofs. We could see down into the sheds, but never thought that the whole roof might be somewhat unsafe. The brave walked along the ridges, from where they could see the whole layout of the steading, all the time hoping no adult would see them.

Many of the old farm steadings were built in a U-shape, with the farmhouse often helping to fill the gap in the ‘U’. From a high point on the roof, our eyes followed around. First, the stables, then the loft and cart sheds, and onto the cattle courts, always bounded in by the turnip shed.

Many of the smaller farms had a horse mill. This was a separate hexagonal building, in which the power to drive the threshing mill was generated by a single horse pulling a shaft that drove a central hub or capstan. The old steadings were built for, and by, horsepower, though on the larger farms steam engines may have puffed away, turning the wheels of the threshing mills.

The majority of the steadings in the arable parts of Fife were built in the middle and late 1800s. Most of the farms were tenanted and landlords, keen on improvement, built farm steadings for their tenants. Stone was the main material used in the construction and the buildings were built of local sandstone or harder whinstone. Because of the cost and effort of transporting stone, many quarries were created purely to supply material for farm steadings and cottages.

In that busy building era, most of the parishes had several stone masons. The buildings they created reflect the agricultural priorities of the area, as well as the relevant importance of both the farmhouse and the farm cottages. But even in my youth, there were additions to these traditional steadings, thus proving the old adage that no farmer, however intelligent he claimed to be, ever built his steading big enough or his field gates wide enough.

The latter point related not just to the ever-increasing scale of farm machinery, but also to the fact that generations of ploughmen, farmers and farm students have notoriously been unable to guide a tractor or implement into, or out of, a field without touching, scraping, or even the downright breaking of a gatepost. The arrival of the tractor saw great ugly holes being punched through the original stone walls as the old stable door had not been built wide enough to allow access for mechanical vehicles.

Some of the earliest additions to farm steadings were former World War II buildings, which were given a second lease of life as implement sheds, henhouses or pig-fattening buildings. Many of these were made of corrugated iron; others were pre-fabricated buildings.

On some farms, silage towers had been built in the 1920s and 1930s. These were often made with concrete and a few examples such as the one at Collairnie Farm, Letham still exist. Then, as new materials came along and more knowledge of silage making came into use, fibreglass sealed silage towers soon pierced the skyline. With less demand for grass-based forage, there were always fewer of these in Fife than in dairying districts of Scotland.

The boy on the roof of the old buildings in the 1950s could also see the first bulk grain bins built close to the steadings. These came in with the combines when lifting heavy sacks fell out of favour. Conveying grain electrically by auger and elevator was found to be far more efficient and much quicker.

The first of the specialist potato sheds also came into being in the post-war years. These were brick-built, with asbestos sheeting over steel trusses. As technology advanced, later models dispensed with the trusses, replacing them with steel beams. This allowed farmers to maximise storage space by stacking the potato boxes higher than previously imagined.

Today’s modern potato shed comes with ambient temperature control that removes the old problem of tuber diseases spreading through the crop when the potatoes overheated after being lifted in wet conditions. It also stops the sprouting of potatoes in warmer weather.

As husbandry knowledge increased, specialist livestock buildings were erected. This was especially true for pigs and poultry. Long, low buildings with controlled ventilation first went up in the early 1960s. Outside these were metal feed hoppers to automatically feed the livestock; inside, the intensive production of poultry or pig meat was carried out.

For those farms still considered working units, the footprint of the buildings has multiplied several times during the course of the last century as crop storage and livestock production moved indoors.

At the start of World War II, there were some 1,243 farms or landholdings in North-East Fife. Today’s total of viable working farms in the same area numbers less than 300. What has also happened is a congregation into fewer, but larger working units. Quietly, many smaller farms have been taken over.

Often no agricultural use is made of the farm buildings on these smaller units. Many, especially those around St Andrews, where there is a strong demand for accommodation from those working or studying in the ancient university, have been converted into housing. Once a month, the Planning Committee of North-East Fife area of Fife Council meets in Cupar. Almost without exception over the past decade, in the normal list of planning applications there have been bids to convert redundant farm steadings into housing on a regular basis. These are invariably granted. At least in this local authority area there is a requirement that any conversion largely takes place within the original curtilage or footprint of the buildings, with as much of the original building as possible retained.

Other councils take a more relaxed view. They allow old farm buildings to be demolished and then transplant a clutch of largely identical houses or a small piece of suburbia onto the flattened site. Even containing any development into the area previously covered by cart sheds, barns, lofts, cattle courts and neep sheds, sufficient space can be created for a dozen or so houses. So, now, theoretically, we have a repopulation of the countryside.

The reality is different as there is little or no connection between the work of the land and those who live in the steading conversions; the vast majority drive to work early in the morning and return late at night, the week’s shopping achieved at some distant retail park.

It is fanciful to think that the ghosts from the past inhabit these old buildings recycled into modern homes; it is difficult to believe today’s inhabitants, looking out from their floor-to-ceiling windows placed in openings of the old cart sheds, hear the voice of the old grieve shouting across the close about some perceived failing by one of the loons. And as they rush out to their cars to go to work, they will never hear the clip-clop of horseshoes over the cobbles at the start of day, or the sound of the turnip, or neep hasher, getting the daily diet for the cattle.

The past century has also seen a loss of farms and buildings directly as a result of towns and villages expanding their boundaries. Those picking up their ancestral roots often come back to the family farm to find they require to walk the concrete pavements or muddy playing fields of the burgeoning urban landscape.

The scale of change in farming is not easily observed from the traditional view over the hedge or dyke, or even through fence wires on visits along the rural roads. The fields provide permanence, and crops are still grown.

Often, if the rural jungle drums do not beat out the message, the first that even neighbours now know of a change in working the land may come with the arrival of a stranger’s set of machinery entering the fields. Gone too are the smallholdings, including those set up specifically after World War I by the British Government in their repatriation of soldiers – part of their belief that they were creating a land fit for heroes.

In North-East Fife two larger properties were split up to make smaller holdings – Third Part and Easter Pitcorthie. These holdings each had a farmhouse and steading, and approximately 50 acres (or 20 hectares). Today, only two of these original holdings remain, the rest have either been amalgamated or the land sold off to neighbours, leaving a house in the country.