Transcript:

Men’s night on Working on the Land

School and work for children

Jimmy – Ploughing at 10 years old

Teacher – brought me chocolates when I was 5 and broke my leg.

Parish bairns – people took them in. ‘they went all day wi’out a piece’

Travellers’ children.Children who wore boots to school. Some had to muck out the byre before school.

Bill – left school at 12 and a half. Lived at the K-now – correct name ‘Woodend’ next to the Glen. Road was up past

Boghead.

“I was telling Dad, Jimmy, that you had said that you learned to plough when you were 10 years

old.”

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“Oh aye. We was working all the time, us little ‘uns.

“Aye, the school teacher could see me out of the window. My teacher was Mrs Mairston.

“She was alright. She was always very straighish, ken. ?????????????

“It was’nae always bad news though. It would’nae go on. The collars go a way back on the neck.

“Miss Grey [Grave?], Miss Hunter – they were the other ones.

“I broke my leg when I was about five and she came over with chocolate and stuff. after she left the

school. I mind lying in a wee low bed and looking up at her. “

?????????????????

“Did the teachers understand that you had to work?”

“She understood that I had to work – we didn’t get into trouble. Well – got into trouble all right.

Mind the Stewarts that were here – mind they used to come to school with shar on their boots. But

they had to muck the byre out. Went all day without a piece. Issac and Davey. The Stewarts …”

“Two people came here – to the house – when Mum and Dad were here. One from Canada and one

from somewhere in Scotland and said that they had lived here when they were children. And they

had gone to Lumsden School. And you were saying that’s who they must have been.

“They were parish bairns, you see. And travellers bairns. And both their grannies and

grandfathers lived just the other side of Alford ???. Aye – parish bairns, they’d be.”

“Was it common for people to take in parish bairns? “

“Oh yes quite a few were taken in. There were a few kids. Down the village, there was a few good

bairns. There was a boy, and Jimmy. And a girl – Rebecca. That was the tink. When Issac left the

school he took all the rest away. And I saw Issac when I was about 24 and I saw him. And he said

that Davie was about Aberdeen somewhere. But he didn’t know where. She wore ??? to school?”

“????????? up Smiddie Lane.

“When I started school I left from ??? I come from ??? Willie Yates has it now. A ruin now. I came

over the hill from there. “

“I’ve never walked up there but Mum … I would like to walk up there but Mum was saying there

were a few people that lived up there. Grannie and Granded …. Woodend was the right name of it.

Two parks down …. Up past Boghead. “

“They were all up there. I left the school at 12 1/2. You were a working man by the time you were

12. Came here in 44. Came to Deskie in 44.

Worked at the pub at that time. Not Lumsden – Kildrummy.”

Transcript:

Cutting of the Peat

A story told by Pan Dunn about cutting and carrying peat

Towards the end of May or early June, depending on the weather, my father and I started to give

some thought to cutting peat. The weather needed to be dry because the moss was usually in

poorly drained wetland habitats. The peat was formed from mainly wetland vegetation; principally

bog mosses, plants, sedges and tree trunks.

Peat which we dug in the summer months was used to heat the house and allowed my mother to

bake scones, pancakes, and oatcakes throughout the year. We were new tenants to the Craig Moss

in 1947 and had to take the deep banks as the early tenants were allocated the lower banks. As

these tenants stopped using the lower banks, we could move onto them. We needed to take a

horse and sledge to move the peats from the deep banks to lower ground to dry.

The peat bank first had to have the turf removed to access the true peat. We used a peat spade

which had a tusk attached to it to help with the cutting. The peats were cut 14 inches long, four

inches wide and four inches deep to allow for shrinking when they dried. We loaded 20 peats onto

the sledge and took them to dry ground, tipping them into heaps using the handle on the peat

sledge.

We usually worked for two days cutting and sledging the peats, then left them for two weeks to dry,

depending on the weather. On returning we set the peats on their sides to dry for another two

weeks, setting four peats upright and one on the top. They were usually ready to uplift in four to six

weeks.

In the early years we had a horse and cart each to take the peats home. We came over the hill,

passed Clayhooter loch and down to Auchinleith. We had twelve loads of peat which were left on

the grass until we were ready to store them in the peat shed.

Later we moved to the lower bank where the peat had to be dug downhill with a smaller peat spade.

No sledges were required as we spread the peats top and bottom of the bank to dry. The banks

were about 30 to 40 yards long. We now used the tractor and cart. Often, due to poor weather, the

road from the moss was difficult to manage and when the tractor and cart got bogged down we had

to call on neighbours to pull us out. I had to walk two to three miles to get help from Alex Bremner

at Tamduff to pull out our tractor and we helped him when he needed.

My father and I both enjoyed our days at the peat cutting. We carried a sandwich lunch and listened

to the birds while eating it. Midges were a menace. My father used to light a cigarette to send them

on their way. We used to say that we had ‘two heats from the peat’: one working turfing the bank

and the other sitting around the fire at home. All this came to an end in 1990 due to work pressure

and access to the moss.

Transcript:

A news on traditional food fae Lumsden

A story by Edith Petrie and Pat Dunn about the traditional food of the Lusmden area, incuding an authentic

Stovies recipe!

“I like tatties. Chapped ??? tatties. And stovies. “What’s a chapped tatty then?” Let the tatties boil and then

mash them.

“Love stovies. Only done it a couple of times but no-one’s even shown me how to do it properly – do you

use mince or do you use bits of steak? Oh no – if I’m eating stovies, I’m eating stovies.

Meat and stovies are meat and stovies? Oil. Used to use lard but I just put in oil now. Bit healthier.

I cut up an onion and put it in. Get your fat hot and put onion in, cut it and get it brownie then get potatoes

ready and put them in sliced and stir them up at the bottom and you get this lovely brown – thinly slice the

tatties. I like mine brown.

After keep stirring until they’re really ready and then turn down the heating. Never put in beef. Nae beef –

just stovies. Stovies doesn’t have beef in them. Just onion and tatties.

A lot of people now put in mince and gravy and stuff but I dinnae. Stovies taste much better without the

meat. Jusst salt and pepper. And if you have beetroot – plain beetroot or the jelly one – you put beetroot in a

redcurrant jelly – that’s nice with stovies. Or the plain beetroot. Corned beef and chopped tatties or

oatcakes. Oatcakes are lovely. But not tooth friendly – not the easiest things to eat.

When Willie was working in the shop I made seven girdles of oatcakes every Tuesday – used to wash on

Monday and bake seven girdles every Tuesday and that would last the week. I had an open fire you see

and you put your oatcakes in a wrap and dry them off and put them in your box. Oatmeal and salt and a bit

of melted fat. Had a board sprinkled with oatmeal and just pop them off the board and cut into triangles –

like the shortbread.

That would last a week – we used to eat it with everything. Even with pudding. That was your staple diet.

My husband’s family, there was eight of them and they had porridge in in morning, maybe skirly at

dinnertime – oatmeal with onions and that but thin – and then porridge again at night, or a boiled egg.

So actually oatmeal was the main staple carbohydrate but beef on a Sunday – a roast on a Sunday. It was

different when I was little because we had our own farm.

Younger – farm they just had beef on a Sunday but a lot of them in Lumsden and that, they just had beef but

we had pheasants, and rabbits. If you had a farm you had chickens, Like rabbit – mixy stopped them but in

Holland they still eat them. It’s quite lean – needs some bacon or lardons or something.

My mother used to make an oatmeal stuffing, sewed into rabbit with a wee drop of water. A few stitches like

you do a turkey at Christmas. And a few onions and turnip and carrots, gravy and salt. We had that a lot

and we loved it. And we had chickens – sold chickens and had roast chicken sometimes.

I had a lady here that stayed in the top manse – Lady Nicol and when we came into the farm she took a

young cockerel from me every Sunday to feed her cancer, she said. She had cancer in her throat – but she

lived a long age. I suppose any chicken would have done but she would buy a hen every Saturday. I don;t

know what she did with it. She said she took it to feed her cancer. But Ive one old ??? comes and stays

with me and she’s 90, from Auchterarder. Drives up every year for the Lady Mary’s birthday at the Lonach.

Lady Mary Forbes. People all over the world talk about chicken soup being good for you – the broth is a

healing thing. Make it with the whole thing. Pheasant makes a good broth – if you do pheasant it’s best pot

roasted to keep it moist.

Pease meal brose – try that. Bit like cornflour – used to be a darker colour long ago but it’s lighter now. It’s a

bit like a pudding. Maybe powdered split yellow peas?

Transcript:

Braeside and the school

A story by Edith Petrie and Pat Dunn about the school and Braeside in Lumsden.

I remember when Edith and her sisters were in school. We used to stay at a farm over at Clova, you see,

and we used to see them walking through the fields and a right long way to Lumsden School that they

walked up. Three miles down in the morning and three miles back.

People were healthier back then!

A few sandwiches in the bag and a tin of coffee or cocoa and my mother put it in in the morning and we

went to school the headmaster used to take it from us and put it on – he had a stove – and he used to open

the cork and set them on the top so that it was still warm. We just got soup dinners before I left.

It was Mrs McKenzie who made the soup and Mrs McGregor did it. We went down every Friday to

Queensbriggs with a pail of the stuff that was left. Did it for a week and got a threepenny on a Friday.

So what’s Queensbriggs?

A house just across there at the foot of the brae, a bridge beside it, just the other side of the village from

here, the Clova road, go past the garage and there’s a road down there and that’s Queenie Brae.

There was somebody told me that there was a queen or something – there was someone that told me but I

forget who it was. It’s just called that. The minister was telling me – she was telling Margaret Shearer.

But it’s Queensbriggs. But we walked it with what was left from our lunch with the school. With the spoil, we

come down every day and got a threepenny. That would have been for the Frasers?

Braeside – there’s no-one there now since we left – grounds all flooded and trees now.

House is still standing – I used to see it when I was out for a walk with my son. And he would look across

and say, “That’s where my grannie’s buried and to think I’ll soon be meeting her and she’ll make bannocks.”

Because he was dying of cancer – and that’s what he used to say.