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The Ballad and The Plough: A Portrait of the Life of the Old Scottish Farmtouns
The era of the great farms of Scotland is over now. They flourished for nearly eighty years from the mid 19th century, and those years are renowned for the strength of their characters and the legendary status of their stories. Probably the finest and richest aspect of bothy life was the ballad. Often sentimental, sometimes simplistic, they nevertheless give unrivalled detail about a vanished way of life and work.Quoting generously from the ballads, David Kerr Cameron has written a book rich in anecdote and insight. The working day was hard and long, and mealtimes consisted mainly of porridge and potatoes. Yet laughter and generosity of spirit were commonplace. For these communities, horses were as important as people, and tens of thousands of noble Clydesdales helped to cultivate the land. Ploughmen, dairymaids, bailiffs and shepherds all appear in the pages of this unique testament to the Scottish countryside. Together with Willie Gavin, Crofter Man and The Cornkister Days , this volume forms a remarkable trilogy on life in rural Scotland.
- GenresScotland
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 9, 2016
My paternal ancestors were from the north east of Scotland and I know that some of them had been "fee'd men" i.e. agricultural labourers contracted to work for a fee for periods of six months on the "farmtouns" of that area. This book provides some fascinating insights into the lives of those who lived and worked on the farmtouns and was therefore of considerable interest to me.
The fee'd men were hired at twice yearly local fairs that at one time occurred all over the British Isles. In England these were prosaically known as "hiring fairs" but in many parts of Scotland were referred to as "feeing markets", a term that perhaps better conveys how the labourers were regarded as little more than beasts of burden and were usually treated much worse. As the author notes, any stockman who treated his cattle as these men and women were treated would have been sent from the farmtoun.
"Towns" is some ways a good term for the bigger farmtouns, that had granaries, turnip sheds, potato stores, straw barns, byres, stables, hen coops, tool sheds and other farm buildings, as well as buildings for humans; the farmhouse with servants' quarters, cottars' houses for families, and the bothies, a sort of squalid barracks that housed the unmarried men and women (separately). In the north east smaller versions were known as "chaumers" (derived from the French word "chaumière"). The book contains much fascinating detail of the nature of these, such as this sobering description from an elderly man, recorded at the turn of the 20th century.
"My first farm chaumer was a hut resembling a pighouse, the floor of which was 18 inches below ground level. In rainy weather the water came in at the door and ran out at the wall at the other end of the hovel. There was no fireplace. I had planks to walk on to get to bed with dry feet...and I was a boy of eleven, alone."
So self-contained were the farmtouns that in some respects they resembled ships at sea, and in contemporary references farmtoun folk refer to themselves as "crews" - the "Ardlaw Crew", the "Drumdelgie Crew" and so on. Another similarity with sailors was that fee'd men would not infrequently suffer from scurvy, the consequence of being fed a monotonous diet of brose - oatmeal mixed with hot water.
The north east farmtouns did produce one notable art form, the "bothy ballad", folk songs written and sung by those who worked the farms, which are extensively covered in the book. Many are comic "revenge" songs in which the fee'd men lampooned the farmers they worked for. Many others are on the subject of sex. The farmtouns were notorious for their high rates of illegitimate births, and writing in 1905, an Aberdeenshire school master noted that "Thrown together for six months of the year, the ploughman and the servant girl adopt each other pro tem and without prejudice."
I would rate this book four stars in terms of the information it imparts, but unfortunately I didn't take to the author's writing style, which I found more than a bit overwrought. In the following example, the author describes the crofters who struggled to farm small plots of marginal land adjacent to the farmtouns:
"Years of dour crofting endurance honed them to the temper of hard steel and in time, as solace for their frustration, they turned either to the kirk or the whisky bottle, and whiles to both. In the dark week of crofting despair it is a long time from Sabbath to Sabbath."
Much of the book is written in this style and I found it a bit of a struggle at times. Still, there's a lot of good stuff in here and I'm glad I read it.
The fee'd men were hired at twice yearly local fairs that at one time occurred all over the British Isles. In England these were prosaically known as "hiring fairs" but in many parts of Scotland were referred to as "feeing markets", a term that perhaps better conveys how the labourers were regarded as little more than beasts of burden and were usually treated much worse. As the author notes, any stockman who treated his cattle as these men and women were treated would have been sent from the farmtoun.
"Towns" is some ways a good term for the bigger farmtouns, that had granaries, turnip sheds, potato stores, straw barns, byres, stables, hen coops, tool sheds and other farm buildings, as well as buildings for humans; the farmhouse with servants' quarters, cottars' houses for families, and the bothies, a sort of squalid barracks that housed the unmarried men and women (separately). In the north east smaller versions were known as "chaumers" (derived from the French word "chaumière"). The book contains much fascinating detail of the nature of these, such as this sobering description from an elderly man, recorded at the turn of the 20th century.
"My first farm chaumer was a hut resembling a pighouse, the floor of which was 18 inches below ground level. In rainy weather the water came in at the door and ran out at the wall at the other end of the hovel. There was no fireplace. I had planks to walk on to get to bed with dry feet...and I was a boy of eleven, alone."
So self-contained were the farmtouns that in some respects they resembled ships at sea, and in contemporary references farmtoun folk refer to themselves as "crews" - the "Ardlaw Crew", the "Drumdelgie Crew" and so on. Another similarity with sailors was that fee'd men would not infrequently suffer from scurvy, the consequence of being fed a monotonous diet of brose - oatmeal mixed with hot water.
The north east farmtouns did produce one notable art form, the "bothy ballad", folk songs written and sung by those who worked the farms, which are extensively covered in the book. Many are comic "revenge" songs in which the fee'd men lampooned the farmers they worked for. Many others are on the subject of sex. The farmtouns were notorious for their high rates of illegitimate births, and writing in 1905, an Aberdeenshire school master noted that "Thrown together for six months of the year, the ploughman and the servant girl adopt each other pro tem and without prejudice."
I would rate this book four stars in terms of the information it imparts, but unfortunately I didn't take to the author's writing style, which I found more than a bit overwrought. In the following example, the author describes the crofters who struggled to farm small plots of marginal land adjacent to the farmtouns:
"Years of dour crofting endurance honed them to the temper of hard steel and in time, as solace for their frustration, they turned either to the kirk or the whisky bottle, and whiles to both. In the dark week of crofting despair it is a long time from Sabbath to Sabbath."
Much of the book is written in this style and I found it a bit of a struggle at times. Still, there's a lot of good stuff in here and I'm glad I read it.
September 13, 2019
Beautifully written, this account of life in Scotland's farming communities during the 1800s through to the 1930s, brings the lives, loves and songs of the period vivisit to life.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews