This is a transcript of a book that was hand-typed and illustrated in 1992 by John Palmer, who grew up in Kirkandrews and shares many of his memories of life in the early twentieth century and gives a fascinating insight into how life would have been, living on the Knockbrex estate.
Borgue & Kirkandrews – That Land of Milk & Honey
By
John Palmer
Dedicated to my niece – Mrs Beryl Atkins
And in fond memory of my beloved wife Netta
Bonaccord
126 Terregles Street
Dumfries
October 1992
Acknowledgements
Mrs. Beryl Atkins for encouragement and photo-copying script
And
Mrs. Brown, Roberton, Borgue for loan of photographs
Amidst the encircling gloom
“Read thou me on”
– PREFACE –
My chosen title— ‘That Land of Milk and Honey’, was, at the time I write about, much more appropriate than, (from my present day observation,) would appear to be justified today.
Milk quotas, something that I have little knowledge about, have reduced that flow of that life sustaining liquid, and the consequential end product, ‘Country butter, Cheese, or Whey, (that residue from the latter, which prepared the pigs for the slaughter,) and, in more recent years, Whey butter.
From my present day observation, the ‘flow of honey’ has not even been reduced to a trickle, but has ceased to flow, to the extent that the name ‘Borgue Honey’ has, to all appearances, become, like the Dodo, the Dinosaur, or The Pound (so far as the ‘E. R. M.’ is concerned) extinct, but, like the latter, it could, no doubt be revived.
But not everyone knows where Borgue is, as an incident referred to by my teacher in Borgue School, (in my early years there,) for as she explained the benefit of knowing geography, by way of quoting the deficiency in that direction, so far as a shop assistant in London was concerned, for the latter, when asked by a customer (who had just purchased a jar of Borgue Honey) where Borgue actually was, she, the shop assistant, revealed her ignorance to the extent of replying, “Sounds like French to me, I think that it must be a region in France.”
As I saw it then, I marvelled at the lack of knowledge, for I was of the opinion that everyone knew, not only where Borgue was, but a be where Kirkandrews, Barnheuch, and The Dookin’ Bay, had been, by way of enhancing the glory, at the Creation, so methodically placed on the map.
My reader will, I feel sure, realize that I have written ‘That Land of Milk and Honey’ for the express benefit of those who lack the vital knowledge.
THE VILLAGE AND PARISH OF BORGUE AND KIRKANDREWS
In this age of mechanized, labour saving machinery, and improved methods in that direction, I have chosen the above, which universally, was in line with the other villages, and parishes in the South and West of Scotland, and in particular, because this was my native area, which enables me to give, from personal experience, an illustration of life in general, in the early part this Century, and ofcourse, anything at all mentioned by me, in regard to items which happened before my time, are based on information from entirely trustworthy elders.
Kirkandrews , ‘the main sea port’, not a harbour as such, but where in my time, schooners beached with cargos of coal, and somewhat earlier, grain, to be processed in the mill, which was driven by a large water-wheel, and while it had ceased to function, at the time of my earliest recollection, it stood intact for some years, and for the children, was an ideal spot for that game of ‘hide and seek’.
There would be an average of fifteen children at any one time, and in addition to the unending number, and different variety of games, the manufacturing of entertaining equipment, was a joy in itself, creating contentment, not experienced in this day and age, when vandalisim is ‘justified on the grounds of there being nowhere to go, and nothing to do.’
From a very young age, I suffered from bilious attacks and severe headaches, and in the latter connection, at around the age of three I ran into the house In absolute agony, when through my tears I informed my mother that my head had cracked, a statement that I Iived to regret, when I was teased by my uncles, and older members of the family, with the question. ‘have you got that crack in your head repaired yet?’
But ofcourse, I avoided the more boisterous types of games, and I was frequently a loner with my ‘hand made car’, my fishing rod, or flying my self-designed, and home made kite, after I had been presented with a jar of the then modern, and most effective fish glue.
The latter however, had its drawback, for the smell of fish filled the atmosphere in a permanent manner, to the extent that if I brought my ‘valuable kite’ into the front porch of the house, sniffs were followed with looks in my direction, and then followed with the question, directed at me, in no uncertain manner, namely, ‘where is it?’ – but I have to admit that the complainers were justified, and in fact, it is a wonder to me, as I see it now, how I was not followed around with all the cats in the district, or that kite , when in flight, was not attacked by the gulls.
But I will leave, for the time being, the children, and proceed with that revelation of life in general around those eighty years ago, when, although slavery had been abolished in its brutal form, the dregs still lingered on, when one considered the minute rewards , given in return for the lengthly day’s toil , when the total holidays allowed in a year, amounted, in the main, to New Year’s Day, and the Fast day, which many, in this age may never have heard of.
But the married farmworker was at least one step further up the ladder from that of ‘serf’, defined in the dictionary as- ‘an unfree person, esp. one bound to the land’, but his contract bound him to one particular farm for one year, beginning at The Whitsunday Term.
His contract in general was, in the early Nineteen Hundreds, a weekly wage of around Thirteen to Fifteen Shillings, a rent-free cottage, a number of stones of flour, a number of stones of oatmeal, and in some cases, a supply of new milk daily.
If he was a horseman, his day started around Six A. M. when he had to feed the horses, and clean their stall, then after returning to his humble abode for his breakfast, his further day’s work in the fields, began at Seven A.M. and continued (with a break from Twelve to One P.M.) until Six p.m., when, after having his horses attended to, the had the rest of the day free. Unless some emergency arose, when if called out, it was his duty to attend.
The unmarried farmworker, generally in his ‘teens’ or early twenties, was hired for a six monthly period, commencing at either the Whitsunday term, or Martinmas Term, and his cash wage was an agreed sum, depending on his age and experience, payable at the end of the period; he resided in a bothy, got his meals in the kitchen of the farmhouse, or in some cases, at the house of the farm foreman.
Annual Fairs were held in March and September respectively, and this was in general, the place where that contract between the farmer and the single man was made, and it was accepted in general, that the young man who was looking for a vacancy, walked around at The Fair, chewing a straw, with the end protruding from his mouth, and ofcourse, the terms of the contract were purely verbal.
While many of the farms were utilized purely for grazing sheep and cattle, quite a number, in addition to that, had large herds of dairy cows, and the dairyman was engaged in the terms of it being either a working dairy, or a rented dairy.
In the former the dairyman was paid in cash for his own effort, from which he again paid for any assistant, normally a single man who resided with him, but in the latter, the rented dairy, the farmer owned the cows, provided for their maintenance, for the rental of (according to what I have heard quoted) twenty stones of cheese per year, for each cow in the herd, and the dairyman had, in addition to the remainder of the annual ‘crop’ of cheese, the premises for housing a large number pigs, which he fed on the whey, that watery liquid which separates from the when the milk is clotted.
I was always led to believe that whey contained very little, if any nutriment at all, and was amazed to learn, many years later, that a further type of fat could be separated from it and made into ‘whey butter’.
The dairymen in both categories mostly had large families, and were able retain the profit within the group, with the result that the dairymen who rented, were, after a few years, able to take a rented farm, and it was the general rule that they first took on a working dairy, then a rented dairy, and ultimately a farm.
At the time I am writing about, I cannot recollect one farmer who actually owned his farm, and while quite a few of them would have been able to purchase outright, the large estates which owned them, were more or less all interested in the shootings, and consequently kept all the farms, and even added to them, any that were for sale adjacent to their existing estate.
To the North of Borgue village was The Earlston estate, the home of Sir William and Lady Gordon, Sir William being a survivor of the famous ‘Charge of The Light Brigade’ — both now lie in their vault in Borgue Churchyard, and I have never learned if the mansion house is still intact but assume that there is little left in relation to its former glory.
To The East, from my recollection, some of the farmlands under Borgue’s jurisdiction, were owned by the sprawling St. Mary’s Isle Estate, which owned vast areas of land on both sides of The River Dee, and to The West was the large Cally Estate, the mansion House converted into a hotel, which, in this year 1992, prominently shone in the headlines of the local press, through having in residence for a few days holiday, that wayward daughter-in-law of Her Majesty The Queen.
The said daughter-in-law was no doubt recuperating, in The Solway atmosphere, after , **** the daily Press published the photographs of her strenuous, romantic holiday in France, when, accordingly, she had lost her bra, and had suffered the indignity of having her big toe kissed by her chosen Romeo, in the presence of her two young children, while her husband no doubt, sat at home in blissful ignorance.
To the South was Knockbrex Estate, but being anxious ‘to keep the jam of this, my tart to the last,’ I will leave it in abeyance, and proceed with my recollections of:-
THE VILLAGE OF BORGUE.
Borgue Kirk, was the manner in which the old residents in Kirkandrews referred to this ‘noble city’, which contained the school which I attended for the best part of nine years, a school still claiming the title of Academy, which to be strictly correct, in my opinion, and in that of the teacher who was second in command throughout my time there, it was not entitled, then, or since to claim.
It was originally a boarding school, and in my travels in Wigtownshire, I met in with an elderly farmer who had been a boarder there.
The rectors house was attached to the school, and no doubt the dormitories were in this building in the boarding school years, but in recent years, this dwelling house has been removed, and a more modern house erected in what, in my time was termed ‘The High Playground’, the memory of which was indented in my head for a very long time, due to the fact , that when I was fleeing from ‘the chasers’ that band who were armed with home made whips, I stumbled when getting over the high embankment, and after a drop of several feet, I landed headfirst into a stone heap, and Consequently, like Cain, I had the mark on my forehead for years; but to be fair, I must point out that in ‘the game’ (how it originated, I do not know, ) but at any rate the two groups alternated daily, to the extent, one could be ‘a runner’ one day, and a chaser the next, but ofcourse, the game of ‘Ludo’ or’ Tiddly Winks’ carried very much less risk.
The school at that time was a very good building, it had large airy classrooms, with an abundance of windows, ample cloakrooms, the school desks and paraphernalia all in first class condition, and it also had central heating provided by a coke burning boiler.
It had a staff of four teachers, a permanent school-cleaner, and a man in the capacity of being ‘School Board officer’, but was always termed – ‘The whipper in’; this name clearly indicating that he rounded up the truants, ‘he travel led around on foot, and he must have travel led many miles, not always after the truants, but investigating the cause when a pupil had been absent over a lengthly period.
He reported each Monday morning to the head teacher, and the two of them had lengthly discussions on things in general, all of which were ofcourse, of great interest to us, that group of eavesdroppers, and there was consequently smiles all round the class, when the man ‘s heavy boots made contact with the concrete floor in the passageway , giving us that heraldic intimation of his approach, when the whispers, ‘Here’s Tad’, went round the class.
The ‘School board management’ was formed mainly by the minister and a few others, the chairman being a local well known farmer, whose approach from time to time was similar to that of ‘Tad’ , so far as we were concerned, and the school holidays were arranged in keeping with the requirement of the child labour required on the farms, e.g. Summer Holidays – the first week in June – coinciding with the turnip thinning – again in October for the uplifting of the potato crop.
During the Winter months the soup kitchen was held in The Free Church Hall, and was a semi-charity affair so far as the farmers handing in turnips, potatoes, carrots etc. and I have from time to time, carried a hefty bundle of leeks from my grandmother’s garden, that two miles from Kirkandrews to the soup kitchen in Borgue, and ofcourse, many others handed in items in a similar manner.
So far as the actual charge was concerned, the head master used a type of means test with the basis of the charge of one shilling per ‘customer’ for the period of six weeks, but in the case of say a family of five, three would be allowed free of charge, and also others treated in a similar manner where it was known that the respective family had trouble in getting ‘ends to meet.
The menu was in keeping with the days e.g. Monday – Broth. Tuesday – Lentil soup, Wednesday – ‘Stovies (potato soup) and that was the day that no one missed out on, but ofcourse the minister’s wife , and others of similar status , who dished out the soup from their white enamel pails were attractive, but behind the scene the elderly woman who made the soup, was not to say inviting, when she was smoking her clay pipe.
The head master, who obviously fancied himself to be a dietician, insisted that each pupil should bring a slice of bread to eat with the soup, and he made surprise visits when the meal was in progress, to make sure that his instruction was carried out, and consequently, when, in course of a meal, he was seen to be approaching, the whispered demands – ‘Gimmy a bit o’ yer breed’ was frequently heard, for some had devoured that precious slice along with their playtime piece, and would in consequence there-of, there-at, and there-on-, have been punished with the strap which he carried around apparently at all time, curled up in his jacket pocket, and this in fact, made the instrument of torture more brutal, for when withdrawn from his pocket, the four or five toes retained the curl, and consequently, frequently went round the offender’s wrist, leaving a black and blue swelling which retained the pain for a very much longer period.
Personally speaking, I think that the abolition of the strap in the schools was a great mistake, and is the cause of so much bullying and vandalism, but I will say, without hesitation, that it should have been used with more discretion, and not for academic errors, in spelling, counting, and never for bad writing.
The punishment by the strap for the latter, was in my opinion, absolutely stupid, for if the offender’s writing was not considered to be up to the scratch, a swollen hand or wrist, when it was almost impossible to hold a pen. did not improve the state of affairs by any means.
But we all survived, and in the school breaks, games of all kinds were always in motion, and as it appeared, they, the actual games had their respective seasons, ‘Hop-the-beds’ following the marbles, which had followed lametig, or other ball type games.
Again, there was the more mischievious fun, if you got some delight in watching some of the elderly, jumping at the sound of a mighty bang, for as it happened, carbide, used in acetylene bicycle lamps, was freely available, and if a normal syrup tin had a small hole pierced in the bottom of it , and a few small pieces of carbide put inside, together with a few drops of water, the lid of the tin, then firmly replaced, then with the tin held in a horizontal position, and a lighted match held at the hole, the gas explosion blew the lid off, causing a mighty bang.
I recollect how I personally ‘improved’ the apparatus, by placing the loaded tin upside down, producing a much louder bang as the tin in question was hurled around ten feet into the air, but ofcourse I took the precaution of igniting ‘the bomb’ with a paper made fuse, and in this connection, I recollect that one laddie, who tried to ignite without the fuse, held a lighted match to the hole, and being unable to withdraw his hand in time, the tin gave him a mighty sore hand, as it shot up into the air.
Maggie’s wee sweetie shop had many customers during the school breaks, when the sea of heads obstructed the daylight from entering through the little window, heads that were all in the act of calculating what was the best item on show, which a penny, or a half penny could purchase.
Some of the group had ‘a whole penny – ( L. S. D. ) , some just a halfpenny, while others awaited in the hope of getting a crumb from the ultimate purchase, but for a time, Alex. was a philanthropist in the eyes of at least a few of us.
He was a lad, who for his age, had more in normal height than intelligence, and at the period which I am now referring to, World War I. was at its height, and The War Savings had been introduced, and the children encouraged to help the War effort by the savings, which , when the amounts so handed in, accumulated to Fifteen Shillings and Six Pence, a certificate for the amount , which increased in value to One Pound in five years, was issued.
It was the custom of the parents to give, when they had the available funds, a sum to invest, each Monday, and Alex’s parents had apparently subscribed quite liberally in this manner, apart from his penny to spend.
But as it so happened, Alex. was spending florins and half crowns freely, generally however, by getting one of the group to make the purchase for him, of chocolate bars, and the more sophisticated class of confectionery, which he duly shared quite liberally, and ofcourse while we were delighted beneficiaries, we were puzzled in regard to the source of his income, until ‘the bubble burst’ when Alex’s mother found out the he was in fact, secretly withdrawing his War Savings, and consequently the latter two words were heard in our house at times, for years there—after, when one of the family had purchased some rather expensive item or other, my oldest brother would remark, ‘You must have been withdrawing your War Savings-what?’
I went through that portly entrance at Borgue school when I was five years of age, my teacher being Miss Galloway, and the outstanding evidence, that she had suffered no particular undue strain in teaching me, is the fact that she had reached the Century in years, when she died here in Dumfries, some short distance from my abode, and one instance of her optimistical philosophy, happened when, as she came to a rather busy corner, while walking along the street, after noticing an elderly lady waiting to cross, but apparently apprehensive about doing so, she took hold of this lady’s arm, and to the latter’s relief, took her safely across.
The lady in question indicated her appreciation in the words “Thank you very much- I am Seventyeight you know”, to which our heroine replied, “I quite understand for I am Eighty—seven “.
The orthodox method of teaching during my time in that infant class, was in the phonetic pronouncing pf words and syllables, e.g. the word ‘He! Began- ‘Ha-hi -he’ etc., and as we could not read at that stage, the class, as one, all spluttered out what was written on the blackboard, and as it so happened, it was difficult to grasp the wording, and any errors in the group could not be spotted.
As it so happened ,during the half hour of religious instruction, the whole class was as one, more or less shouting out the wording of some of ‘Beatitude like phrases, one being, ‘He that has a Bountiful eye shall be blest’, but when doing my homework, namely, repeatedly shouting out , with some gusto , what I considered was the proper wording of that phrase, when my mother looked at me and remarked, “Say that again”.
She got a mighty shock when I did so the wording of:- ‘Hi-hi-he that has a bundle full of lies shall be blest.’
Many years later when discussing this type of learning with a personal friend, I mentioned this, and learned that there was ‘two of us’ In this category, for, as he went. on, laughing his head off, he remarked that, in similar circumstances, his faux pas was in regard to the line in the psalm –
‘Hast all our fathers led’ , he was uttering the words,’ I stole my father’s leg’ but at any rate , my particular faux pas was added ammunition to my ‘cracked head’, previously mentioned in the armory of my teasing elders.
Other similar ‘quotations’ which were frequently heard in the playground etc. were (I) When the boy got stuck at the end of the first two lines, I quote
Few are thy days and full of woe,
Oh! man of woman born
He finished it with:-
I canna’ say the rest the day,
I’ll feenish it the morn.
Another very common one was:-
Oh! what a wond’rous thing it is,
And how becoming well-
To spread a great big jeely piece,
And eat it a’ yoursel
But still in that infant class, when there was a spare spell, Miss Galloway got me out to the front of the class with the request that I should tell them a story, and I obliged by giving them a burst of spontaneous fiction, with the pompous feeing to the effect, that I was a recognized story teller.
An elderly woman had been postmistress In the building on the left as the entry to the school was made, and she joined the whole school in that field beside the school on that day when the first World war was raging, she being an onlooker, when, like so many others, our mission was to view, so far as some were concerned, an airship, for the first time, this, being such a great experience was the reason for the head teacher allowing everyone out to witness the novel event. Various remarks were made as we watched its slow approach, which was soundless until it was very near, and different opinions expressed , but I thought that the particular expression, made by the postmistress was, (having often heard the saying in regard to some very dubious possibility, namely, ‘pigs might fly’) the winner, for she exclaimed, loud and clear, “It’s a’fa like a pig”.
Those small airships patrolled Wigtown, Luce Bay, and The Solway coast, on the lookout for German submarines, they had their base in the vicinity of Luce Bay, and we, at Kirkandrews often watched their manoeuvres, and on one occasion, some two or three of us, who were viewing one from a position on Barn Heuch, realized that we were actually nearer to the clouds, than what it was, and as it came in almost to the coast line, we had a splendid view of it, and its crew.
My recollection is that it had two of a crew, but could be wrong, and it could have been three, but at any rate, my narrative has still that Borgue connection, for, as it happened, when one of those airships was being moored, after completing its daily routine, the anchor failed to hold before the last man had reached terra firma, and as the airship rose, this man who got caught up in the ropes, got carried upside down across Wigtown Bay, and until the trailing anchor became entangled on some shrub, on the farm of Mill-of-Plunton in Borgue, he was still a prisoner, until (so far as my recollection of the affair goes) he was released, but apparently the effort in releasing him, disturbed the anchor, with the result that the airship rose again, and made its final landing somewhere on The East coast of Scotland.
I mentioned that those airships were on the lookout for German submarines, but although I never did hear of any being spotted, there were frequent rumours to the effect that German spies had been landed, and reports, which were (in my opinion) groundless, were to the effect that the supposed spies, if any, were strangers to the area, and considered to be German, because they could not pronounce the letter R.
But let me get back to that history, and geography of Borgue again. in my school boy and teenage years :-
And so, on our left hand side, as we leave the school, in front of the headmaster’s house Is the flag-pole, and in front of that is the memorial tablets erected by public subscription, in memory of William Nicholson, to the best of my knowledge, Borgue’s only poet, so remembered.
On the same side as we go South, through the village, we come to, what was in my early days, a very busy shoemaker’s shop, where the proprietor; and two part time workers were kept in constant work repairing, and making heavy boots for the agricultural workers, and when the school was open, a constant stream of children, stood, almost daily in a queue , in their stocking feet, while the shoemakers re-nailed, or replaced on their respective clogs, ‘caulkers’, locally termed ‘cackers’.
The latter were thin strips of channelled iron, nailed on the sole and heel of the clogs, in order to prevent the wooden sole from splitting and wearing out, and ofcourse a great number of the school children wore clogs, more or less constantly at that time, and consequently a group of clog wearing school children could well be heard before they were seen, reversing the common saying in those days, namely, children should be seen and not heard.
At any rate the clattering of the clogs was not music in the pony’s ears, as one incident , which I clearly recollect, substanciates, for as it so happened, as that band of us were making our way home, we were over-taken by a farmer in his pony propelled governess car.
He did not have room ‘on board’ to give the group a lift, but indicated that he had no objection to us holding on, and so benefitting from the pony’s effort, and as the speed gathered, the clattering of the clogs increased, to the extent that the frightened pony jumped onto a roadside heap of stones, breaking both shafts as It did so, with the result that the farmer had to finish his. homeward journey on foot, leading the pony, after it had calmed down.
But back to that journey Southwards through Borgue , and continuing after the shoemaker’s, are some three more houses, the first of which, at that time, was the home of the school cleaner, the second a very old corpulent woman who was often seen at her door smoking a clay pipe, filled with strong tobacco, and the third, an untied farm worker.
Next in line was The Coffee House, it had been, and became years later, a hotel again, as it is now, and according to the information which I gathered , in the first instance of it being a hotel, the word ‘moderation’ was, like it still is today, unknown, or ignored by so many, and so, Lady Gordon, (previously mentioned) had the license revoked, and the term ‘Coffee House’ substituted, but I never knew of it being used in relation to that title, and was more or less a boarding house where the single school teachers resided, but her aim at abolishing anything in the nature of rowdyness was accomplished, and since it became a hotel again, I have not heard of any repeat of anything at all in this nature.
Then next we come to it, Maggie’s Wee Sweetie Shop where the fall ‘in the Pound’ never gave as much concern, as the fall in the half-penny, or the mighty Penny’ as it was soon picked up again- from the floor, and while Maggie also sold cigarettes and tobacco, she adhered strictly to the terms of her license, as my older brother was sharply reminded, when, as an obligation, he was asked to purchase a packet of cigarettes for man who was unable to call at the shop, and got the sharp answer from Maggie, “A’m no’ gan’ tae risk bein’ fined Five Pounds for sellin’ you cigarettes”.
Another two dwelling houses completes that row, and next we came to Dalziels, where a stock of ribbons and bows were always displayed, and general items connected to sewing and knitting, and again, a liberal stock of toilet essentials.
The latter items mentioned, bring to my mind an incident which I experienced some years later, when I was, at the time, an apprentice joiner, an incidence which indicates the actual bashfulIness which reigned in those days, for as it so happened, the boss had ran out of tobacco.
He consequently produced a Florin (Two Shilling Piece , L.S.D. ) and requested me to go to Borgue Village, a good half mile distant, for his well recognized two ounces of St. Bruno Flake, and as I was mounting my byke, I shouted to the boss’s wife that I was going to the village, asking her, if there was anything she required.
She was a smiling jovial person, but when she heard me, she put on a somewhat serious look, and asked me to hold on a minute as she went into the house, then after some few minutes, she returned and handed me some money, and a sealed note with the request that i might get her the item mentioned in the note, out of Dalziel ‘s shop.
Jenny, who normally attended in the shop, was not at hand and consequently her sister Mary, the housekeeper, appeared when I entered, and so I handed the note to her, but she, being unable to decipher when she opened the note in question, requested my assistance.
But as I could not help, the matter was held in abeyance for a short time, until Jenny returned, then, when she studied the script for a few moments, she threw her head back and remarked, “Ach! it’s twae toilet rolls“.
She duly wrapped up the latter, and together with the change, I handed the parcel to the boss’s wife, but, being of a very bashful nature myself— ??? I did not enquire as to what she wanted them for.
I would add that the Dalziels who had this shop, were closely related to Sir Harry Dalziel , (later Lord Dalziel ) who purchased with the exception of the hotel, in that line ,all the houses, and had them painted red, white, and blue, in a real patriotic manner, he, being a native of Borgue ofcourse.
Continuing Southward, the next building housed some live stock, and a family who earned a living from field, providing Bed and Breakfast accommodation, and next in line, that elderly building, the Free Kirk Hall, or as it was more often referred to as The Soup Kitchen, then, immediately behind this, on the corner, was the notorious Low Borgue Farm Dam, and the fact that Borgue that time had no gravitational water supply, or sewage disposal, no doubt much of the latter was deposited in there .
The dam had several springs, locally termed ‘wallees’ , and it Is for this reason that I have used the definition, ‘notorious’, for as it happened when it was frozen over, while some of the ice covering, is strong enough to carry the weight of a group of sliding youngsters, the ice covering those springs, could never be relied upon.
Consequently amongst the ‘Do ‘s and Dont ‘s which were hurled at us we left. for the school each morning when it had been hard frost over night, was that one in ‘capital letters’, “Don’t Go Onto Low Borgue Dam”; but Bob, who came from a different direction, and no doubt had been warned accordingly, heeded it not , and so amongst other ‘law breakers, he was there, in all his glory, admired by his manner of ‘cutting the figure eight, as he controlled the caulkers of his clogs, until he went a fraction of an inch too far, and so went in up to his armpits, quite a distance from the edge, where he remained in perfect solitude, when the others cleared the ice.
There was a considerable depth of water below him and, but for the action of an older and strenuous lad, who, after gingerly crawling as near as safety permitted, he, while lying prone on the ice, with the aid of one or two knotted handkerchiefs, pulled Bob safely out, and ofcourse none of us envied Bob, as he set off for his home, around two miles away, soaked to the armpits.
Loch Roy, to The North of Borgue is a more suitable loch, and was in fact used for curling when the ice was thick enough, and as the two male schoolteachers were keen curlers, knowing that if it was at all suitable, they would be there at Loch Roy, and in consequence we would have a school holiday, and so, it was our greatest wish that the frosty weather would hold for a few days, but while in my time, it got near to it, the glorified climax was never reached; but ultimately, when I was a teenager, I recollect that I had one game, and enjoyed, that one , and only game of curling in my life.
Across from That Free Church Hall, as we now wend our way back to the starting point, relative to this narrative, (rather good that-‘ relative to this narrative—What?-) (and all home made) is Borgue Free Church, or perhaps I should say ‘was’, but at any rate it was, in my day, enthusiastically supported by its members, who, as I understood it, bore the brunt of the maintenance of the Church, the Manse, and the minister’s salary, in contrast to that of The Established Church on the top of the hill, out of the village, in a Westerly direction.
It was a compact, neat little church where services were held each Sunday, and also an evening service in The Winter months, the minister in my early days, was a Mr. Paton, his manse, some considerable distance away on the low road from Borgue to Kirkcudbright. he also held a service from time to time, during The Summer months in that little Church at Kirkandrews.
We now enter ‘the square, and there, at the foot of The Kirk Brae is, or was, the bowling hall, where, in addition to the carpet bowling which took place, all the dances, The Flower Show Dance, The Quadrille Party Dance, The Hogmanay Dance , and many intervening hops, all had the floor springing to the extent that one could imagine the sides of the hall, moving out and in, like a concertina. It had but one door of normal household door size, and was a corrugated iron building, with walls of knotted pine , and a ceiling of similar wooden construction, and, with its suspended paraffin lamps, (later petrol fuelled ) it was a In my opinion, a fire risk of the first order, especially later when at times, when a man came round with his travelling cinema projector which was fuelled by acetylene, but fortunately, no tragedy happened.
The next was the grocer’s shop, later a garage and repair shop for bicycles and cars, and the grocer’s family resided in the house which was attached, and in my teenage years when it was a garage, as mentioned, it was the meeting place for farmworkers whose days work was done, and in that connection it was hilarity supreme, as jokes were exchanged, along with all the gossip.
The hotel has the war memorial in front of it, the latter being erected after The First World War, by public subscription which also provided the fund to meet the placing Borgue’s first ‘town clock’ in the church spire, and on the left opposite to The War Memorial are the sheds, originally for the use of stabling the horses and coach, belonging to Lady Gordon of Earlston, when she attended the church.
The mention of the latter brings back to my memory, how we, our family members, were trained to say “Thank you, my lady”, for she, lady Gordon, sat immediately behind us, in The Establish Church, when, once a month, after the sermon, she would give one of us a tap on the shoulder, and hand over a church magazine for our mother, and as we knew from her somewhat heavy breathing, as she sat down, that she was actually there, we dare not look round to note her position, and consequently, we never knew, until it happened, who was to get that tap on the shoulder.
Again proceeding in the direction of our starting point at the school entrance, we pass three very nice private houses, the last of the three, now containing the post office, and proceeding Northwards, we pass several dispersed houses, the school high playground etc., and then, with the high trees on each side, we come that substantial building, The Established Church Manse, then, the home of The Rev. W. J. Pennel, and his wife, their family being one little dog, which was to us, that band of ruffians, returning from the school, a sentinel, with a silver coin suspended from its collar, assumed to be a shilling, which we would, one and all, have put to a very much better use, namely twelve separate penny-worth of liquorice, jube-jubes, sugar candy etc. out of Maggie’s wee shop.
My reference to the little dog being a sentinel , is now framed in my mind as such, for it was not un-common, that on our way home from school, we met in with the trio, and as the little dog was always a few yards in front , and consequently round some corner, before the pair of notables came into view it was a herald of their approach, thus giving us the brief moments, to wipe that bramble juice from our respective faces: or similarly. tidy up in general, but, most important of all far as the boys were concerned, that raising of the cap.
“When that great Day of Judgment dawns, there shall be weeping and wailing, and nashing of teeth” , shouted out the street corner preacher, his effort to bring the un—Godly into line, little knowing that he would have the next question to answer without evasion, (the question that came from an insignificant male member, of the few who had halted to listen) in the words, “What will the folk do that have no teeth”?
But the speaker, answering without premeditation, replied, ‘They will just have to borrow a set, or else nash with their gums. “
But ofcourse, for those of us who were not wearing caps, there was no such problem, for we all, ungrudgingly saluted, and in return, got an encouraging smile, and a few words, for both the minister and his wife were very pleasant people indeed, and at this juncture, I vou1d have no hesitation in saying that the same applied to the bachelor minister of The Free Church, and I personally, lived in complete harmony with him, and all of his following.
But I will take the liberty of mentioning some two amusing incidents in connection with Mr. and Mrs Pennel, the first being from my own experience, and the second which I heard from a reliable source, and, as it was the custom, at the time, for the minister to provide a social evening, at his manse, for the members of his Bible class, I, as that year’s secretary attended.
The ‘Alladin lamp, fuelled by paraffin oil, with a circular wick, and incandescent burner, was in its Infancy at the time and the minister had one, and, while they gave a brilliant light, and were economical to burn, they required a good supply of air, and in this connection, when the assembled group were taking much more of this life giving commodity, the lamp was deprived of its. requirement, and consequently failed, and so, in the darkness, everyone grabbed a chair until the matter was rectified, and as the chairs were placed around the loaded table which had been noticed before the light went out, amidst the whisperings, and in a somewhat louder voice, Wull (William) a well of wit, exclaimed, “Come on boys, stick in, the, ‘mare that ye eat, the bigger wage ye hiv’” and the joke was, that when the light came on again, we discovered that he, Wull, was sitting beside the minister.
The second of the above happened before this, and it concerned the new maid who had arrived at the manse some short time before this incident.
The maid in question, although proficient to the extent of carrying out her normal duties, she lacked the educational status of being able to read and write, and consequently when she received a letter from one of her cronies in her home area, she requested Mrs. Pennel to read it to her, and after the latter had glanced over the contents, she remarked to the effect that it would be better if she, the maid, got some of her local friends to read it to her, when she went out in the evening, and so, the reluctance to read the letter on the part of Mrs. Pennel, was quickly understood, when amongst other phrases lacking in protocol, the following stood out, namely- “Don’t be trying to hang up your hat with the minister”.
A few hundred yards further on, there is on the right, in the direction of Loch Roy, as previously mentioned, and at the top of the hill, a couple of hovel of houses, where the near destitute took up their abode from time to time, and one in particular, scraped a living by gathering whelks on the shore at Kirkandrews, Barlocco, and Knockbrex, and her hours of employment were governed by the tides.
She smoked a clay pipe, and we frequently met in with her in our journeys to, and from the school, but her hand to mouth living, was to the effect that she kept little at hand, and consequently she had to make that near to a mile journey to the grocer’s shop in Borgue a frequent mission, and when darkness fell It was not uncommon for her to be met in with, her lantern being a lighted candle inside a five gill bottle.
The road to the left from this spot leads to Earlston, the farm of Gledpark, and, If my recollection is correct , Mill-o-Plunton, and the road to the right, Northward to High Borgue Farm, where turning left , and proceeding some short distance in the Westward direction, we pass the entrance to Auchenhay Farm, Halfway House, and ‘Tanimas’ (often heard but never seen in print by me) but, in accordance with what I heard, this was home of the poet and minstrel, William (Wull) Nicholson.
Returning to Borgue village again we will take the low road to Kirkcudbright, traversed by four, or eight legged horse power in the main, in my early days, wagonette, or other carriage, drawn by one, or two horses respectively, and the official carrier of goods and persons, carried same in either direction, several times each day from Monday to Saturday, inclusive.
Some expressions, so far as I am concerned, do ‘tickle my fancy’ and the mention of the Borgue wagonette brings back to my mind one in particular, when on the return journey in the latter it came to my ears.
We had been to Kirkcubright with the object of seeing for the first time, that new wonder in The Nation’s Armory, the Tank which had been brought by rail to Kirkcudbright station, and then, on its own power, driven on display round to the harbour area, an effort to encourage the war savings project, and while it was the object of a great surprise to us, as we viewed it, our appreciation was far in excess of that of The Germans, when they met up with it in action.
I had ofcourse, attended to my prior engagement in relation to the day’s outing, namely that visit to the ice-cream shop, and then amidst the crowd of some considerable size, we viewed the monster with awe, as the non-Sassenach went his rounds, raising funds for his own personal use, shouting aloud, “Buy a post card of the tank- and – real w’ite ‘eather- three pence a bunch, real w’ite ‘eather- take a busfull ‘ome with you”-
Every one partook of some kind of refreshment, no doubt, and one elderly spinster in our bus-load over indulged in ’the barley brae,’ to the extent that she never stopped talking on the homeward journey, and in my opinion reached her climax, when the wagonette stopped to deliver parcels, at two houses at the top of, what was termed, The Millha’ Glen ‘ and then, as we waited, a boisterous dog appeared, exhibiting dislike to .our outfit by barking aloud ‘to the extent that it drowned the old dear’s conversation completely, until, losing her patience completely, she shouted aloud, “Hit that dog a walt across the mooth wi’ a stane”.
The reader may well wonder at the length I have , so to speak , gone out of my way, in order to relate that simple incident, but even so, at this point in time, some Seventy-six years later, I smile as I still clearly visualize the happening, and my ulterior motive is, that, after making that detour, we are now almost back again, to the point known as Senwick Road End, where we did in fact leave off from.
And so, travelling South, we pass Senwick Smithy, proceed to the top of the hill where we view Senwick Mansion House, and then, after passing the farms of Balmangan, and Upper-senwick, we come to The Ross Farm, and The Ross Lighthouse, on The Ross Island.
Returning to the top of the hill again, straight on. come to Brighouse Farm, and the well known Brighouse shore which is now commercialized to the extent of being a recognized holiday area, with splendid facilities for boating and bathing.
On the right, to the West are the farms of The Graplin and Southpark, and then we return to the top of The Kirk Brae in Borgue, and proceed Westwards, when, after a short distance. we come to the road end leading South to the farms of Chapelton and Borness, the latter being the residence of the late G.B. Sproat, the author of the delightful nostalgic song, ‘Bonnie Gallowa’ the music of which was, according to information supplied to me, produced by the two brothers McMurray in Gatehouse, well known fiddlers, who were in great demand for dances, and concerts.
One could imagine that the notes of the tune, had been taken from the old Scottish Song ‘Will Ye No come back again’, but ofcourse the timing of the notes Is different, and in my opinion no better tune could have been chosen for the delightful words.
G.B. wrote the song- ‘The rose o’ Dalmallin’, and others which I cannot say that I am acquainted with, but he was a recognized poet, and as clearly as that night when I saw him, I can still see him and’ hear his remarks.
At a concert in Borgue school, the chairman introduced him as ‘The Laird of Borgue’; he gave a brief Iecture in regard to song and verse, and I can still hear his words in respect of verse (his own no doubt) for an illustration of rather inferior quality, his subject being a lovers’ walk, featured near Pringleton row, on the low road from Borgue to Kirkcudbright, and it is the young man who is speaking, and the verse that I still remember now, some seventy odd years later is as follows:
And as we went alang the road,
We met Culraven kye ,
Says I, noo I’ll jump- ower the dyke,
And you just daun’er by.
I for one, can fully appreciate the common sense in regard to the young man’s action, for there would certainly be a mighty bull amongst the herd, and in my opinion, it is a wise man is scared of a bull, and so I did wonders at the smirks, and guffas from the audience- ???
But we return to Borness road end, and proceed Westward, past the smithy where many hundreds of horses had been shod and hundreds of cart wheels has been hooped over the years, then, at the foot of the hill, we have Chapelton row, a joiner’s shop, and four dwelling houses, and the road to the left, leads to Chapelton dairy, and further, to Muncraig farm.
The field in front of the houses was the home ground of ‘Borgue Honey Rovers’ Football Club, and Borgue’s Sports were held here at times, on the same day as The Flower Show, when the pipe band was the outstanding attraction, but I feel almost guilty of sacrilege by not giving prominence to that Flower Show, when I Introduced the village, and so, I must add a few lines In regard to this Borgue’s greatest day of the year.
It was, from my earliest days until my late teen-age years, held in the school, and preparations began the evening before, when school desks were uplifted, and staging erected, in preparation for the arrival of entries. in the classes for flowers, vegetables, fruit, honey, and later, poultry.
It also had a very large entry of home baking produce, home sewing items, embroidery etc. and keen competition took place, with some classes open to entries from other parishes, and, there was also the class for children’s bouquets of wild flowers, in which I managed to be amongst the prize-winners, from time to time, and, prior to War I my father was a keen competitor, and prize winner, and then, after that War, he, having been wounded in his right arm, did not take up the challenge again, but my mother scored quite well with her home made bread, scones, cakes, and don’t mention it, oatcakes, for as I cycled, that morning with a mighty basketful of her entries, the basket got jammed between my knee and the handlebars, and the casualty was one of that entry of three oat-cakes, all of which were curled like the starched cuffs of your grand father’s white shirt, and as brittle as a piece of candy out of Maggie’s wee sweetie shop, and I did not have the time to retun for another ‘farrel’ , and (you won’t find one in your dictionary) but- wheest- she still got first prize.
One of the class rooms were utilized for the purpose of supplying teas, and ofcourse the village shops had extra stock in hand, mellons making their first appearance for the season, and other fruits, and later, ‘the tally’ from Gatehouse, to our great delight, appeared with his cream coloured cart, and pony to match, and the great gala day was completed with the well known Flower Show dance in The Bowling Hall, the sports having been carried out in conjunction with The Flower Show.
I would not for one moment ask you to believe this, but that mention of sports, brings to my mind, the incident concerning ‘Wullie’ who could have perhaps been ‘Oor Wullie in ‘The Sunday Post’ but certainly not at Borgue, and at any rate, this Wullie, one of a large family of supporters, had, so to speak, running in his blood, and on the day of the incident, he had, encouraging support of his shouting family, won: Hundred Yards, The Two- Twenty, in quick succession, but as he had just finished first in the Mile Open, he collapsed, and then the frantic family began shouting, “Wullie has fainted- somebody run for the doctor, and as it so happened, Wullie heard this shout – ‘Run for the doctor’, as he came to, and consequently he jumped to his feet, gave himself a shake, and shouted, “Who wants the doctor—I’ll run for the doctor”.
In more serious vein however, we will return to Chapelton Row, and we pass, as we go straight ahead, (now totally obscured by young trees , and demolished) that second joiner’s shop where the author served his apprenticeship, and we pass the farm of Carlton on our right hand, and Knockmullock on our left, then we we come to the farm of Barnmaghan and if we go on still straight ahead, we would pass Plunton Mains Farm, and on again to the point of nearing Barharrow Farm, when taking the road South, we would pass Lennox Plunton Farm, where the ruins of Plunton Castle is still in evidence, and passing the entrance road to Rainton Farm, (If my spelling is correct) we, still moving South, would come to Margrie Farm, and then the entrance to Knockbrex Mansion, and a little further on. Carrick, with its well known shore.
But instead we will, at Barmagachan Farm, turn to the left, and travel along that ‘romantic road’ , Cuddle-cosy’, as we pass. the entrance road to the farm of Rattra, and proceed until we come to Tonguecroft, where, turning right for a short distance, we come to that road end, and take that short distance South, on our left hand, when we will reach that shore at Kirkandrews by road, where St. Andrew reached, generations before, by sea.
Consequently, for those who have perhaps, never heard the local verse in that connection, I will repeat it now:—
St. Andrew, the pious, he came from abroad,
He crossed the wide ocean, and landed in Borgue,
He built there, a church, which is seen to this day,
At ancient Kirkandrews, in fair Galoway.
St. Andrew came by sea ofcourse, but I arrived by air, if what I was told is authentic, the information being that the stork, by way of a practical joke no doubt, dropped me off on July Sixteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Six, but even in the year now Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-two, I decline to disclose my age, and I have neither seen the boat which carried St, Andrew, nor the stork which carried me, but I have no hesitation in believing that we both arrived at Kirkandrews, albeit on different dates.
St. Andrew built his church there, the second building from the road; now in ruins. more or less, but since the ivy has been cleared away, one can see the tablet on the wall, and I would assume that the church yard would be made up after the church in question was erected, legend being to the effect that, as a penance, two Nuns riddled the very sandy type of soil.
At the risk of being considered clannish to some extent, this, my narrative staged in Kirkandrews, and Knockbrex Estate from this moment until the reader reaches the stage of giving a yawn, his or her arms a mighty stretch upward, and a sigh of relief, but with all good intention, realizing that my descriptions of the happenings, and conditions, will, in the main be universal in relation to other parishes, and counties in the South West of Scotland, and even much further afield.
The laird of those great estates was ofcourse, ‘King of the Castle’, a pivot on which everything in his domain, revolved and a joke told to me by my uncle, who was a bit of a historian, and from time to time, the author of some articles published in the local press, referred to the laird’s power, In the generations long previous to his, my uncle’s day.
An old male employee of the laird, in the incident referred to, had transgressed, not to the extent of murdering a fellow human being, but the more heinous crime of murdering one of the laird’s pheasants, and as ‘that modern, dreadful punishment’ of community service, without payment, was unknown, the offender was sentenced to death.
In consequence thereof, the scaffold was duly erected, the crowd assembled, with the laird in attendance, the offender led on to the scaffold, then, as the noose was placed around the offender’s neck, the latter’s wife stepped forward and uttered the consoling words, “Stan’ up streight noo Harry, ye manna’ offend the laird“.
He, my uncle, in another illustration in regard to the supremacy of the laird, in the olden days, went on and mentioned an incident at the time of an election, and in this case, the laird, ‘out of sympathy for his poor old illiterate employee, took the latter in hand, and, with replicas of the voting paper instructed on how to vote, in particular, in which square he, the employee should place his cross.
Quite a different matter ofcourse, and a side track from my narrative, the two who went up the river in a boat, on angling expedition, where, after a lengthly row, they found a spot which was obviously the trouts’ feeding ground, for in no time at all it seemed, after trying many other spots on the river, they each were delighted with their respective well filled baskets but , as they were about to leave their boat and walk home. one of the pair remarked, knowing the scenery in the embankment was often repeated ‘Oh! man, we should have marked the spot where we got them, bringing forth the authoritative reply, “Don’t worry a boot that as he smiled, and pointed to the cross which he had made in chalk, towards the prow of the boat remarking further, “I tm no’ say daft as ye think”.
But James Brown Esq. was not by any means a laird in the category of what I have mentioned, he was Liberal politically , as his son Douglas proclaimed, when the latter was chairman at a political meeting which I attended in Borgue School, and in my opinion, he was a liberal, so far as the welfare of his employees were concerned, and even if I had to throw one stone in his direction, it would be but a very small pebble, my explanation being as follows :-
Having a large business connection in Manchester, he frequently travelled there, and it was the custom for him and his famiIy to return to Knockbrex , and ofcourse, study what took place, in his absence ad ofcourse there was always, amongst the band of workers, an informer who had no doubt, the ulterior motive of the possibility of his own ‘promotion ‘in view, and consequently the fact that some member of the staff had not been keeping his end up, reached the laird’s ears, in this manner.
The result being that ‘the reported offender’ was duly dismissed, a tragedy of the highest order in those days, for not only was the victim’s livelyhood ended, he had to relinquish his house within days, at a time when alternate employment of a similar nature was almost impossible to obtain, for, where other similar employment was vaguely possible, a reference was required, and, while this happening was far from being frequent, it created an atmosphere of apprehension, so that the laird’s return was not to say relished to the extent of a child’s anticipation of the coming of Santa Claus.
Again, it was in some cases at least, the assumption that, so far as the informer or the victim was concerned, it was the wrong one of them who had been dismissed.
The immediate aforesaid remarks could, by some, including myself, be considered to be on the debit side, but the improvements in the housing and general welfare, so far as the workers were involved, although taken for granted, by some at least, left a balance in the laird’s favour of no small amount.
While the provision of superb shootings appeared to be the priority, nothing was grudged in relation to the making the estate ‘a thing of beauty, and a joy for ever’, and in this direction, hovel-like houses were transferred into homes of reasonable comfort, and many new buildings of the highest quality were erected, built of dressed whinstone, the cost of which would be prohibitive in this day and age.
I do not know in what condition the mansion house was in when James purchased the estate, which was, from my earliest recollection, a house of distinction, complete with Billiard room, and surrounded by housing for horses, coaches, and all the paraphernalia relating thereto, and attached to same was a dwelling house for the coachman, and another for one of the gardeners.
A burn divided the grounds, and close to the edge of same, as the house containing the paraffin driven engine, which provided the electricity for lighting the mansion , and the ancillary houses, then, to the right hand, as we face the mansion, was a small house constructed in corrugated iron, in which an unmarried woman, who looked after the bothy, where two single men workers resided, and also here was the estate joiner’s shop, with a section for the painter and his equipment.
The ponds at the rear, and the front. enhanced the appearance of the grounds, and while I do not know what condition the gardens were in, I know, that in the laird ‘s time, several pergolas were erected, and soon had a show of beautiful roses, the laird, having in his staff of gardeners, one who was a rose specialist.
The head gardener’s cottage, across the field from the front entrance, was a joy to behold when it would hardly have been possible to find a weed in either the rear, or the front entrances, but I was saddened, when I saw some short time ago, that in regard to the latter, it would now be almost as difficult to find the entrance, as it was, at the time I am writing about, to find a weed growing on it.
To The West of the gardens, in my boyhood years, the garage was erected; a massive building with a turreted, flat roof, building like a castle, and it was eventually described, and sold as such, but, like the chapel at Kirkandrews, the builders concerned, did not have the capability to make a flat. roof, that withstood the water over a lengthly period, and consequently the two buildings, along with some other porches, were a distinct liability on the estate, for many years.
The field across the road from that garage area joined up with the lily-wood, where in the Spring, the great mass of golden daffodils- “fluttered and danced in the breeze”, a glorious sight to behold, without a doubt, but my reader may be amazed, when I intimate that I actually attended a funeral in that field, and mention that poor Nash is buried there.
It so happened, in my teenage years, that, along with a of others acting as beaters , in preparation for the start of that day’s shoot, we were moving across, spread out, with the view of driving any pheasants into the wood, and the headkeeper, who directed, having his gun with him, fired on any rabbit that rose, and as it so happened, when one bolted, the keeper raised his gun and fired as the rabbit was reaching the top of a hillock, and Nash, having set off in pursuit, rose up on his hind legs in order to get a better sighting of the rabbit, but, alas, it so happened as it did so, it had come between the gun and the rabbit, and consequently got the full shot in the back of its head.
It was a tragedy of the first order, for Nash was a young black retriever in which the laird had great expectations and it was with considerable apprehension, that the keeper set off to the mansion house, in order to let the laird know about the tragic happenIng, and while we awaited the head keeper’s return, the under-keeper, who was a comedian of the first order, dug the grave, and then, ‘as I can see him yet’ — when he had replaced the last piece of turf, he turned to the rest of the group, raised his cap, and remarked, with all due reverence, “Thank you all, gentlemen”.
Much more could be written about the mansion house, no doubt, but the recent T. V. series ‘Upstairs—Downstairs’, a reasonable indication of what it was like in those days, with the butler, houskeeper, and group of maids.
Leaving ‘the Big House’ as it was frequently named in those days, we come Eastward, and, to the right , we see Barlocco Island, where, in the early part of this century, a steam-ship called The Trudo met its end, when, during a storm at The Isle-of-Man, it broke from its mooring, and after drifting across the Solway, was ship-wrecked on the Barlocco Island rocks, and the members of the crew who were drowned, were buried in Kirkandrews Churchyard.
We see Barlocco Farm on our left, but immediately thereafter, we must stop and gaze at the massive tower, and other large building at the farm of Corseyard, the latter being tenanted, up to the beginning of The Century by my great grandfather, when only modest buildings were in vogue, and so , when we learn that the building in front of the tower, is in fact, or was, a byre for the belted galloway cows, we would no doubt agree that it was justifiably called ‘The Model Dairy’; there being nothing similar that direction seen. in The Parish of Borgue, The Stewartry or Kirkcudbright, or, in my opinion, any other county in Scotland.
Built at the instigation of the laird, the dimensions, relative to the normal requirement of housing the cows for the milking is enormous, the stalls for the cows, and walls for the different transactions are all in enamel, white brick; there are, all under the same high roof, storage for the cows’ feed, a super-clean, shining area for the separating of the cream for the milk, this being where I had my first sight of a separator in use, the required action, by a handle turned effort, and the cream being made into butter, where everything connected with the operation, was absolutely spotless, and all of the various compartments, which, as I have stated are under the same roof, each department is completely walled of, in the white brick, and it is without doubt, a model dairy- a model dairy, indeed, which attracted sight-seeing visitors from a very wide area.
In my boyhood years, the mighty drilling plant was in operation for weeks in the search for a substantial water supply, but, according to what information that I gathered, this was by no means, successfully accomplished.
The erection of the tower, so far as I recollect, was carried out simultaneously with the drilling for water, the object of the tower, as I understood it, was for the provision of a water-tank elevated to a height, necessary for supplying the gravitational flow to the mansion house at Knockbrex.
There is at hand, and at the roadside, another of the laird ‘s buildings, known in my day, as Corseyard Cottage, but now I understand called Fisher Croft, and next, some short distance further along, is the farm of Roberton with its mansion-like house, which is now the residence of the laird ‘s grandson, Mr. Andrew Brown, his good lady, and family.
Show me the road to heaven, was the request that the convert put to the evangelist, and got the spontaneous reply “Turn to the Right, and keep Right ahead,’ and while I would not guarantee that by adhering to that same direction now, as you pass over the bridge at the foot of the hill, you will acquire the object in the convert’s mind, I do say, that in my boyhood years, I would have considered that you were on the verge of such, for If you now turn to the right, and keep right ahead, you will arrive at Kirkandrews, and will in fact be back to the very beginning of this narrative, and while I would not expect that you will join the band of ragamuffins, in a game of rounders, hop-the-beds, marbles, or even cross the little bridge into the field, for a game of cricket, nor will I ask you to assist me to carry home a basket of trout, crab-apples, mushrooms, or hazel nuts from ‘Craig Shundy’- but I will be content, if you will carry on listening to my elaboration in regard to the living conditions, and the general happenings in regard to life at Kirkandrews which will in fact be in relative harmony, with the Parish of Borgue, and so, from my pedestal, Kirkandrews , I speak with authority of being ‘The Provost’, if not by democratic vote, by exaltation to that status, by that jovial person, my teacher, in the qualifying class, in Borgue School, who, in similar vein, appointed Hugh, my mate from infancy to late teen age years, to the office of Town Clerk.
And so, as you enter this picturesque little spot on the shore of the Solway, you will find that little church, like other first class buildings, built at the instigation of the laird, James Brown Esq., and according to information of recent years, replaced a former mission hall, built of corrugated iron sheeting.
The design and layout is delightful to see, and as we enter from the public road, we pass through an open-sided porchway, with its red roof, and stone slab seat on each side, then there is the gate, made of heavy thick oak, still in good condition, then, on each side of the wide pathway, in my early years, there was a weeping ash tree, but when the laird died, the one on the left was removed, and he, the laird, was buried there, as the bronze plaques clearly indicate. On the other side there is the plaque in remembrance of the laird ‘s son and heir, Mr. Douglas Brown, while there are appropriate plaques on the opposite wall, in respect of the other members of the laird’s family.
A broad stone built stairway takes us up from the road level, to the elevated position of the little church, and again, on either side, there is a gravel area, and a substantial stone and lime built wall surrounds the area. There is the belfry, and there was a splendid bell, but from my most recent observation, the bell—rope has gone, and consequently I do not know whether the bell is still there or not, but the swallows that built in the belfry, since my earliest recollection, or their respective progeny, still build there.
The faulty flat roof, as previously mentioned, has been the cause of considerable deteriorization in regard to the oak panelling inside, and has also been the cause, no doubt, of the removal of the expensive pig-skin bags, which were attached to the back of each of the heavy oak chairs, but despite anything in the nature of diminishing glory, the church, or chapel, is well worth a visit, and it is pleasing to know that it is still in use as a place for worship.
Some two yards to the rear of the church, is the dwelling house or cottage ‘Milnecroft’ and although I was born in this house, it is but recently that I learned, through having the good fortune to meet in with a most charming person called Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, that I was made aware that this title existed, but in my father’s time, this house was the official residence of the tenant of the mill, where, in addition to a small field, it provided the necessary housing for a horse and cart, a cow, some poultry, and a pig, and in its heyday, the miller was looked upon as being a man of substance, and the mill a place of importance.
However, in my infant years, due to the fact that the machinery was more or less worn out, as a working mill. it closed its doors for all time, but still remained intact for quite a time, as indicated by me, in the opening chapter of this narrative.
In addition, at that time, there was another four houses, and later on, when the mill building was pulled down, while not on the same spot, at the instigation of the laird, two more delightful cottages were built, and now, within recent years, two further houses have been erected, bringing the total to eight, due to the fact that two of the small houses were made into one.
In my opinion, our most primitive ancestors could have survived at Kirkandrews, for there was an abundance of shellfish, wild fruit , and fungi, rabbits, hares, and edible birds in profusion, and in the later stages, good soil, which could be cultivated with the most primitive of tools.
However, from my earliest time, and some generations before , there was in general, some kind of employment on the surroundIng farms and estates, and while, as I have indicated In that first chapter, the reward for labour was meagre , it was in keeping with what the farmers were paid for their produce, for as one old woman whose father farmed Barlocco in her teenage years, stated that she had carried a basket of eggs, that three miles to Borgue village, for the pricely sum of eight pence (pre decimal ofcourse); but let us consider the casual work on the farms.
In the Spring, the ‘good’ farmer cleared his lea of stones, ‘land cloddin’s’ being the local term, and the workers, taking a [field] in strips, according to its width, gathered every loose stone within his range, and placed same in a small heaps, the latter being Ieft in a straight line, to be uplifted later by horse and cart, then deposited in some out of the way corner.
The casual worker was paid One Shilling and Three Pence a ten hour day, later rising to One Shilling and Six pence.
Next, and for a similar payment, was ‘spudding’ the growing corn, and the workers advanced across the cornfield, nipping out, below soil level, every thistle within sight with their spud, an instrument resembling a wood-chisel on a long wooden handle. Then came the turnip thinning in early June, and great bands of casual workers were so employed, mainly school children on their Summer Holidays, the operation being supervised by the farmer himself, or the farm foreman.
The turnip plants being well established in the drills, the workers all standing by with their hoes at the ready, all having be instructed in regard to what was wanted, namely, to push out all of the plants, leaving two only, about ten inches apart , and the first of the band, being called to lead off, took up his position, and began, and as all the workers had to keep at least one pace behind the one in front of him, the ‘point’ determined the speed of the whole group of as many as eighteen, or more.
In general they were allowed a break of ten minutes at Nine-thirty A.M. and Three P.M., and ofcourse all had the established hour from Twelve Noon until One P.M.
The payment in the beginning of the First World War was universal at the rate of three Shillings per day, and ofcourse when the weather prevented working, the hours thus so affected were deducted on pay-day.
The thinning being completed, work continued, on most farms by way of destroying the weeds, and in this direction, the workers walked individually between the rows of growing turnips and, in addition to destroying the weeds, they pulled out any plant that was growing in excess of that vital one, otherwise the latter would never have grown to anything like to normal size.
The work was not all drudgery by any means, for, and in particular, at the turnip thinning, as the hoes moved backwards and forward, in almost perfect uniformity, the gossip, problems, jokes and items of unsolicited, but free legal advice, was scattered around in profusion, but like the debates in The House of Commons, everyone was a speaker, and very few were prepared to listen.
At periods, from time to time, each day it went, that problem- Who ‘s Photograph was he holding? that man who uttered the words- ‘Sisters and brothers have I none- but that man’s father was my father’s son- and again, which Bible Character couldn’t eat tripe? (as it is possible that some of my readers did not have any connection with those turnip thinning bands, and consequently will be lacking in ‘those higher standards of knowledge, ‘ I will provide the answer, which is ‘Cain’, and to save any further wondering why, I will add, ‘because He wasn’t Abel (able), then again, in answer to a further item in this category, namely, ‘Why does the prince of Wales wear red, white, and blue braces? the answer, at that time, being cleverly detected by some one of the higher I.Q. lot,. being the obvious, namely— ‘to keep his trousers up‘ got the ‘not at all’ reply , when, after some all round looks of doubt were indicated, the clever poser of the question, would laugh and add, (in the local dialect ofcourse) ‘To keep them frae comin’ doon’.
The aforesaid are but few of the posers, and consequentIy I would suggest, that if any of my readers should anticipate meeting up with such like problems, they should prepare themselves by taking some advanced course at some University–?
The foreman kept a constant watch on the completed work, and hurled out criticism at any offender, one of such being, as I can still hear it, namely- ‘Jimmy Hogg- ye ha’e knocked oot a’ they guid plants, an’ left a darned wee thing that’s no’ the size o’ a moose’s lug’, while another would be, ‘Y’er at ye’r dibblin’ again Wull Black- (dibbling was referred to, when the hoer, having push out all the plants, pulled one back with the corner of the hoe, and pushed it back into place- and this plant ofcourse, handled in that manner just died off.)
After the turnips came the hay, the word ‘silage’ never heard of at that time, when the grass was cut with the reaper, drawn by a pair of horses, and when the swathes, left in rows by the reaper, were turned, and dried to perfection, if at all possible, it was built into ricks, then after a short period carted home to the farm stackyard.
There were two methods used in this method of transporting, the first being ‘the bogie, when, with ropes attached to levers, on this low, flat transport, the hay-rick was pulled aboard, while with the other method, the hayrick was, by a block and tackle arrangement, the three staunch, very high legs, elevated to the position where a cart could be placed below it, and thus loaded for the journey home.
Great caution had to be taken in later years, when electricity became the norm, and the necessary cables were strung across the fields, suspended by high pylons, for if, when the ‘triangle’ was being pulled along from rick to rick, as much as touched the uninsulated cable, it could be, and in fact it was, in a few cases, fatal to both man and horse.
In my early days, the harvest commenced around the second week in August, the hours being similar, with the exception of some overtime being required, by way of catching up with the time that the weather had ‘swindled’ them out of, and perhaps came in response to my little silent prayers, the rain is ofcourse, what I am referring to, and as it will no doubt be understood, the rain raised the burn, and in consequence my hope, for, although the binding of the sheaves was brought to a halt, the opening was made, in regard to filling the basket with the trout that did not get away.
Workers, apart from the local casuals, were employed by way of a contract, the-y came from towns some distance away, and very often from Ireland, and the contract could either be by week, or harvest, the latter being, from the cutting of the first sheaf, until the last stack was thatched, and the former, by weekly employment for the similar time, and ofcourse when there was a lengthly spell of dry weather, the ‘by harvest’ contractors benefitted, while, on the other hand, if there happened to be a long spell of wet weather, the contract price, divided by the number of weeks, made it a much poorer return, but of course, those engaged by the week, were not affected by the weather at all.
Again, in my earliest day, the harvest started by the farm ‘cotmen’ (as the tied worker was always referred to) opening up the field of corn with their sythes, aided by the already gathered team.
The latter was in general a school boy, or girl, termed the strapper, and, as the name so indicates, the latter took from the cut sheaf, around a dozen full length straws ,or, if corn was short in length, they made, by joining two similar strips, a strap which was laid down ready for the sheaf lifter, to lay the uplifted sheaf on, and the next action was carried out by the worker, who bound and tied the sheaf, and then, along with otthars, he made them into stooks, where they remained until the carting home the sheaves, began.
The uplifting of the potato crop in October an days, was not to say strenuous, but later on, when the potato digger came into use, it became a real back-breaking affair, because the distance of around thirty yards was allotted to each pair, and it was in the farmer’s interest, that the digger should be in motion all the time, and as it happened, it was very difficult for the pair of lifters to get their allotted stretch cleared, by the time. that the digger came round again, and consequently, the lifters could hardly get a minute or two, in order to ease their respective backs.
The demand for casual workers on the farm, was greatly reduced at the end of the harvest, but a few were still required for the scattering of the farmyard manure on the fields, and also, the ‘shawing of the turnip crop, and in regard to the former, loads of the manure so mentioned, were deposited in heaps of around three barrow loads, (brought by horse and cart, in straight lines, with the distance of around three yards between them, the rows being in similar distance, and the casual worker, so employed, that with a ‘graip’ (you may find one in your garden shed, but not in your dictionary) they scattered the heap evenly around in the stible field (where that year’s corn crop had been grown), and their reward for doing this, was either in accordance with the agreement, so much per day, or so much for the scattering of each hundred heaps, or lumps, as they were more often called.
The work Involved in shawing, referred to above, was also paid for in a similar manner, being so much per day, or so much for each hundred yards of the drill of growing turnips, and the working method was, that the worker, starting off, between two such drills, with his shawing hook, cut the shaw, and the root off the turnip, which had been pulled up from each drill alternately, and the turnips so handled, were left in the one drill, while the roots and shaws were deposited in the other, then the crop was uplifted by the cotman with his horse and cart, and put into pits, where they were covered with straw, and so insulated against frost, this being the normal method of dealing with the ‘swede’ variety, and green turnips were in the main, given to the cattle, as they were uplifted, without the roots or shaws being removed.
If my reader happens to be in that category, namely, a casual worker, whose livelyhood depends on the rewards thereof , then from now, until the Spring of next year, I can only suggest hibernation, or alternately, come with me now to Kirkandrews, and I will show you where you can eke out a modest living, by gathering whelks, or, (as there is now the letter ‘R’ in each month from now to the end of March,) Mussels, while I continue, at that same paradisiacal spot, to tell The World in general, or the few who may have accidently picked up this, my narrative, about the fortune, or misfortune, of being born in the early part of this century, and living there, amidst the joys and sorrows, of life in general, there at that time, but, right away, I must warn you, that so far as ‘life’ balance sheet is concerned, you will find few, if any entries, in regard to the latter, on the debit side, of the said account.
KIRKANDREWS.
There is little to doubt, or in fact, evidence to show, that the whelks and mussels, were the staple food of primatial man, but whether or not this was so, the availability of such made it possible for any able person, to gather and sell to the market, enough, at more or less any time, to provide a living, and there at Kirkandrews, in my day, this was to some extent, at least , carried out.
In the Summer months , as a sideline operation, the owner and a coal retailer, with his mule and lorry, brought a group of whelk gatherers who set up camp on the fore-shore, and he, no doubt givIng them an advance payment in respect of their anticipated production, so to speak , ‘set them up in ‘business’ there, and consequently he made his appearance at regular intervals, when he bought the total result of their effort.
We, the youngsters at the time, through casual calls on their respective domain, derived considerable entertainment, by simply watching their way of life, and they were indeed a happy band who did their cooking, washing etc. within the area, and in an evening, while the camp fires sent the smoke and flames skyward, they sang to the accompaniment of music supplied by one of the group.
Along with others, I have, when in desperation to raise a fund for some particle object, gathered and sold my effort in that direction, and although, to the inexperienced, it was a back-breaking affair, it was possible to gather a hundredweight of whelks, in, what was termed a tide, (the space in time between the point where the ebbing tide cleared the spot where the larger whelks were to be found, and the return of the tide to that same place). We sold them to two old women who bought on a wholesale basis, but their measure, which was supposed to be that for a hundred weight, did in fact hold at least half-a-stone more, but as it was the cash in hand, we did not grumble.
The pair referred to above, resided in a hut which they had built for themselves at Carrick Shore, and they used, in the main, the wooden wreckage, which was washed ashore, when the Trudo, (mentioned by me previously here-in) was wrecked, their hut being appropriately named ‘The Trudo’.
While I cannot state with full authority, that the gravitational water supply was brought from the hill nearby, termed ‘Barn-Heuch’, where a well built water tank house was erected, and the pipe-line of approximately a mile in length was laid, was at the cost, and instigation, of the laird, James Brown Esq. of Knockbrex, I am of the opinion that it was, and at any rate, he saw to it that, wherever possible at all, the dwelling houses at Kirkandrews were modernized to that status of having a sink, cold water on tap , and a water toilet.
The old thatch-roof houses were dismantled, thus obliterating the pictured past, but the ruins, so far as I was concerned, created an inquisitive appetite, satisfied in the main by my grandmother and my dad, the more mischievious versions, as stated by the latter, were ofcourse, as music to my ears.
While there was not, in my dad ‘s boyhood years, or for that matter my own, anything at all that resembled the vandalism that ‘flourishes’ today, the constant threat of punishment in the form of a flogging with the birch, cancelling any such ideas, (do-gooders please copy), rascality was in vogue, an illustration of which as told to me by my uncle being as follows:-
There, in his boyhood years, resided at in an old thatched house, with an open chimney which had access from the ground at the rear, of similar height,) an elderly spinster, whose sole companion was her cat. It was consequently, more or less worshiped by her, and as it so happened, on a Summer evening, Satan, having noticed a boy with ‘idle hands’, promted him to uplift the cat from the vicinity of the door of the house, and drop it down the chimney.
In consequence thereafter, the cat, having got the fright of its lifetime, scurried round the floor at maximum speed, before it shot out of the open door, and the woman, not having seen where the cat emerged from, was flabbergasted to the extent of uttering, as she stood aghast, “In the name o’ guidness, but whut his gang wrang wi’ the cat”.
Again, and much nearer to the actions of vandals, at that time, some of the mischief makers would go on to the roof of a house of similar type, on a Winter evening, when the family was intact within its walls, and they, the miscreants, would place a turf on top of the chimney, resulting, to the the extent that the occupants were almost ‘kippered’ before one of the more agile members scaled the roof, and cleared away the offending obstacle.
A somewhat more civilized type of disturbance of this nature was, (in my boyhood years, when I actually took part in the ploy, at the instigation of ‘Curly’ who had come to resided at Kirkandrews) practiced by us from time to time, and in this connection, the inhabitants were disturbed by a loud, weird noise, the cause of which, to the uninitiated ,was not detectable, but, due to the fact that this happened over seventy years ago, I feel that I be making no contravention, of The Official Secrets Act, by now giving away the secrets concerned, In what was, in loc—language termed, “Rum’lin their Spoot.”
‘Spoot’ was, taking it from the context of laymans’ language, into the phraseology of legal expression, the drop—pipe from the rone, and on the presumption that my reader’s neighbour had in fact, picked up many more prizes at Borgue Flower Show, than what he, my reader had, with the consequence thereof, that the latter did no longer love the former as himself, in accordance with that direction from ‘The Scriptures’, and so he, my reader, may feel like experimenting on his neighbour’s abode, in accordance with what I feel absolutely certain, is the instructions seen in print, for the first time. And so, the success of the mission depended entirely on the minute carrying out of the instructions, the first of which is without doubt, what is termed, in layman’s language, ‘Casing the Joint’, which, to the uninitiated, means making a proper survey, with the knowledge that the operation will take place in total darkness.
Assuming that the operation is to be a joint effort, observation which establishes the fact that there is a ‘Spoot’ on each end of the building should be gleefully noted, and ofcourse the other ‘ground-work ‘is just exactly that, for you must carefully note the position of any metal buckets ,or tin baths, and in particular, anything at all in relation to a garden spade, for the simple reason, that if you are known locally as a person of the down to earth type , who would not, under normal circumstances do anything other than ‘call a spade a spade’ you could be found wanting In this direction, should you trip over one in the dark, and again, unless you are normally fascinated in having your shinbone indented by making contact with the pedal of a bicycle , in symmetry with the handle bar entering the sleeve of your jacket, you should carefully note the possible resting place of anything at all , in that group of boneshakers, and if it is evident that a large cat, with a very long tail, is in the habit of sitting on the door-step, the fact should be underlined
The secret ingredients are simply (1) a large newspaper or two, and (2) a box of matches (if a Windy night) two boxes, and a night when it is as dark as pitch, should be chosen in conjunction with a careful study of the programmes on the T. V. being made with the intention of holding the viewers glued to their respective set.
We find that today, when we pay Eighty pounds for a years viewing, that although the picture and sound has reached perfection, the show is more or less ruined by the thumping of drums, the guffaws, and hand clapping of the studio audiences, but ofcourse at the time that I am writing about, T. V. was not even dreamed about, Radio, the only form of voice reproduction being gramophones, which would be abject curios if seen today.
But let me finalize the instructions in regard to ‘rum’lin’ a spoot and, assuming that you are one of a pair, whispering in the darkness as you approach ‘the victim’s house, you first of all roll up, in single sheets, the individual pages of the news-paper, similar to the shape of a Cumberland sausage, then push this cartridge as far up the drop—pipe as possible, and thereafter, another which pushes the first one further up, assuming that if there is actually two such drop—pipes, your mate is doing the same, then you both simultaneously light the end of the paper, and disappear into the dark, as the air in the drop-pipe heats and creats the very loud, weird, and demoralizing sound.
This is but the one instance of perhaps mischief, and I quote same as an illustration, and while, at the early age of this Century, many other tricks were invented, they were on the whole, actions which created no material damage at all, and, as I have mentioned in the early part of this narrative, there were other games and pastimes galore, varying from the ‘spoot rum’lit affair in The Winter, to the joys of ‘The Dookin’ Bay when the Sun, in all its glory, heated up the incoming tide, and again there was never any objection to that group of youngsters playing cricket or football in Roberton field.
The economy of Kirkandrews was solely dependent on the payment work on Knockbrex Estate, and not only were all of the married men who resided at Kirkandrews so employed, there were many others from the Gatehouse area, also employed in the gardens and grounds, and in addition to all that, there was almost an army of trades men, from Kirkcudbright employed for months, or even years on end, erecting, and modernizing the buildings etc., to the extent that, as I mentioned in my previous book, the laird, James Brown Esq., was, in the estimation of the beneficiaries, nearer to God, than the Archbishop of Westminster, or The Pope.
The tradesmen, mainly from Kirkcudbright, cycled to their respective spot of working, on Monday mornings, in time to start that day’s work, and returned to their homes at mid-day on the following Saturday, lodging in the houses at Kirkandrews during the week, some boarding, while others brought their own food, and paid for their bed only, and in the latter connection it was stated that the type of bread which they brought with them, was a pan-loaf, round in shape, with each slice indicated by indentation; to the extent that the owner could keep in his mind, the number of slices remaining at all time ,and in fact this bread was called the lodger’s loaf, and so bought from the bakers’ vans as such, by the normal housewife, who favoured the particular loaf of bread.
As I have indicated, the masons and labourers travelled that seven miles from Kirkcudbright on bicycles, with the exception of old Robbie who had never reached the stage of proficiency in the art of cycling, and used a massive old tricycle which had solid tyres, and not to say a comfortable saddle, and to us, that band of youngsters, it was a novelty, of the first degree.
Dougie, an elderly labourer may well have passed a number of schools in his life time, but had never apparently gone inside one, and apart from his illiteracy, he could not read the time on a clock or watch, and although he did possess one of the latter, as the chain across his waistcoat proudly proclaimed, his method of covering this deficiency, was simply (when asked by someone as to how the day was advancing) to withdraw his watch from his pocket, then hold it with the face pointing to the enquirer, with his remark, “And wha wad hate thocht it wus that time o’ day”.
The old heavy, English silver—lever watch, handed down from generation to generation was in frequent use at that time, and for those who had not been beneficiaries to that extent, the ‘five bob Ingersol’ (five shilling) was more or less ‘watch of the day’.
The masons, labourerers, and joiners, with the exception of the estate one, in that latter category, were all employed by the contractor in Kirkcudbright, but ofcourse, the laird’s appetite for buildings, supreme in stature, and appearance, was so, that the work involved, lasted for months and years, more so, that weeks and months, irrespective of the costs involved.
At Kirkandrews, the laird provided, in the form of a pleasant, and up—to—date laundry, for the communal use of the inhabitants there, and ofcourse, this was built of hand dressed whin-stone, with decorative windows, and a flat turreted roof, the facilites inside , being of the highest standard of the then modern design, however, from my recent observations, I see that the particular building has been converted into a dwelling house.
Family life in the homes at Kirkandrews, was much in keeping with the surrounding areas, and as an illustration, I will take the liberty of quoting, from my “Own personal every day experience, in that group of seven, which, in the normal manner, through the difference in the ages, it was only on special occasions, that we were all together at the one time, and so, I refer to us, the younger members.
When the darkness and the voice of authority demanded that we should get into the house, we, with some further shouts of encouragement, which were reaching the stage of being threats, did reluctantly creep inside, and partake of the meal, then in general, referred to as our supper.
This was in the main. a substantial meal, limited in the number of courses, but by no means in the size of helpings, which, although plain compared to modern standards, was substantial, and in the eyes of the provider, nourishment for enlarging growth, and bone structure.
Broth an’ tatties (potatoes) was the most common meal at the time, the broth being made from the cheaper cut of beef, and the abundance of vegetables at hand in the garden. And, oh! yes, we did have it at the very odd time, ‘that sheep-held broth’ of Robbie Burns fame, and I mention this, for the purpose of revealing to the ‘ungodly’, how this particular delicasy was made.
There was but little difference, between this and the normal method of making broth, the only difference being, that, instead of purchasing a chunk of boiling beef from the butcher’s van, you collected the sheep’s head, which in anticipation, you had ordered on the week previous, but to the unitiated, this is where the problem arose, for, as it can be well understood, the sheep did not oblige the extent of making absolutely sure that its face was clean when it was about to be led to the slaughter.
But you did not wash the sheep’s head, you singed it with the red hot poker, and even if you had any qualms about carrying out this transaction, the blacksmith would do it for you for the sum of ONE PENNY.
It was custumomary at times, to see one of that group of school—kids, proceeding to school, carrying a sheep’s head to the blacksmith’s shop, and calling again to collect it on the homeward journey, and while, without that singe, the sheep’s head could have been skinned, the loss of that flavour, created by the singeing, would have been something relative to sacrilege, so far as genuine ‘Sheep Heid Broth’ was concerned.
Stewed rabbit, fried rabbit, and rabbit soup, were all looked forward too with gleeful anticipation, and while in regard to the latter, there was the inevitable squabble in regard to whose turn it was for the sweet little kidneys, a rabbit hanging up behind the door was always a welcome sight to us, as we returned home from the school, and again, the rabbit skin was always the source of a few coppers, when the ‘skin’ man called at quite frequent intervals.
At the instigation of the laird, the keeper would hand in a pair of rabbits now and again, but apart from that, after Curly, that fully time served ‘spoot rum’ler’ came to reside in the community, we soon learned from him; how the odd rabbit would, at low tide, wander down to the water’s edge (apparently after some particular type of seaweed), when, if then disturbed, it would dive below a rock, having no marked run to follow, and was a ‘sitting target’.
Supper being finished now, the dishes washed and dried, after the squabble in regard to whose turn it was to wash or dry, had been settled, the playing cards were brought out, and glory be, I am now old enough to take a hand in that game of ‘Catch the Ten’, that prevailing game at the time.
Grannie would never allow us to use playing cards at all, ‘The Devil’s Books’ was what she called them, and she preferred to see us reading ‘The Christian Herald’, a paper which my uncle, her son, sent to her every week, and while I personally derived some entertainment from its pages, with its cartoon like characters, made to emphasize faith and prayer, that ‘good’ intention was missed to some extent by me, being amused by the naivety involved in one illustration as follows— viz;-Two elderly spinsters, pictured on the verge of actually dying of hunger, when as a last resort, they were praying for food, and barely had they ‘rung off,’ so to speak, the cat was seen in the picture, bringing in a rabbit.
Another, illustration in picture form, the tragedy brought about through lack of faith, and again the two elderly spinsters on the verge of dying of hunger, with but one meal in the larder, when, through the lack of faith, they decided not to eat that meal, but leave it in order to be sure of their breakfast, with the result that the two died of hunger during the night, the moral being to the effect that the two should have eaten that last meal before going to bed, having faith to the extent that food would have another source in the morning.
Grannie, so far as I was concerned, had my interest at heart, and I recollect how, when I called on her, proudly exhibiting my first pair of fancy topped stockings, she cringed in horror, not at the sight of my ornamental hose, but at my bare knees, as she remarked, “Put they stockings up ower your knees, boy, you’11 get a dose o’ rheumatics”.
In another instance, some years earlier, when I was on a ramble in the field, across from her window, where she was no doubt standing with her eyes on me and no doubt noticed that I had made several near misses, as I tried to catch a wild rabbit which had apparently lost all sense of direction. She gave me a shout, and sort of meeting me half—way, she took off her apron and gave it to me, directing me to drop it over the rabbit, which I did, and caught it without further difficulty but when we discovered that the cause of the rabbit’s incapacity was total blindness, we set it free again, the whole episode turning out to be fuel for my tormentors, when, soon afterwards, I heard rumblings purposely made within my earshot, to the effect that the gamekeepers had stopped using snares for catching rabbits, and were instead, using their grannie ‘s aprons.
The doctor, forming the opinion that grannie’s heart was a bit wonky, recommended that one member of our family, should sleep in her house at nights, and as we grew up, we undertook doing so in turns, either singly or in pairs, and as it so happened, my oldest sister, and the youngest one, had undertaken this duty on a Saturday night.
The brightness of the Summer Sun awakened the pair early on the Sunday morning, and the oldest one, who had been reading “Gulliver’s Travels” at the time, after making comment on the actions of Guliver, got out of bed in order to give an illustration, using table and chairs for the buildings depicted in the novel, but she failed to clear the table as she tried to step over it, and consequently there was an almighty crash, which, in itself could have given grannie a heart attack.
Another incident involving the pair, happened when a local woman, who was going from home in the afternoon, handed the youngest of the two, a plate and a florin, making the request that the latter would purchase a pound of sausages from the butcher’s van, which was due later, and so she, my sister who was still in The Infant Class at school, revelling at having been given such responsibility, held on to the plate and the money like grim death, until the butcher duly arrived.
There was a short queue, and as the older sister was in it too, deputizing for her mother, she let the youngest one go first, and the latter, in her best English, intimated what she wanted, in the wording, ‘Please for a pound of sausages’ but ofcourse, in the local every day dialect, ‘a pound’ was referred to as a ‘p’un’, and so, as the butcher was weighing the sausages, the older sister, out of pure devilment, whispered to the younger one, “You should have asked for a p’un o’ sausages, a pound will cost a pound in money”,
The younger one’s lip began to quiver, as she stood holding out the plate, until her nerve gave way, when, as the butcher was about to drop the sausages on the plate, she pulled the latter away, simultaneously uttering the words, “Oh! no, it’s a p’un’”, and so the sausages landed on the road, with, no doubt, ‘a smile on on their respective faces’.
Another incident involving the pair, happened during mother’s absence one afternoon, when, ofcourse the pair were attempting to produce some quick delicacy or other, and when the latter was made it was placed on a plate and left on the wall outside, in order that it would cool quickly, but knowing that I was unlikely to be asked to share in the end product, I cunningly took away this plate and its contents, and after hiding the latter, I left an identical empty plate in its place.
The end result was to the effect that, although I did not share in the delicacy when they ultimately found it, (after the younger one was completely flabbergasted at finding the plate empty, describing the situation in the words , The birds have eaten the puddin’, and look, they have left the plate as clean as if it had been washed”) the actual humour involved, did, so far as I was concerned, give much better satisfaction.
But let us return to that evening as we finish that game of “Catch the Ten”, and advance our narrative to the Saturday night episodes, which were traditional affairs, and no doubt, general, over the whole of Borgue Parish, other parishes and counties too, for it was bath night; bath night with a vengeance.
The younger members of the large families were lined up, and the zinc bath was brought forth, the soap, face cloths, at hand, as the mighty iron kettle puffed the steam out of its spout, while the large pail of cold water was at hand, ready to reduce the temperature of the boiling water to the degrees Fahrenheit, not determined by a thermometer, but by the elbow of the operator, who, when satisfied that ‘the victim’ would be neither scalded nor frozen, began to wash the head and hair of number one.
This was however, my bone of contention, for although I did not object in any way at all to the parting of soil, gravel, sawdust etc., ‘the auld wife tales’ decreed that in order to prevent getting the cold, a jug of cold water should be used, in that final rinse, and this without doubt, drove me batty to the extent that the onlookers were entertained by my antics, while I struggled to bring my memory, senses, and in fact, body and soul, back to normal functioning, and consequently, as I leaned over the bath, with as much soap in my eyes as would have washed down a Clydesdale for the cattle show, there was a decided hush on the part of the onlookers, as they awaited on that jug of cold water being emptied on my head.
But the worst was still to come, because of the fact that the next step, after being dried off, was step into that soul destroying item of apparel, namely, a pair of combinations.
The latter, I feel absolutely sure, had not been ‘invented when Robbie Burns wrote with great authority, gained no doubt from personal experience, to the effect that toothache was “The hell o’ a’ diseases” and in fact, it is my belief that if he had been compelledd. to wear a pair of those combinations next to his skin, he could never, in my opinion, have written that statement of fact, knowing it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The offending garment, combinations, was like the modern boiler suit, but ofcourse worn below all other items of clothing, and it was made from home—spun wool, from which the bracken and thistle down had not been extracted, or if it had, some handfuls of biting insects added, and after the garment had been washed several times, it shrunk, to the extent that it would have been easier to get into the skin of a snake, and when you ultimately did take up your abode inside, you had the feeling that you were as rigid as a stalk of macaroni, with an itch all over, which could not be elimated by the action of rubbing against lamp-posts, or the doorjambs of your house.
In that immediate past, so far as this my narrative goes, I am ‘speaking’ of something like eighty years ago, and being of the opinion that I was unlikely to ever hear of the dreaded garment again, I was surprised when I got into conversation with a man who had been born and raised in the Dumfries—shire area, who introduced the subject, when as it so happened, we were discussing suitable punishment for the vandals, and house breakers of today, We had both been amused at the sight of a man, who, with a bin bag in his hand, was walking along the pavement, picking up at intervals of around a hundred yards, the odd piece of paper or other items of litter.
He was not supervised in any way at all, and he could stand up and have a smoke at any time, and the only thing that mattered so far as any supervision was concerned, appeared to be that ‘the culprit’ was on duty there, whether he walked, ran, or sat on the nearest wall and had a smoke, and after reaching the conclusion, that we were witnessing the ‘just’ reward for sin, namely Community Service in action, in all its brutality? he remarked, “Look at that, Community Service— what? a hundred hours of that,” and then he continued, in the dialect, reminiscent to his time of experience, “What I wad make them weer a pair o’ yon auld fashioned combinations, for a hunner ‘oors, insteed o’ that nonsense”.
“The Do Gooders”, I said, “That crowd of halfwits, who have more or less taken over, so far as crime and punishment goes, and are bringing us to the verge of the extinction of civilization, by turning prisons into palaces, and freely accepting the philosophy that one, who has taken from another, that irreplaceable asset, namely life, should be allowed to retain his, or her own, and the mere mention of the alternative to that laughable community service type of punishment, as referred to by me in humorous vein, would be met with hands raised in horror, and shouts of the return to barbarism, from that ‘Do Gooder Class’ who are in my humble opinion, the builders of the byepass to ‘that particular destination’.
But I will take it for granted, that you will allow me to stop lecturing, and returns to Kirkandrews, where in the main, every householder had a garden, and apart from one that I heard about, who was alleged to have remarked, that he would prefer to pay a further pound a year in rent, for a house that did not have a garden, they grudged not the wear and tear of their respective muscles, in conjunction with the production of large quantities of potatoes, cabbages, kale, and leeks.
There was some good natured rivalry ofcourse in that pathway to perfection, so far as quality and size was concerned and there was a recognized time, or date, for planting, and harvesting, so much so, that the recognized day for raising the first shaw of the early potatoes, was that date in the month of July, locally termed, the First Sunday efter the Gate’ous’ Fair.
Fully realizing that my intelligent reader will recognize that difference between fact and fiction, T will mention how one elderly perfectionist, was seen on this specified day, standing at the end of the first potato drill in his garden, his potato raising fork in one hand, and his watch in the other. As he appeared to be undecided. a neighbour who was puzzled at the apparent delay, shouted to him, “Are ye no gang tae try them, Wullie ,” and got the reply from the perfectionist, Oh! aye, but A’m jist gi’en them anither ten meenits”.
At that time, at Kirkandrews, and I have no doubt it is the same there today, one could have left the door unlocked without the fear of having something stolen, in contrast to my surrounding area here in Dumfries today, where, if you take your dentures out at night, you have to place them in a locked up cabinet, or sleep with them below your pillow.
There was of course, in Borgue Village, and parish, the odd case of stealing, and petty pilfering, and in fact, the home industries section at the flower show, had to be protected with wire mesh, when it was noticed that some of the youngsters were tempted by the tasty looking entries, and in that direction, when one woman eagerly approached in order to see if her entry of cream scones had been outstanding in the judge’s eye, she found that, not only was The First, Second, Third, or Highly Commended ticket missing, but her cream scones had vanished too, and she, being a bit of a known wagg, handicapped to some extent by a slight impediment in her speech, challenged some of the group of teen-agers who were at hand, with the question, “Was it you that stole ma ‘team tones?” and got the reply, in local dialect from the expert wit in the group, “Oh? gad! Maggie, were they yours”?
The coast line, as it will be accepted no doubt, repeated itself with stretches of cliffs, and low lying stretches of sandy or gravel beaches, and Kirkandrews is in one of the latter situated between the Muncraig Cliffs and those at Ravens Hall on the far side of the river Fleet, and at the ‘Dookin’bay’ previously mentioned, on Roberton Shore, there is a marvellous large sized boulder, situated as a marker in respect of the sandy bay, and similar boulders are in evidence, widely scattered over the countryside, all of them contrasting with the blue whin-stone which is in profusion.
But, ofcourse I must repeat it, true or not, I leave it to the reader to decide, but during some ‘Womens’ Rural’ day out trip, the visit to the site, where a large number of the boulders had been deposited in the formation of a circle , was considered to be worthy of a stop, and as the group viewed them, one of them indicated to the bus—driver, who was acting as guide, that she was at a loss by way of understanding how the boulders had got to that spot, and he, the guide explained that they had been brought down from the mountains by the glaciers.
The enquirer, not being completely satisified, put the further question, “But, where are the glaciers”? to which the guide somewhat impatiently replied, “Oh! they have gone away back up the mountains the’day tae get anither load”.
But Barn Heuch, ‘that mountain’ on the left hand side, as we gaze seaward at Kirkandrews, had no record of having glaciers sliding down its slopes, but it did, in my boyhood years, provide a most entertaining walk which was very popular, and if you would now like to come along with me, you will see, at the foot of the introductory roadway, the place where the whelk gatherers’ camp sprang up in the early Summer.
We cannot walk across it, ‘The Clarty Loop’, as it was called, for the that its name implys, so we go round it, and find on our right hand, what is at the time of The Spring Tides, an island, until the tide begins to ,start ebbing again, and now having reached the ruins of a stone building termed The Cotton House, I have to apologise for being unable to tell you more about it, my assumption being that it appeared to have been used as a store for raw cotton, brought into the bay by a schooner, in very much earlier times, and I never met in with any of the then older generation, who could supply, as far as I was concerned, ‘the missing link’.
But we must pause and scrutinize that flat area at the foot of ‘the mountain’, not so much for the group of young cows, which could be grazing there, but for their ‘mutual husband’, because, not only would he exhibit his dislike for us, he would clearly indicate what he would do unto us, if we but tried to cross, and his display of agression, which could have some element of entertainment, so long as the stone wall was intact between him and us, and I mention this fact, as an introduction of what, was to be the source of almost every nightmare that I have had, since the incident happened.
I was but a toddler at the time, as we, my mother and dad, and three older sisters were having that regular Sunday afternoon walk, our journey, at the time, being through The Glebe at Kirkandrews, the field which borders The Meggerland, and although we did notice that in The Sillyhole, the field just ahead of us, the full gathering of The Ingleston herd of Ayrshire cows was grazing there, the bull, which normally accompanied them was not in sight, and it was only when we had almost reached the dividing dyke, that
we heard that first rumbling coming from him, for although he had not seen us, he had apparently picked up our scent, and suddenly we got the fright ‘of my life—time’ , when his head and mighty pair of horns, appeared at ‘the lunky hole’.
To the uninitiated, a lunky hole is that opening in the dyke, approximately a yard square, which leaves the top intact, and the object of such, is to allow sheep to pass through, but not the larger animals, and as it happened ‘John Bull’ had his head almost through this lunky hole, when my dad, (realizing, that the mighty brute could have, with little effort, cleared the bridging, and then started to play ‘pitch and toss’ with us), began to transfer us into the Meggerland field.
But before he had got far in this direction, he got the warning shout from a neighhour, (who had noticed our predicament) namely, “Dinna’ throw them ower there, there’s a worse yin in there”, and so we did an about turn, and almost felt like being survivors, when we got back to the main road.
There is a sequel here, worth, in my opinion, noting, for it so happens that when I have a nightmare, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I am struggling to get out of the way of a mighty great bull, something that I had often wondered about, and in fact had been suspicious about, but I was absolutely amazed when I heard my niece remark to the effect that her mother, (one of the group of us involved in the incident on that Sunday) had stated that each time she had a nightmare, it was meeting in with a great bull, and so I can feel confident that there is at least some substantial evidence of the fact that, a nasty experience in childhood, can be repeated in the form of a nightmare, throughout one ‘s life time.
I would however, ask my reader to treat this matter with strict confidence, for I. would not like to read the headlines in my daily paper, if it was as follows =SEMI-NIT-WIT ESTABLISHES ROOT CAUSE OF NIGHTMARE= By our correspondent Helen B. Darned.
We will return to where we left off at that dyke at the entrance to Barn Heuch, and whether HE is there or not, we will proceed over the rocks, where, even if He should show his ugly face, we can laugh at him, for he is not clever enough to climb rocks, and so we are now on the grassy slope, enjoying that walk, which I, personally have done some hundreds of times.
Assuming that we have been fortunate to the extent of enjoying a clear day, we can see Eggerness Point, and The Barrow Head, and right up to the estuaries of The River Cree, and The Bladnoch, and then, in front, and slightly to our left we see The Isle of Man.
We might well get the impression that there is a mermaid out there somewhere, for if we shout loudly in the seaward direction, something like—Good afternoon— how are you? we hear the exact same words in reply, within a few seconds, but assuming that you will keep the secret, I will tell you, there is no real mermaid at all, and it is, what you hear, the echo of your own voice, and one of the reasons why I have brought you here, is for the profound reason of hearing this wonderful echo.
But others can ofcourse hear this echo too, including our ‘mutual friend’ John Bull, however he knows nothing at all about echos, and he assumes that he is hearing another of his own kind, which he will, in no way, tolerate near to his harem, and in order to make it clear to the supposed rival, he increases his bellowing in frequence and in sound.
I mention this, for there is, in fact, the assuption, that bulls grazing in the proximity of the sea—shore, become more aggressive than normal for this reason.
Again, in addition to that echo which we clearly heard, we may hear, something like, ‘Good afternoon, how are you and yours’ to puzzle us, but this is not made by a mermaid, but by a romantic clown, well out of view, down there in the ravine between us and the sea, cuddling some bit innocent lassie, and in that direction he requires no assistance, nor is he desirous of having an audience, advice, or best wishes.
I mention this, merely to indicate that there are many romantic spots in those little ravines, and in The Summer months they were frequently used by romantic couples, who took advantage of the free fresh air, bright Sunshine, and peaceful tranquillity.
Next we walk across the Ranglands field, and if it happens. to be in The Springtime, we will stop and pick some bunches of primroses, which grow in profusion on the banks of that little brook ,which flows through the middle of the field, the last in this direction, then, still on Knockbrex Estate , and tenanted (in my time) by two generations of Adam Grays, the first being retired completely from any manual work, but a recognized personality, met in by us, that band of school kids, returning home, when his greeting was mostly in the words, “Weel wee lassies” and his son of the same name of course, with whom I was often engaged in good natured bantering, and the third who is now the owner: and a most pleasant personality, of whom, so far as his farming is concerned, I have no knowledge, but having read his book on Borgue Academy, and fully realizing the tremendous research he must have had in producing same, I would say, a budding author, without doubt.
But we now climb over the dyke and almost immediately we come to the massive Muncraig Cliffs, my object being to point out to you, that spot far down where a tragedy of the first dimension happened, and the spot which I am pointing out to you, is where the horse and cart landed, after falling from the heights above.
The farm, at the time was tenanted by the second Adam Gray (if my memory serves me correctly) and the man who was in charge of the horse and cart, set off from the farm with the intention of dumping some refuse over the cliffs, and as the cart was otherwise unloaded, he took with him some of the children by way of a joyride for them, and when the top of the cliffs was reached, the children, being asked if they wanted to come out of the cart, remarked, (according to my information) “Oh! aye, we’re no’ wantin’ tae gan’ ower there”, and very fortunately indeed, they came out of the cart, when the man took the horse by the head (as the expression is) it reared, and, with the cart went over, doing, in my estimation, a drop of several hundred feet, but fortunately the man in charge get his hand clear, and suffered little more than the loss a bit of skin, taken off his little finger.
The horse was not actually dead when the men got down to it but it had to be destroyed, and although it is hardly believable, the cart was not extensively damaged, was retrieved (a marvellous feat, in my opinion), and it was put to normal use for many a day afterwards.
The Muncraig Cliffs stretch for quite a distance, and then there is a drop to almost sea level, where there are then, many acres of flat arable land, and so, when the farm was sold to a contractor who hailed from Ayrshire, he came to the conclusion that this was an ideal spot for growing the early Epicure potatoes, common to Ayrshire, and so this area was quickly planted with this variety, long famous for its record of being first in the market.
But The Muncraig crop was not early enough to break, or match the Ayrshire record, and with the extra haulage costs, in view of the distance involved, the venture, as I understood it, was not a fortune making affair.
So now we will return once more to Kirkandrews, and let you meet in person, the inhabitants of that, and some years later time. The house on the hill, ‘Craig Cottage’ , the worker’s house on Roberton farm, through that very short distance between it, and Kirkandrews, came under the jurisdiction of the latter, so far as the visiting vans were concerned, and everything transported to, or from it, passed through Kirkandrews, and in my early days, The Parkhill family resided there, the man of the house being employed on the farm of Rattra to the North, as shepherd, and the family of five joined in with the group of self entertaining children in the ‘city’.
The Crossan family lived in the bottom end house, and that added four to our total, while next was the Kirks an old retired couple, whose son at home, was a man getting on in years at that time. My grandmother lived alone in the little two roomed house above the Kirks, and my own family added six more children, then again the McNaughts increased our total child population by three; and again, later, the Gillone family increased our total by another three.
But ofcourse many of the older offspring members were beyond the stage of childish games, as the younger lot reached it, however there was always enough of ‘young flesh’ to make any desired teams.
As I see it now, everything in my childhood, boyhood, and even teenage years, was indeed frugal to the extreme degree, there being no alternative what-ever, and the fact that the stork’, at that time, and for generations before, delivered many more ‘parcels than the postman, the demands on the dimutative incomes became greater as ‘Each parcel arrived by ‘that ira mail service’.
But, on the whole, they were content with their lot, and it was more or less considered to be out of place, and an action of seditious nature, anything at all, which imitated the life style of the laird and his family, and even the growing of some sophisticated vegetables and flowers, was the waste of the ground, which could have grown the much more life sustaining food, like potatoes, cabbages, kale etc., and ofcourse, where there was any available room at all, poultry and a single pig were in evidence.
In the latter connection, it was alleged that one old chap who’ had little more space than what would have housed a pet rabbit, decided that he too, would raise a pig, and was consequently engaged in erecting accomodation for same, at the door of his house, when his goodwife said unto him, “whut are ye dain Wullie”, to which the latter replied, “Pittin’ up a pig hoose”, “Pittin’ up a pig hoose”, she exclaimed, in horror, “Richt at the hoose door, whut a boot the smell?”, to which Wullie replied, “oh! that’11 be nae problem at ‘a, the pig will si’n get yased tae it”.
But ofcourse, while I would believe, and accept that tale to be the truth, thousands wouldn’t, I feel sure.
Although, as I have indicated times then were hard, we still heard the words, (common to every generation) uttered, namely ‘The Guid Aud Days’ , but so far as life in general was concerned, I could only assume that it was more in reference to old acquaintances in person, than the actual standard of life.
In the early days of the generation immediately prior to my own, the dwelling houses with their thatched roofs, and low walls, were sub-standard to the rich man’s stable or byre, and they lacked convenience in the way of storage places, so that many items were stored between the rafters, and were in contact with the thatching on the roof, and so I mention this, the preliminary to the incident, which, as I understand it, was mentioned in the general report on the Gala, which was held at the opening of the first bridge over The River Dee, at Kirkcudbright, on the Eighteenth day of July, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-eight.
This was a great affair, attended by crowds coming from every direction, by horse-drawn vehicles, and on foot, and the crowd included quite a number from Kirkandrews, who, taking the precautionary items weatherwise, namely, their umbrellas, they were at least prepared for the shower which came on during the ceremony, but although they were prepared for the raindrops, had no defence against the shower of bugs (as it was referred to) for as it happened, the umbrellas in question, which had been stored in the rafters, had not been opened for months that day, and ofcouse the creepie-crawlies had taken advantage of the shelter in the folds of the respective umbrellas.
The ruins of those old dwellings were still to be seen in my earliest days, and in fact my mother’s grandfather, resided in one of them: he had a pony and a little trap, which he used to bring home willows, from which he made baskets which were sold mainly to the local farmers for use when lifting the potato crop, and he did, in this way make a precarious living, and from what I could gather, his neighbour, locally termed Birdie was a professional bird catcher, (gold finches and buntings which he sold), and while at that time, nearly every household had a cage bird, I cannot imagine that he, Birdie, would ‘pay any hefty sum’ in income tax.
While there was an abundance of materials at hand, fallen branches from the trees, driftwood from the shore etc., everything was oostly, e.g. the doctor, who had to be brought that seven miles from Kirkcud bright, and it was not until Nineteen Twelve, that the man of the house got free medical attention, providing that he was employed, and stamping an insurance card, but it was only after The Second World War that the wives, families, and others received this benefit.
Frugality was the watch word in every sense, and a penny worth was never purchased, where a half—penny worth, provided adequate sufficiency, and everything was carefully planned ‘under the watchful eye of economy’ and that last resort, when there was no alternative at all by way of sending essential information, a telegram was finally despatched.
This was in the main, the intimation of death, and the best use of the costly wording had to be made, a glorified example of such was one that I heard about, where the incident occurred in neighbouring parish, where ‘the clever wording’ not only intimated the death, but also the cause of same.
The man had committed suicide, and one of his sons, who was employed on a famr many miles away, had to be notified, and so the telegram was despatched to him, worded as follows :- “Come Home Soonest Father Cut Throat”.
As I have already indicated, there was nothing at all relative to sickness and unemployment benefit, and so far as child benefit was concerned, it was unthought of, even by the fortune tellers of that age, and so, it was only cases where incapacity, healthwise, prevented an individual from earning, that the grant of Two Shillings and Six Pence a week, was given by the parish council, the able bodied being offered accommodation in The House, and the disabled in The Poore House, and so, tramps who begged for a living, and slept, mainly in farm hay sheds, were frequent callers, exhibiting, as they did so, their respective hone made teapot, (a syrup tin with a wire handle,) hung round their necks, and their bundle of bedding, such as it was, slung across their shoulders.
They mumbled, almost incoherently, but as the object of their mission was well known, a teaspoonful of tea leaves, or a piece of bread spread with a sprinkling of jam, saw them happy and on their way.
The hawkers were frequent callers too, and it was not uncommon, to find on your doorstep, when you answered the knock, a glorious bunch of femininity who could, as it was termed locally, ‘talk the hind legs of a cuddy’, and the diminutive object which held on to her skirts, as it bashfully keeked round from behind, was not only a genuine gift from God, but a target for sympathy, to the extent that after being overwhelmed by speculation, sophistication, articulation, and meditation, when you had almost reached the stage of suggesting hibernation, and it became evident that those, the greatest bargains, which could in no way, be repeated, had failed to entice the few remaining coppers out of your purse, she would allow you to have the stage all to yourself, when she would be as an audience, hungry for knowledge, in regard to anything at all, related to The World, The Flesh, and The Devil the conclusion of which, although every word that you have so freely given, will have gone by the wayside, she will sum up, exhibiting her appreciation, with the words , “That’s the God’s truth, Mistress— an wad ye no’ ha’e sic’ a thing a boot ye as a pair o’ wee bi’ts (boots) that wad fit that wee lassie o’ mine, the pair wee sowell’s aboot barefi’t”.
There was the other type of hawker who arrived with his horse drawn lorry, loaded with goods of his own manufacture, and in most cases, the latter illustrated manufacturing ability of no mean status.
His wife who was with him, was the sales lady, who did, after having her asking price reduced by aroud sixty per cent, or so, make frequent sales, after the completion of which, she left you with “An’ may God bless you, mistrss, and a’ they bonnie wee weans o yours” – (I had obviously been first in the row?)
Although I have emphasized the currency lack at that time, there was always the reward of a half penny, or even ‘a whole penny’, when any of us obliged by ‘running a message, but Jake, the son of old Mr. and Mrs. Kirk, previously mentioned, was, in that direction a philanthropist who rewarded us with Six Pence, when, as we went to the school, we carried his boots that two miles to the boot repairers, in Borgue Village, and again another similar reward, when we called, collected them, and brought them back again, but in addition to this, was that constant weekly reward of six- pence, for that special Saturday mission, namely, collecting a parcel from the carrier, which the latter had brought from the licensed grocer in Kirkcudbright.
This parcel, an oblong in shape, around four inches square, and fifteen inches long, was, according to our gullible parents, a bar of soap, and it was in keeping with such, sold in the grocers at that time, and while, upon hearing, from time to time, a gurgling sound coming from the ‘bar of soap’, we had our suspicions, but we fully realized that the sixpenny reward, was more in our interest than that of giving a lecture on prohibition, and in fact, we would, without any increase in that stated reward, have openly carried half—a-dozen screw tops, home to Jake as well; but ‘the bubble finally burst’, when my oldest sister, of Gulliver in Lilliput fame, who was the somewhat envied messenger on that Saturday, let the parcel fall onto the hard tile floor in the laundry, when the ‘parcel ‘s tears revealed the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Jake was, from my earliest recollection, a maturing bachelor, who had been in Australia for some years, when after returning home he was engaged as an assistant gamekeeper on Knockbrex Estate, and the discovery of him being in any way, likely to relinquish his state of bachelorhood, would have been similar to that of finding that your cat, which you felt certain was a Tom, had given birth to kittens, and we must face it, the weird, and wonderful ways of Cupid, keeping mind, that, but for his. directing the affairs of your father and mother, in their respective bachelor years, you would not have been reading this book, now, or at any time in the future, (on all probaility a degree of relief to you.)
Consequently, that cunning blighter Cupid, manoeuvred events, to the extent, that when Polly, (a bachelor lady, somewhat younger than Jake) in her endeavour to replenish the milk which she had extracted from her cow, taken the latter on a grazing expedition, where the lush grass by the roadside, outshone that in her small acreage, and so, as she leisurely walked along, Jake happened to be passing, and in a normal manner, had a few words with her.
But observing eyes soon noticed that this meeting was becoming a habit, as the meetings grew from a few minutes, to that of an hour or two, and so, it soon became an established fact, that Poll and Jake were courting, and the fact became more pronounced, when Poll, in the years of The First World War, started to work on Knockbrex Estate too, and not only that, but the respective walk, to and from their place of employment, co—incided, and so romance blossomed, until the news broke, to the effect that the pair were to be married, which every one was more or less quite happy to learn, however, during one of the walks to work, in The Winter Time, when Poll who was carrying some eggs (a scarce commodity in those war years) to a workmate, she slipped on the slippery road, and went down with a hefty fall, and so, after getting this news, I did, in my boyhood attempt at writing a verse on things in general at the time, included the line:
It is a nesty thing tae slip,
For you could bre’k your legs,
But Jake jist said tae Poll, “Ah hope,
Ye hiv’na’ brok’ the eggs.”
this being due to the fact that Jake had indicated more anxiety in relation to the eggs, than what he did over his sweetheart, and on that, I rest my case, or maybe not quite-. For— as I have just remembered, at the time of the latter romance, The Jarret family had to come to reside at Kirkandrews, and the eldest son who was in the navy, had acquired a parakeet, which, although it didn’t talk, provided some considerable interest, and as it so happened, one day it got out, and took to the air, causing consternation of the highest degree, as it cleared the tops of the highest trees, in what it was thought, was its final goodbye.
But, after some few hours of freedom, by way of illustrating that it was trustworthy, it duly returned, and in appreciation, it was thereafter, freely allowed the freedom of the sky, each day when the weather permitted, and as it so happened at this time, our family acquired a homing pigeon as a pet.
The latter had, as my oldest brother remarked, as many rings on its legs, as Queen Victoria had on her fingers, and consequently, we thought that it was a valuable bird, but my dad, not wanting to deprive the owner, after noting reference numbers etc., wrote to the owner and enquired to see if the latter wanted the bird returned by rail, or ‘air’ (its own power). But we got no reply, to our joy, for ofcourse everything that moved, was a possible pet, and I gleefully set to and made an ‘elaborate dovecote’ which our prize accepted as its permanent home.
The novelty was wearing off to some extent, until it was suddenly discovered that our new found pet, as yet un-named, had a sweethert, for, as it happened every day when the weather was suitable, when ‘Polly’, the parakeet, was let out, it flew that distance of around three hundred yards, landed beside the pigeon, when, like a romantic couple, the pair spent the whole day, completely satisified with the company of each other, a relationship, which went on for months on end, until that dreadful day when tragedy struck, and ended the romance for ever, for a gust of wind, which had suddenly sprung up, caused a door to swing violently, and struck poor Polly on the head.
The unusual ‘romance’ had attracted interest over a considerable area, and as the parakeet was called ‘Polly’, the romances occurring simultaneously, I would ask, that, after searching through your mind, your heart, your body, and your soul, could you fault me for baptizing our pet pigeon with the name of ‘Jake’.
The skipper of the schooner that brought the coals from Maryport or Whitehaven to Kirkandrews was a man called, in local dialect ‘Wull Kie’ (William McKie), who was a ‘Paul Jones’ type of personality, and so far as so many of those old schooners were concerned, in relation to that crossing of the somewhat rough seas, could be seriously termed, ‘a survivor, of not only the crossing in question, but according to the information, supplied to me by my mother, the attempted crossing of Kirkandrews Bay, at high tide, in his grannie’s Zink bath; but low and behold, we now see, (provided that you can tune your vision back to the Nineteen Twenties or so) The Queen Mary, riding at anchor, there in Kirkandrews Bay.
However, in case that you could well be thinking, (that in accordance with the happenings of today, in the year Nineteen, Ninety Two, even heavy road building machines, caravans, cars and cannaries, can disappear during the night, or even in broad daylight, the owner should happen to be looking away at the time) this was that mighty ocean going liner, slipped into Kirkandrews Bay by the owners, in case that it might be stolen; the ‘Queen Mary’ that you now observe, through carrying out my instructions. Is in fact, a rowing boat, which the laird has purchased in conjunction with his plan to extract from the sea, enough of the fish content to feed the occupants of the Knockbrex mansion house’ and posterity.
A slip way for ‘The Queen Mary’ was built in proximity with the harbour at Knockbrex, where a stake net was also erected, and long lines, nets, and lobster pots, and every essential Item, necessary for catching fish was brought to hand.
The operation so involved, added to the enjoyment of us, the youngsters, who were frequently taken on board, when Willie, the pleasant fisherman, was setting, or lifting, his nets, long lines, or lobster pots, and we were duly thrilled at seeing the various species of fish, as they were detached from the tackle involved, the lobsters and crabs, as they were extracted from the pots.
The stake net also justified its existence with what it held on to as the tide ebbed and left struggling, and in one particular occasion, I recollect how a shoal of mackerel literally filled the net, with the result, that Willie, having been instructed to go round all the farms on the estate, and give the fish away in basinfuls, set off with the mighty load in the estate, pony pulled dog cart, with an assistant to help, and as the latter approached the various houses, she was welcomed enthusiastically, with the exception of Tam’s wife.
The latter, thinking that Willie’s assistant, who was obviously unknown to her, was a normal fish retailer, (by way of emphasizing how Tam, her husband, and who she assisted when he fished off the rocks in Kirkandrews Bay) could keep her household adequately supplied, turned down the offer, not knowing that no charge at all was being made, and so, she, Tam and all the family, missed out on what would have been a free meal, of delicious fresh fish.
Like all other estates, there was the fixed rent days, when all the tenants turned up at the mansion house in order to hand over the rent as ‘due and demanded’ — and in one of such incidents involved, on such an occasion, my uncle, referred to the reputed case of old Jimmy, who, having been too busy to attend at the appointed hour, arrived at the mansion house, as the laird and some guests were sitting down for dinner.
Jimmy duly arrived in their midst, with his bonnet in his hand, and was directed to sit on a chair in proximity to the laird, who, as the first course was being cleared away, began his conversation with the words, “And what ‘s happening at the croft just now, James”?
“The soo wus piggin’, an’ Ah couldna’ leave her, for this wus her first litter”, Jimmy began, and continued with, “That’s hoo Ah didna’ manage ower at the richt time wi’ the rent”, and the laird with a smile, indicated that he quite understood, and as the guests began to demolish the second course, the laird, in his effort to keep the subject alive, went on, “Everything go on alright”? bringing forth Jimmy’s further statement that in a way, it did.
“Is there some problem then”? the laird went on, as Jimmy somewhat grudgingly watched the delicacies disappearing down the alimentary canals of the respective guests, before he continued with, “Aye, there’s a problem a’richt , for she’s had thirteen wee pigs, an’ she can only feed twelve”.
A somewhat puzzled, genteel feminine, then enquired as to how such a predicament could arise, and the laird, in a whispering voice explained that after the birth, each piglet commandeered its feeding point for the duration, and so indicating the horror of the situation, the female guest remarked, “But what does that poor little piggy do then, in order to survive?” when Jimmy cut in with, “Oh!, it jist his tae be like me, the noo, it his tae sit and watch the ithers feedin”.
But, being unlikely to meet in with any problems of that nature, we will step back into the mainstream again, and what could be more enjoyable for you, than that of joining up with us, that group of beaters, on Knockbrex estate, so we start that first days shoot with the woods on the farms of Rattra and Roberton, our targets being, in the main, the pheasants that are wild, or have been reared.
We will also meet up with the snipe, which flies in a zig—zag manner, making it a double glory for the marksman it down, and as a distinguished delicacy, finds it on his in similar manner, the woodcock is much sought after. The is also quite a good chance of making contact and I have in fact seen three shot as they emerged from a wood.
We will stop for lunch at Rattra farm, ‘the guns’ getting theirs in the farm house, while we the beaters, will have that hefty pot of Irish stew, which has been sent out from the mansion house, and (remembering that the year is around. Nineteen Eighteen) we will be delighted with that bottle of ginger ale, or if we are adults, that bottle of beer, and while I am on the subject I will, with all due apology for the interruption, just mention that one, who was not by any means an adult, bravely tasted, and subsequently finished off a full bottle of beer.
His face shone like a red pillar box, and without applying to alter by deed poll, he soon found that his name had been amended to that of ‘Beery’, apparently for all time.
He was one of two brothers who were brought up with foster parents, and while the two received adequate food and clothing, the latter, and the footwear, were purchased with the view of lasting well into the future, and they were consequently attired in oversized garments, and Beery, in particular, in large sized hefty boots, which proved to be versatile indeed, for. as we discarded our footwear, in preparation for the very much overcrowded game of football, which we played, in the high playground at Borgue School, in our bare feet, with a tennis ball , while two jackets were used as goal posts, at one end, Beery’s boots were similarly used at the other.
The shooting on that first day, generally a Wednesday, amounted to around forty to fifty brace of pheasants, with the odd snipe, woodcock, rabbits, and an odd hare, odd I should say, compared with the hundreds of them that were hanging up in the converted lorry, at the end of the Tuesday shoot over the farms of Ingleston, Chapelton, and Muncraig, and although we, the beaters had to walk miles on end, it was still well worth while, for our lunch in the farm house at Muncraig, had in the menu, that bottle of ginger ale.
The Friday shoot was mainly in, and around the woods and policies in the vicinity of Knockbrex mansion house, when the greatest number of pheasants were shot, and lunch-wise, this was ecstasy without doubt, for, as it was Christmas Time, Christmas fare was served in the servants’ hall, and that bottle of ginger ale was there, in all its glory; however, although, as I have indicated, the three respective bottles of ginger ale was our total absorbtion for the year, my mother frequently made that delicious brand of Eiffel Tower lemonade, and also delicious Boston cream.
Referring to the latter meal as being superb, delicious etc., I often form the opinion that circumstances and health conditions do affect the flavour of the eatables concerned , e.g. a hot meal will taste better on a cold day, or when one is particularly tired and hungry, and again, quite a lot depends on the state of mind, an illustration of what I mean, is indicated in the yarn that I will ‘now spell out’ when Robert, or it could have been Bob, Robbie, or if he was a Scot, Rab, I was not a witness, and cannot confirm the name, but at any rate he (pick which ever one suits you best) was checking his football coupon when he was having this meal, and when he finished the meat course, with his eyes still on the coupon, he pushed the plate aside, remarking to his wife, as he did so, “That, by the taste o’ it, must have been a bit of an auld ewe”.
“What ! ” was his wife’s reply, THAT HAPPENED TO BE A BIT 0′ YOUR FAVOURITE ROAST PORK”, then, whimpering like a pup which had got its tail caught in the door, he said, “Ye ken fine, hoo Ah ‘m fond o’ roast pork, whut did ye no’ tell me it was that, before Ah started tae eat it for”.
The Shootings were always at Christmas Time, and the anticipation of all the good things was in the atmosphere: The Laird ‘s Christmas Tree, for the benefit of the workers’ children, and also those of the farm workers over the estate, was at hand, the dinner dance for male workers and their respective wives, were all anticipated with glee, and I do recollect my dad’s reference to one of the latter, when, at the meal, some were to the extent of recognizing, that then sophisticated vegetable, Celery, and wonder grew, until one elderly man picked up a piece and bit it, but he did not keep it in his mouth for long, spluttered it out with the accompanying words. “It’s Hemlock, be darned”, an incident which was entertaining to my dad at the time, to me when he told me, and now, I sincerely hope, to you.
While there is still much that I have missed out, and what I have related, may well be that, in accordance with the incidents relating to that time, I may have but picked a few pebbles from the shore at Kirkandrews, I would, without fear of contradiction, hesitation or mental reservation, say, that despite appearances of poverty, the people at Kirkandrews, Borgue, the neighbouring parishes, in my humble opinion, were God-fearing, and law abiding citizens, who faithfully attended the Church Services, the Sunday Schools, and Bible Classes, and the standard of morality, in accordance with what we meet in with today, left nothing to be desired.
But now, before we reach the end of this narrative, I would ask you to come with me and have a look at Kirkandrews today, at the end of September, Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two , when we will see a hamlet, as it were, sleeping in restful tranquility, undisturbed by the voices of children, playing at Rounders, hop-the-beds, marbles, wee shops, or wee ‘hooses’,
nor, as we gaze across the burn, there in the field, will we see the howling band of youngsters playing cricket, or football, and the loner, flying his home made kite or driving, in his ‘motor car, made out of driftwood, and the wheels of an old pram, will be significantly absent.
We will be informed that there is not one child in the midst, and then, as we leave again, we will be distressed to the extent of dropping at least one single tear, when we realize the dreadful state of affairs, and the extent of deprivation which exists there now, as we sadly realize, that in the past Thirty, forty or even fifty years, NOT one single spoot has been rumbled.
Amen
