by Anne Cholawo
The chase usually started at Soay House. Jeanne was no longer fit for the hill so she waited by the Black Shed, a corrugated tin shed close to the sheep pen about half a mile down the track, where she laid out a spread of food. Dianne, Donita and Anne also produced some wonderful baking for the gathering as well as helping on the hill.
Shepherds and dogs left first and then the remaining group split into two, according to age and fitness. The fitter group headed for the harbour – the terrain there required jungle training and mountaineering skills of a high order. The woods were choked with fallen trees and deep holes lay hidden beneath the undergrowth. Inland cliffs also posed a dangerous hazard for the unwary or foolhardy. I was in the second group which left a few minutes later, allowing time for the fitter folk to flush out any sheep around the harbour area. Up on the hill we began to fan out in a north–south line toward the middle of the island. If all went to plan, the first group with the shepherds could be seen from the centre of the island driving the sheep down along the west coast.
The two groups then joined and became a single line of people stretching from west to east, slowly driving the sheep towards the south coast. Once we reached the cliff tops the sheep had no option but to follow the coastline until eventually they ended up on the beach. Between the sea on one side and a barrier of people on the shore side, the sheep were forced to run parallel to both. Now they could be corralled inside a fence leading from the sea’s edge to the sheep pen. When the last sheep was inside the pen, the gate was shut behind them. With enough people to help this worked very well. But gaps in the line allowed the more adventurous sheep to double back and escape the dragnet.
Depending on the time of year, the sheep were then dosed and sheared, ram lambs were separated out for castration and/or market, and ewe lambs put into a fenced meadow for weaning. In those days all shearing was done by hand. Lambs selected for market had their feet tied together and carried individually down to the waiting boat on the shore. It was a long, hard day’s work for everybody.
On my first sheep chase at the end of June, there were plenty of helpers including those who came over to Soay to spend the day on the hill and enjoy the ceilidh in the evening. I remember that year was a particularly good one, though that may be because it was my first. There was music in the Ceilidh Hall and a mix of smells: damp dogs, earthy people, alcohol and smoke from wood fire, cigarettes and pipes. Duncan’s crewman David Rosie had brought his fiddle and was playing Scottish reels and ballads. There were jokes and laughter in the dim light of a single, hissing Tilly lamp hanging on the wall.
Outside, the night air seemed to teem with life. Even in the semi-dark, seagulls were still calling and oystercatchers ‘peeped’ their mechanical song over and over again. A snipe tumbled in the air creating a sound that reminded me of someone flipping quickly through a pack of cards. My ears were still young and sharp enough to hear the tiny pipistrelle bats squeaking overhead. The continual rumble of waves sucking on the rocks was the only other sound. Until now I had known only a noisy, neon-lit environment. This was my first experience of how the night must once have sounded all over the planet. How could I ever forget it? I still hold that memory close. Of course, I admit, my experience was enhanced by several generous glasses of whisky.
Two friends were staying with me and they had enjoyed taking part in the sheep chase too. They came for the start of the ceilidh, but left early suffering from midge bites. I am very fortunate not to be afflicted by the fiendish swelling and itching midge bites can cause, so I decided to stay and enjoy the ambiance of the evening for a while longer. On my way home a little later, I met Tex swaying gently by the door of the Ceilidh Hall puffing on his ever-present pipe. With an over-emphasised and gallant gesture he offered to escort me home. I wasn’t too sure this was a good idea
‘I assure you,’ his clipped and affected English accent had just a hint of slur, ‘I shall be the complete gentleman.’ Tex had our East Coast Scottish accent, but often when he was drunk he used to put on an upper-class English accent. I don’t know why.
It was roughly a ten-minute walk to my house from the Ceilidh Hall. That night it took at least fifteen minutes to get as far as the old wooden footbridge, usually just a five-minute stroll up the track. By the time we got to Glenfield, I saw there were no lights in the kitchen or spare bedroom. My friends had gone to bed. At the same time I realised that Tex was in no condition to walk home by himself. I remembered that the old bridge didn’t have secure railings and I imagined him toppling over into the burn below, so we turned around like two old vagrants and headed slowly back the way we had come. Thank goodness for light summer nights – neither of us had a torch. I finally got him safely over the bridge, and then he waved me away.
‘Go on home to your friends, I know my way around here in the dark blindfolded and backwards.’
I watched him for a while heading vaguely in the right direction and then I went home to bed. Next morning I went down to see if Tex had got home safely. I found a very tight-lipped Jeanne and a sheepish, hung-over Tex. Apparently he had only made it as far as Gordon’s assault craft, around thirty feet from the bridge, pulled up on the beach. Tex had tumbled into it and spent the night asleep inside the boat. He turned up just in time for breakfast.
* * *
There were other animals on Soay. Tex and Jeanne had ten or twelve heifers and cows, Oliver and Donita perhaps four or five. There was one communal bull called Reagan who serviced them all. Reagan was very gentle and placid. If he was lying down next to the track you could sit on him and he wouldn’t move. If you shouted at him he would just shut his eyes and look mortified (usually when he was trying to get inside my front door and cracking the doorstep). These were Luing cattle (a cross-breed of shorthorn and Highland cattle originating from the Hebridean Island of Luing); attractive and hardy but not too large. The cows all had names. For some reason I remember only Frosty who had five teats instead of four, and Belsen, an excellent milker but just skin and bone, however much she was fed.
They all needed winter feed. In July when weather and season were right, I began to learn the art of silage making. Jeanne had purchased an enormous number of grey plastic barrels with sealed screw-top lids for making silage and they were lying in heaps around three small meadows fenced off from the livestock. After several poor summers for hay making, Jeanne decided silage would be a better option to feed the cattle over the worst of winter. It was also thought that silage had more nutritional value than hay.
An ancient but well cared-for Alan scythe, rather like a large, oversized lawn mower, was used for cutting most of the meadow grass. The outer edges of the meadow were hand scythed first leaving a swathe of cut grass around the outer perimeter. The strip was wide enough for the Alan scythe to start cutting four or five feet from the fence and make an easy turn at the ends. Grass was raked into lines, gathered up and pressed into the plastic barrels. It was hard work – the best way to compress the grass was to get into a barrel and jump up and down inside it. Once the grass reached right to the top, the lid was screwed on tight. If the air could be kept out, the grass ‘pickled’ itself inside the barrel.
By winter, if the process had worked, when you opened the lid the silage smelt sweet and good enough to eat. It was a lovely aroma. It was also a lovely way to spend a hot summer day, for me anyway. The cut grass smelt delicious, birds sang and there was always plenty of food and cider for the workers. The feeling of achievement when the last barrel was packed and ready for winter was wonderful. I felt that I was doing something truly worthwhile.
Late summer brought a more fundamental lesson in the facts of life and death on an island farm. I had asked once why it was Jeanne that did the slaughtering and not Tex, considering his shark-fishing history. Jeanne explained that Tex could no longer kill an animal, particularly if it was tied to a fence. He preferred to give it a ‘sporting chance’ by shooting it out on the hill instead. This proved not to be a very economical way of doing things, so
Jeanne took on the responsibility. After the second sheep chase in August she asked if I would like to help.
First-year ram lambs were to be sent off to market but Jeanne had kept two wedder sheep for home consumption – wedders are castrated rams and these particular two were a couple of years old and ready for the pot. Jeanne liked to keep a good supply of mutton in the larder. If I helped, she promised I could have some of the meat too.
I am not a vegetarian. I accept it as a fact of life that an animal has to be killed for its meat. I agreed to help, not really knowing what to expect other than the death of two sheep. I didn’t know how it would be done, or what the process of butchering would be. I wasn’t looking forward to the experience, but I did want to have a few joints of meat in my larder and felt it would be hypocritical not to help. To my surprise it was quick, simple and without drama. I don’t believe the sheep were any more nervous than they would have been during the normal stress of being kept inside the sheep shed on a halter.
Jeanne simply tied the wedders by the horns to a wooden partition and shot them in the back of the head with a .22 rifle. They died instantly and dropped where they stood. Jeanne then bled them and it became my turn to help her hoist the carcasses onto an overhead beam. There was a wooden block and tackle attached to the cross-beam of the shed and it took the two of us to heave up the sheep, one at a time, by the front legs.
I learnt that it is easiest to skin an animal when it is still warm. The skin is first slit in several places – around the legs just above the hooves, around the neck and finally down the front with a long slit from neck to tail. The next task is to cut along the length of the legs to join with the slit down the centre of the animal. Care must be taken not to cut too deeply passing the gut and bladder otherwise the innards will spill out before you are ready to clean out the intestines and internal organs. It all starts to get a bit messy and smelly if that happens. Alternatively, the innards can be removed before the skinning.
It’s hard work cleaning and butchering a sheep or any large animal. Pulling the skin away requires some strength and a lot of patience. As the sheep were held up by the front legs, we started skinning from the neck first, pulling the skin downward toward the tail. It is a slow process and takes practice. The carcass is then cleaned out and the bladder, intestines and vital organs removed. Heart, liver and kidneys can all be eaten, although we kept them only for the dogs. The sheep is then taken down off the beam, the head sawn off using a special butcher saw and the body cut into joints. There are probably many ways and means of butchering a sheep properly, but this was how I saw it done in my first years on Soay.
I went back to my cottage with a very generous portion of mutton joints and chops. Jeanne showed me how to ‘seal’ the meat and hang it so it would last a good while without using the freezer. It was my first experience of cooking and eating home-reared and butchered sheep. I don’t think I have ever tasted lamb or mutton so delicious, before or since.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Winkling a living
August 1990
Reality was starting to seep in. Despite the kindness and support of Tex and Jeanne I was beginning to undergo the kind of culture shock people often experience with a radical change in lifestyle. I had not planned further ahead than getting to the island. I had arrived with no clear idea of how I would earn a living and as the novelty and excitement abated I was feeling the loss of identity and status. Once I had defined myself by my career, family and friends, but I had left all that far behind me. It was frightening and unsettling. I was going to have to rebuild a new ‘me’ and I had no idea where to start.
By mid August my financial situation was becoming critical. Money. I had very little left and desperately needed some kind of regular income or I would have to leave the island before I had even begun my new life. Someone suggested I try going to the ‘wilkes’ as winkles are called in Scotland. Winkle picking was widely practised on the west coast (and still is). I knew nothing about it. I had no idea what a winkle looked like.
At that time most of the winkle picking on Soay was done by the older children during summer holidays to earn a little extra money, in the same way as urban children take on a paper round. It seemed that nearly everyone on the island had been to the wilkes at some point in his or her life. I had a lot to learn from them.
Winkles are small sea snails with grey-black shells. They lie in the more sheltered parts of the shore just below the half-tide line, mostly under or beside rocks, crevices and gullies. I soon learned it is only worth picking during spring tides, on the full or new moon. So every two weeks there are perhaps six days of work and just four hours of tide to pick each day – it is usual to start and finish on the half tide where the winkles are at their most plentiful and of the best marketable size. Don’t be fooled by this apparently short working day; firstly the best winkle beach might be a two-mile hike away, and secondly it’s an intense four hours; literally a race against the tide. There’s no time for slacking, the tide will not wait for you to have a breather.
France was then the biggest market for Scottish winkles. They were priced by the hundredweight (50kg) and one bag of winkles weighed approximately 25kg – the same as a bag of coal. Prices varied through the season. They were at their lowest during summer months, but rose steadily through autumn to reach a peak just before Christmas.
Two rounded buckets of winkles will make approximately one 25kg bag. The state of the beach, the weather, wind direction, temperature and how often the beach has been picked over, all make a difference to the amount of winkles you can gather in one tide. I tried to aim for at least one bag a day, though I knew others could do more, but that was never easy even after I got used to the work, especially if the beach had been mangled in a storm or the weather was bad. Cold, numb fingers could make a big difference to a day’s picking.
To get me started, I was lent a handful of winkle bags from helpful islanders. Winkle bags, provided by the buyers, are made of strong, tightly woven netting, not unlike an onion bag and usually orange in colour to help with visibility. Winkles are sold live, and can be stored for many weeks in their bags if looked after properly and kept so that the sea covers them at high tide. If they are being held back for the Christmas market, or the weather is too bad to get them off the island, the bags need to be turned at least every two days to allow the winkles to ‘breathe’.
Winkling, therefore, is not just about picking, but about looking after the bags, collecting them and organising a time to sell them. With the help of a dinghy, I could get my winkles off the island to be sold along with the other island pickings on one of the fishing boats going to Elgol. At first I was very slow and had to learn how to size my pickings. If they were too small the buyer could refuse to buy them. It was a year or so before I became proficient enough to earn more than just enough to cover my immediate necessities. But it was an honest, reliable income that could be earned all year round.
On a hot summer day it could be pleasant work. The only sounds to be heard came from wheeling gulls and oystercatchers, the occasional flap and call of a heron, or the harsh croak of a hoodie crow high overhead. There might be a gentle splash of a basking seal as it wriggled and slipped back into the water, the plaintive call of a northern diver further out to sea, or the low bleat of a sheep on the hill behind me. There is a dreamy quality to the island on sultry afternoons when the sky is hazy lavender blue. It was a very different experience to be on the beach picking in howling wind, driving rain, hail and, sometimes, snow.
Winkling made it possible for me to continue living on Soay, however hand to mouth. But instead of the comfortable income I used to see on my monthly bank statements I was having to budget with an irregular, uncertain, shifting trickle of cash that depended solely on my personal stamina and self-discipline.
With so little money coming in, I had to find ways of slowing the cash flowing out. I had to very honest with myself about my finances and it wasn’t looking good. I trimmed my food
order down to the absolute minimum. From now on it would be restricted to root vegetables that would keep for a month – onions, carrots, turnips, potatoes and hard white cabbage. Meat was cut to a minimum as I had decided to discard the gas fridge when I discovered it used a whole 13kg bottle of butane every month. The freezer box could hold just a few packets of sausages, bacon and possibly a small bag of mince; hardly worth having the fridge on and Jeanne had shown me how to keep ‘sealed’ mutton without it. I went without fruit for a short time until Jeanne warned me of the dangers of scurvy.
Fortune smiled on me in other ways. With three fishing boats constantly at sea there was always plenty of fish, crab and squat lobsters and Jeanne offered me a bottle of fresh goat’s milk everyday. It was delicious and I still maintain that it is far nicer to drink than cow’s milk.
Bit by bit I began to adjust.
There was an old fenced garden up the hill behind Glenfield and although the garden was part of Tex’s croft I was offered the opportunity of mending the fences to grow my own vegetables. I have to tell you now that growing vegetables was at the very bottom of my wish list. Until then, I had not one thought in my head about being ‘self-sufficient’. Gardening was a complete mystery to me and I had long since put myself down as some sort of Jonah to plant life. At work I had gained a reputation for having ‘black fingers’ when it came to pot plants. All my colleagues had flourishing plants by their desks; green, lush and giving the studio a hint of the outside world. My pot plants had a lifespan of about three weeks. I even killed a cactus once
Well, as you might surmise, I was not very hopeful of my vegetable patch. But everyone was so helpful. Visiting friends helped me dig up the weeds and turn over the soil. Jeanne told me how to manure the garden with seaweed and sand and I duly dragged both up to the garden by the fishbox-load. This was another lesson in island life which in some ways had hardly changed since long before the 1953 evacuation. The evidence is written across the landscape. Large areas of ground were cultivated around the harbour and south of the bay where inhabitants would have grown staple crops of potatoes and oats in traditional Highland ‘lazy beds’ (also known as runrigs or feannagan). There’s actually nothing lazy about this way of cultivating poor and shallow soil; it requires a lot of physical effort. To create more depth of soil, the ground is dug on either side of a straight line and then turned over into the middle, building a deeper growing area about a metre in width. From a distance lazy beds look a little like a ploughed field.
