school next morning my mother would have difficulty getting us up and ready. I’m sure that morning we would all be late and it depended on the mood of the Mistress whether we got caned or not. Elizabeth said she would always use the cane if she was wearing her brown shoes. I don’t know how accurate that was.
Halfway to school we always met Jinny, an old lady coming from the school pump with a bucket of water. We would ask Jinny what time it was and she would always say nine o’clock. We always hoped she would say five to nine, but she never did.
Autumn was blackberry season and gathering these fruits was a way of making money. Every afternoon, after school, we would all be out blackberrying. There were lots of brambles about the hedges but there were many pickers and we would often go into fields and find that someone had been there before us. But on good days we would find an abundance and quickly fill our cans. There was a man called Mr. Carberry who called each week. He would hang the can of fruit on his hand held scales and give us about a shilling or whatever it was worth. But first, if he saw the juice at the top of the can, he would pour it off onto the road because pouring water onto the blackberries was a great way to increase the weight.
I remember coming past a house once after Mr. Carberry had been there and the road was a beautiful pink where he had poured what must have been about a gallon of juice and it had run down the brae making it all look like fairyland.
There was one lady who was the nearest to a professional picker in the district. She would be out at dawn every day except Sunday and she was called Ally. If Ally had been there before you there would be nothing left.
The season lasted about two months and like everything else it came to an end. Sometimes, when a gang of us came upon Ally, we used to shout, “Ally, Ally, Ally,” very fast in unison. She would look up and shout, “What are you Allying about? Does Ally owe you anything?”
She lived with her sister, Mary, who was adept at reading tea leaves. If Mary came into anyone’s house it wouldn’t be long until a cup of tea was in her hand. One day she was in the shop and Elizabeth asked her to read her cup. Among other things she said that there was going to be an accident outside, and a few minutes later a boy called Tom McMahon was hit on the face with a stick and was brought in bleeding. This enhanced Mary’s reputation enormously.
People made a living as best they could. The poor families were kept alive and one way or another got enough to eat. Many of the men worked for the peat company. The reclaimed bog around where we lived was called the moss and was dry except for parts where the turf had been extracted every year until it was below the water table. A very large portion of it belonged the peat company. William Robert Abraham was its manager and the men who cut the turf for Abraham, as he was commonly referred to, were on piece work and were paid by the chain which was twenty-two yards long (20.12 metres).
If the turf was cut downwards, across the grain of vegetation that it once was, then it was called cutting turf and a special two-sided spade was used, and each turf was thrown to a capper who caught it and placed it back in a row to dry.
The method used in the peat moss was called breasting turf. This was cutting horizontally with the grain and placing the turf on its side, one on top of the other about four deep.
Only one man was required for this but it was a hard job because the breaster had to bend down like he was using a shovel and then lift the heavy wet turf up to the bank. I don’t know how much he was paid per chain, but I can imagine it wasn’t enough.
The turf then had to be dried and that was achieved by first putting them criss-cross on top of each other so that the air could circulate through them and eventually they were put into stacks on the ramparts until lorries would come and take them
Halfway to school we always met Jinny, an old lady coming from the school pump with a bucket of water. We would ask Jinny what time it was and she would always say nine o’clock. We always hoped she would say five to nine, but she never did.
Autumn was blackberry season and gathering these fruits was a way of making money. Every afternoon, after school, we would all be out blackberrying. There were lots of brambles about the hedges but there were many pickers and we would often go into fields and find that someone had been there before us. But on good days we would find an abundance and quickly fill our cans. There was a man called Mr. Carberry who called each week. He would hang the can of fruit on his hand held scales and give us about a shilling or whatever it was worth. But first, if he saw the juice at the top of the can, he would pour it off onto the road because pouring water onto the blackberries was a great way to increase the weight.
I remember coming past a house once after Mr. Carberry had been there and the road was a beautiful pink where he had poured what must have been about a gallon of juice and it had run down the brae making it all look like fairyland.
There was one lady who was the nearest to a professional picker in the district. She would be out at dawn every day except Sunday and she was called Ally. If Ally had been there before you there would be nothing left.
The season lasted about two months and like everything else it came to an end. Sometimes, when a gang of us came upon Ally, we used to shout, “Ally, Ally, Ally,” very fast in unison. She would look up and shout, “What are you Allying about? Does Ally owe you anything?”
She lived with her sister, Mary, who was adept at reading tea leaves. If Mary came into anyone’s house it wouldn’t be long until a cup of tea was in her hand. One day she was in the shop and Elizabeth asked her to read her cup. Among other things she said that there was going to be an accident outside, and a few minutes later a boy called Tom McMahon was hit on the face with a stick and was brought in bleeding. This enhanced Mary’s reputation enormously.
People made a living as best they could. The poor families were kept alive and one way or another got enough to eat. Many of the men worked for the peat company. The reclaimed bog around where we lived was called the moss and was dry except for parts where the turf had been extracted every year until it was below the water table. A very large portion of it belonged the peat company. William Robert Abraham was its manager and the men who cut the turf for Abraham, as he was commonly referred to, were on piece work and were paid by the chain which was twenty-two yards long (20.12 metres).
If the turf was cut downwards, across the grain of vegetation that it once was, then it was called cutting turf and a special two-sided spade was used, and each turf was thrown to a capper who caught it and placed it back in a row to dry.
The method used in the peat moss was called breasting turf. This was cutting horizontally with the grain and placing the turf on its side, one on top of the other about four deep.
Only one man was required for this but it was a hard job because the breaster had to bend down like he was using a shovel and then lift the heavy wet turf up to the bank. I don’t know how much he was paid per chain, but I can imagine it wasn’t enough.
The turf then had to be dried and that was achieved by first putting them criss-cross on top of each other so that the air could circulate through them and eventually they were put into stacks on the ramparts until lorries would come and take them
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