Footsteps in the Furrow. Andrew Arbuckle
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of the farmed land was tenanted. That percentage was stable until the end of World War I, when cash-rich tenants took advantage of cash-strapped landlords and bought their farms.
So, why were the landlords short of cash? Simply because leases were taken on a 7- or 14-year basis and landlords were unable to raise rents during the good times; reportedly, rents were actually less at the end of the war than at the beginning.
Over the next fifteen years, the percentage of owner-occupiers rose to more than 30%. It was the biggest shift in land ownership in Scotland since monastic times. The change of land ownership was helped along the way by the increase in Estate Duty, introduced in 1925. However, many of those tenants who had taken the leap into ownership may have regretted taking that step as farm commodity prices plunged in the early 1920s to levels last experienced ten and twenty years previously. Other factors further accentuating the post-war economic downturn came into play. The savage loss of life in the war had robbed the country and the farms of a large percentage of its workforce. Some indication of the Grim Reaper’s scything down of young men belonging to the rural areas can be seen to the present day just by reading the war memorials scattered around the countryside. As more and more young men were called away to fight for King and country, it was not unusual to see boys as young as 14 years of age ploughing behind a pair of horse.
Fewer men were left on the farm and those who did remain required more pay, but when commodity prices plummeted, farmers tried to negotiate a drop in wages. As we will see elsewhere, these negotiations helped form the Farm Servants’ Union.
Similar economic woes hit the urban areas and farming was in recession more quickly than was at first realised in the 1920s. In a perceptive remark in 1929, Mr Henderson of Scotscraig, the president of Cupar NFU, stated that because farmers were not getting prices to meet the costs of production, large tracts of land were going down into grass: ‘Certainly, the Nation will awake to this fatal error but then it may be too late with the farming interest largely wiped out.’
In fact, the nadir for the farming industry came in the early 1930s. The average area of land under cultivation in Scotland during that decade was the smallest since 1876. Even in the run-up to World War II, production of all commodities except poultry was much less than at its peak in 1918. This happened despite the efforts of Walter Elliot, a Scottish sheep farmer who became the Minister of Agriculture in the early years of the decade. By imposing some import tariffs and encouraging farmers to grow for defined markets, he tried to bolster the industry.
In the 1930s, there were many cases of bankruptcy and then there were the less publicised ones of suicide. It was said at the time that no farmer could look out over his neighbourhood without seeing at least one farm where the farmer had either taken his own life or had simply vanished from the scene. In the depressed years, the small parish of Carnbee lost two farmers who took their own lives, while another six went bankrupt. As was witnessed in an earlier era at Drumrack, farms let on tacks or rental periods of 7–14 years regularly were abandoned by the tenants.
Far more than in any other occupation, failure in farming, for whatever reason, is a heavy burden and one that is often carried alone. However, it was in those deep, dark days that the industry first pulled itself together and set up organisations to fight its corner. Their story is carried elsewhere in this book.
WHEN travelling through towns nowadays, every so often you come across a children’s play area, filled with swings, chutes, roundabouts and climbing frames. They are in stark primary colours and mostly surrounded by a soft rubberised area, lest the children fall off. It all seems so distant from the play area of my own childhood and of those brought up on the farms of a generation or more ago.
For youngsters growing up in the country, farmyards were our playground – the buildings, the farm machinery and the goods stored about the place provided the landscape for rich adventure and risky escapades. One favourite starting point was the farm stables; the horses had gone from the farm but the stables in the farm steading still had a certain relevance.
The size or the number of stalls in a stable gave an idea of the scale and nature of the farm. A rule of thumb was that a pair of horse could cover some 50 acres on an arable farm and so a quick count of the number of stalls would tell the size of the farm.
Some farms in Fife had two stables. Unusual, until you consider that in World War I, often the military came onto farms, unannounced, and requisitioned the best of the horses. Farmers found it was far better to split the risk and hope that those responsible for taking away the horsepower of the country to the battlefields would not realise they were only seeing half the horses on the farm.
From an early age, we youngsters could open the half-hack stable doors, where the top half could be opened for ventilation, leaving the bottom still closed with a latch or a draw bolt. Once inside the stone-built building, we could climb up onto the food troughs at the front of the stalls, which were separated by wooden partitions. Even by this age our senses were heightened by the sharp smell of the creosote applied to every piece of wood in contact with livestock.
We did not know it then but this form of disinfection was applied on an annual basis to keep at bay contagious diseases such as ringworm. Nor did we realise at that time that there was a similar reason for whitewashing all the stone and brickwork with limestone. For some, whitewashed walls equate to cleanliness and good hygiene.
For myself, and others who applied the hot lime or the creosote during the summer months when the livestock were outside, there are memories of stinging faces whenever the brushes accidentally splashed preservative onto our skin. This routine work was not enjoyed. In addition to the discomfort experienced by wayward splashes and drips, working clothes were marked. There being no overalls in those days, the general practice was to cut a hole in the base of an old jute sack and then stick your head through it, leaving the wearer with the latest fashion: a bag advertising Bloggs Grain.
From the food troughs, with a slightly acrobatic swing we could get into the slatted hay haiks above the troughs. On some farms, there was a direct connection with the loft next door so that hay or oat straw could be fed through the boles. Crawling through these boles would then take you into the loft with its shiny wooden floor; smoothed and ribbed by years and years of forage being dragged along as it was filled and gradually emptied.
On some farms these lofts would be filled by straw conveyers slung from the roof rafters straight from the threshing mill; others had conveyors that took the bulk grain into the dry feed store that was also filled with sacks of various foods for livestock. In both, bags or bulk, there were a thousand dusty hidey-holes where youngsters might conceal themselves when playing hide and seek.
The loft was accessed by a set of stone steps. These steps were worn away by the tackets, or short nails in the soles of the boots of a generation of men who carried sacks of grain weighing more than 100 kilos. Pre-Health and Safety Executive days, there were no handrails on the steps and so, if brave or foolish enough, we youngsters could jump off the top step onto the cobbled yard below.
Below the loft was the cart shed where the coup carts, and later small tractor trailers were housed; each with its own beautifully constructed archway of stonework built in an arc with a keystone. At the highpoint of the arch was a hook, on which the carter would hang the shafts of the cart. Alongside each cart were hooks on which the extra cart sides were stored, in case the work involved a bulky crop. Above, on the wooden rafters were the flakes used when carting hay and straw.
At the other end of the loft were the cattle courts and again, we, as children out of sight of adult restraint, would climb into the troughs running along each side of the raised gangway. We would then climb into the hay haiks and up onto the couples, or roof rafters. From this high vantage point, it was a test of courage to crawl along these wooden batons looking down on the cattle below. Then, in a game of dares we would