Wendy's Croft in May

The extract I've chosen from Wendy Wood's book From a Highland Croft, written in the 1950s, for May is interesting because she writes about things that having fallen out of favour back then, are now right back in the mainstream - at least in part. She had been cutting rushes to use as bedding for the cattle, and then...

"After cutting rushes I turned to a tougher job, for, lacking my pony, I had to creel the seaweed on my own back. The weed lay on the shore in a rough semi-circle like a rusty scimitar. It was in that half-decayed condition which is so good for the fields yet is unpleasant to touch. I could have put on rubber gloves, but the weed is the very best of hand softeners, and I found the under layers warm. The loch water was so crystal clear that it almost tempted me in for a swim, but the appearance was sufficient, for a test with the pinkie nearly paralysed me.

Big farmers sometimes regard crofters as being behind the times, but with no more than lime or shell sand, seaweed and dung, we are enriching our land, while they with chemical fertilisers, will ultimately impoverish theirs beyond retrieving. I have tasted some of the produce grown by "medicine" and whether it is grass for beast or cabbages for humans, I think it is responsible for some of the diseases of man and beast. The forced production of eggs is spoiling the hens, and the unnatural milk yield is spoiling the cows. In my grandmother's day the cures for human ills were such as sea water, horn broth and elm bark, and folk lived actively to a great age. The cattle had no more when ill than boiled seaweed or home-made cod liver oil, and half the diseases that keep vets busy today were unknown."

I'm not sure I agree with absolutely everything she says but, as ever with this wonderful little book, we are given a glimpse of an older, more balanced, and possibly wiser age.

April on a Croft in the Fifties

I haven't had anything to say about my bit of hillside since my last extract from Wendy Wood's book - it's been cold, wet and miserable and I have not been at all inspired - but, nevertheless, it is time for an April look at croft life fifty years ago. And what a wonderful passage this is:

"In a town many a person stops to watch a man at work digging up a pavement or a road; and here at home I find myself ready to 'stand and stare' at the first ploughing of the year without sense of time. It is not only because it is so fundamental, but also because there is so much movement to it. All winter the still, flat field has been without much interest, for only an occasional crow or a few sheep have crossed its dull surface, but when the plough scrapes in at the gate, the field wakens to know that is it springtime.
There is a great deal of preparation and adjustment before the shout of the ploughman starts the great rhythm of moving earth. The horses tuck their heads in and sinews ripple under their glossy coats, the great hooves plod to a hidden tune, the traces strain, and behind them the coutler cuts the green turf like the prow of a ship, while the following share lays aside the regulated waves of shining furrow, a slow, inevitable march of rising, turning slabs. Behind them the ploughman paces, exact in his skill, his body bent intently, the muscles strongly modelled on his bare arms. At his back, high and low in the air, are the swirl and dip of the white-winged gulls and the hoodie crows crying their joy at the treasure that has lain too long in the winter-locked larder. A lark rises, pouring the silver of its treble to fall like narrow ribbons on the dark broad bands below. The dog dashes round the field barking, his eyes glistening with a fever of excitement at the wakening earth. High above, the clouds move majestically across the inverted blue fields of the sky, and between the two an eagle soars remote. The air is warm, and as I lean over the stone dyke my body relaxes from the tenseness with which we have fought the cold winds of winter. There is a faint scent from the newly turned turf, reminiscent of the smell of uncooked plum pudding. Somehow this is not just an ordinary ploughing; it is symbolic, a ceremony, a saga; with delight akin to pain I sense the hidden significance of brown earth. It is small wonder that I sing on the way home."

Wonderful! And as so often in these extracts, a glimpse of a world not that long ago but completely unfamiliar to us now. Oh, how I'd love to see horses ploughing the fields round my house.

Two of her remarks strike a familiar chord though. That feeling of a body constantly tensed against the cold is one I've felt myself, and the physical frustration of a late Spring holding back the release of all those tensed muscles is palpable this year. And her description of 'delight akin to pain' also reflected words I've written in my own journals. Here on the hill, sometimes when I look out across the firth, and the air is full of birdsong, and the Sun is warming my back, I have declared the scene to be so beautiful that it's almost painful. Her remark is so similar to mine that I think there must be some deep genetic memory at work. A glorious Spring to you all!

Crofting Life in November

It's November, so time for the next extract from Wendy Wood's book about life on a Highland croft in the 1950s.

A stag is roaring on the hills across the loch. He is very late in throwing out his challenge, but last month there were nights when you could not sleep for the noise of stags roaring; it was like being beside a lion's den.

I have been putting off a routine job that I dislike: the job of sweeping the chimney. If you wanted a professional sweep to come here, you would have to pay ten and twopence in fares alone, and either put him up and feed him, or pay for a hotel for the night, so naturally we are our own chimney sweeps. I have the usual sweep's outfit, but take the added precaution of attaching a rope to the ring brush before I push it up, in case the thing gets stuck in the uneven surface of the chimney, for then I would have to be without a fire till I could stop a lorry driver who likes diversion on his job.

These are indeed days when one needs a good fire, for there is hard frost at night, frost and a full moon. The hills look as if they were cut out of black metal. The crisp stillness is awesome. The grass is furry white and the sky wide with stars except where the moon will brook no rival and sails noiselessly, remote and cold, drawing the great tides in her skirt and causing the farm dog to cry its suddenly remembered wildness to the echoing hilltops.

Life has changed almost beyond recognition in the last fifty years here in the Highlands, yet it is still possible to feel that connection to something bigger than oneself, standing at the back door on a dark, still night, with the sound of owls in the pine tree and the Milky Way overhead. Not bad!

Lost World

Since I've been driven in by the dreaded midges, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share with you a fascinating little book I found in a second-hand bookshop a few years ago. It's a slim volume - a year's diary of a woman living alone in a croft in the West Highlands of Scotland. The book is called From a Highland Croft and it's written by Wendy Wood. I've found it inspiring to turn to when I've found the going tough here in the pond since the Golfer died.

In preparing this post I did some research on the net into the author and was surprised to discover that she was not the simple countrywoman I had thought - see here and here. So much so that I wondered if her tale of simple country life could still be trusted. I decided that, at the worst, she was an early downshifter and that, in any case, her prose is so lyrical and the picture of a way of life now all but gone that I had to share it. Here's a quote from her September entry - can you guess what year the book was published in? I'll reveal the date at the end of the post - I think you'll be surprised.

When the wind rises, the air is full of the swish of silver birch, occasionally interrupted by the clatter of falling oak or alder leaves, crisp and dry. There is a tang in the air and I am getting anxious about the bigging of my new byre.

There is something very primitive about prising stones out of the hillside with a crowbar and rolling them down. There was something decidedly primitive too about the adder that was coiled up asleep below one stone and met my hand as I levered. The sharp edge of a spade soon severed his connection with life, and by morning the birds had cleared the pieces.

Meanwhile, the cattle sale is due and that is the greatest day of the year for us...Some of the crofters have as many as eighteen miles to drive their beasts to the sale, five miles of which is dangerous going, where contest among the animals for place may throw them to destruction.

The owners arrive at the place of sale hungry enough to want a kebbock of cheese apiece of a size that would need a peat cutter to make inroads on it. Once the beasts are safe in the sale field on the side of the hill it is time for a dram, followed by a ceilidh round the fire.

Lots are drawn for the places on the sale list, each glen hoping to sell after the bidding has warmed up and before the buyers are cold - if the buyers would just go to the hotel now and have a dram!

Men hate to part with their beasts, but the money gained is the rent and the grocer's bill and the cost of feeding stuff for the year, plus a 'fairing' for the family which is to be bought down at the shop before starting for home in the gloaming.

Wonderful stuff! So, when did you think this lady was describing life in rural Scotalnd? 1952 - only fifty years ago - almost in my living memory. I am still blown away when I think of the way our lives have changed - in many ways for the better of course, but we have also lost something.

I'd like to share more of Wendy's life in her croft with you all; I hope to post an extract every month and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

By the way, I should add that harming or killing adders is now illegal in the UK.