Daft Laddie tales of North Tyne & Rede: Donald Clegg

Donald Clegg
(Image at left from The Northumbrian Magazine)
Don organising his squirrel feeder

Donald Clegg was born at Rochester in Redesdale. After Grammar school he worked as a postman delivering mail on foot to farms around the area.

He worked on farms in Redesdale and after being called up for his military service and 'doing time' helping the King and the new Queen Elizabeth, he returned to farm work in the North Tyne valley.

He then decided on a career change, and went to St John’s College in York to do teacher training after which he taught at Bellingham and Wooler. It was at these schools that his interest in Outdoor Education developed and he went on to specialise in this area.

He continued to apply his expertise at the Wauchope Field Study and Expedition Centre near Bonchester Bridge, and then moved to Carrshield in West Allendale. His knowledge and experience of the many predicaments he faced in his Daft Laddie days was always at hand in his new profession of dealing with people.

After a very successful and rewarding teaching career, he is now retired at lives at Yarrow Corner near Falstone, where he indulges his passion for all things Northumbrian, playing the mouth organ and Northumbrian pipes, and being a noted defender and carer of one of the few remaining populations of red squirrels in the country.

Daft Laddies tales of North Tyne & Rede: My H Samuel's pocket watch

Northumberland, farming, humour, dialect, Daft Laddies, history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Don's watch by H Samuel's of Newcastle upon Tyne. It's now in gentle retirement with a new boot lace to keep it safe

Do you remember the H Samuel Ever-Right pocket watch? It cost all of 30/- (£1.50) in the 1950’s and was a must for any self respecting artisan. It had a big, clear face, a chunky knob to wind it up and luminous pointers. Mine sat proudly in the breast pocket of my heather-mixture Harris Tweed jacket that I wore to the Highland Show in Paisley, near Glasgow, one year.

As the jacket got shabbier with age and holes appeared in the elbows it became my regular garb for cold days on the farm, milkin’, muckin’ oot and lookin’ the hill. H Samuel came too. He was always attached to the jacket’s button hole by a length of stylish leather bootlace, alongside the deer’s horn dog whistle that I carried to give an air of professionalism to my woeful performances as a sheep dog handler.

On the North Tyne farm where I was working there was a fairly deep open drain running across the back field and, in a wet lambing time, it could present quite a danger to unsteady young lambs as they tried to follow their mothers across the swollen stream. To ease the problem the boss decided that I should build a couple of sheep bridges across the drain, using old railway sleepers.

With the Fergie and trailer loaded with pinch bar, spade, bushman saw and sleepers I duly set off for the bridge building site on a warmish, sunny April morning. In no time, of course, the Harris Tweed jacket was cast and hoyed on to the trailer along with my woolly jumper. Work progressed steadily until all was satisfactorily completed and I straightened my back to admire my handiwork. All that remained was to collect the pinch bar, bushman and spade and head home for dinner.

As the heavy tools thumped, one by one, on to the trailer bed I suddenly remembered my H Samuel Ever Right pocket watch, worth 30/-, with its stylish leather bootlace, was in my Harris Tweed jacket, right in the firing line! The spade had landed squarely on top of it! Carefully, I examined the flattened remains of my pride and joy.

Miraculously, in spite of having a neat hole punched right through the newly invented plastic glass and through the steel back cover by the watch’s main gear spindle, it was still ticking away merrily and my H Samuel pocket watch continued to be Ever-Right for a canny few years afterwards.

Daft Laddie tales of North Tyne & Rede: Warming up a Korean winter

Daft Laddies, humour, military service, history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Caad wintors in Korea
Korean winters can be severe, and even in September, the ground round our camp was frozen hard as iron. Our Field Telephone Exchange (FTE) was housed in a sandbagged bunker with a canvas roof. There was a set of steps cut in the bank leading to the entrance. Inside was a table with logbook, the Exchange with its multitude of jack plugs and leads, a bed and the duty operator’s kit and rifle.

Our Signal Troop was attached to the 14th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery and, though we had our own officers and routine, the RA regarded us as rather inferior hangers-on, especially by their Sergeant Major – a fiery Scot. He never missed an opportunity to find fault with us.

He used to refer to our 6-man luxury ‘basha’ (sand-bag and canvas home) as the Glass Mountain on account of the heaps of empty beer bottles surrounding it! One morning, while mounting the steps to the FTE, he slipped on the ice and landed on his backside and dented his dignity. His already short temper was not improved when he saw that his downfall had been witnessed by half the Signals Troop.

And get your blank blank hair cut!
For the next few minutes the air was blue and we all learned several hitherto unheard of expletives. The Telephone Operator (Tele Op) was told in no uncertain terms and in a voice like a Farne Islands fog horn to “Get rid of this b…… ice and snow, cut some new b……. steps, tidy your b…… self up, man and get your b….. hair cut!!”

Somewhat upset by this uncalled for outburst the Tele Op decided he would start by melting the snow and ice by the simple expedient of pouring petrol right down the steps. When, after five minutes, the ice seemed as hard and solid as ever, he decided, in his wisdom, to set fire to the petrol and help things along a bit.

A good Daft Laddie idea
This was not a wise move, although it provided us with a glorious and spectacular display. With a tremendous WHOOSH! The orange flames roared up the steps like a lava flow in reverse. The fire melted the ice alright, and turned the steps into a mud slide. Unfortunately it continued on its merry way and burned down the entire FTE, lock stock and rifle barrel.

I should think the whole of the Commonwealth Forces in North Korea would hear what the RSM thought of the Tele Op’s brilliant solution. It certainly gave the rest of us a topic of conversation for weeks after. As far as I know, poor old Tele Op is still paying for the damage out of his 28/- (£1.50) per week Army pay.

Daft Laddie tales of North Tyne & Rede: The Tyne's oot

Northumberland, farming, humour, dialect, Daft Laddies, floods, camping , history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg






Picture shows the gate into the forest along from Dally Castle, on the way to Chirdon farm






Draining the peat for tree planting
After National Service I returned to work on a farm in the North Tyne and where I had my Daft Laddie wrestle with the bracken crusher.

In those pre-Kielder dam days the North Tyne River was prone to regular seasonal flooding. Forestry had taken over many thousands of acres of hill country which had, for generations, been grazed by sheep.

One of the first operations undertaken by the new industry prior to planting trees was the ploughing of hundreds of miles of drains. Parallel lines of deep channels, two feet deep and only a couple of yards apart scored the hillsides as far as the eye could see. Their function was to drain the peat moorland and provide a more secure footing for the millions of Sitka Spruce, Norway Spruce, Scots Pine and Japanese Larch which were to follow.

The drains were too successful
The drains proved to be very successful – too successful it would seem, because now when it rained, the water made its way within a few hours into the sykes and burns and thence to the main North Tyne river.

Picture shows a newly-cut drain in the peat soil. It was cut by a special single furrow plough (called the Cuthbertson plough) pulled by a powerful bulldozer tractor with a big winch on the back incase they got bogged. The drivers
were called 'the Circus', as they traveled around each forest in turn preparing for planting season
The trees were planted in a slit in the upturned furrow, cut with a spade. This prevented the roots of the young trees becoming waterlogged until they got established

This drain was photographed in the late 1950s immediately after cutting, and you can see that already the water is flowing from the wet peat, even before heavy rain.

This sudden influx of water meant that the river couldn’t cope and flooding of the flat haughs became a regular event, inundating not only crops but also endangering livestock. It also added great stress to local folk who lived near the river, and especially farmers who had to keep thor lugs cocked during the night for rain, to get up and move stock from the river haughs.

Flash floods
Many a cattle beast and sheep was washed to its death in these flash floods, which also took hay pikes and corn stooks off to foreign parts, never to be retrieved. One early morning , after very heavy rain had fallen during the night, I reached the farm road on my way to work to find that 'the Tyne was oot' and had already covered much of the haughs below me.

Tyne Bridge at Falstone

A marooned tent
It was just before Easter and I knew there were Scouts camping by the riverside. Sure enough, there was a tent perched forlornly on a slight rise, surrounded by the rising waters. I rushed up to the farm and started up the old Case tractor, yoked the flat trailer and hurried to the rescue. The water was almost 18 inches deep by now and getting deeper by the minute. When I reached the tent I found the four Scouts were still fast asleep inside, totally oblivious to the danger swirling round their tiny island.

Howay lads, git oot o' bed
I soon woke them to the reality of their situation and bundled them, their belongings, and their tent on to the trailer and started back for dry land. By now the water was up to the underside of the tractor’s engine and the trailer had actually begun to float in one or two deeper slacks.

Unfortunately for me, the Case had a fixed power take-off pulley wheel attached to the side of the engine – just on water level. By the time we reached dry land the spray sent up from the constantly revolving pulley wheel meant that I was wetter than any of the rescued Scouts. Thereafter the Scouts were dried out and fed in the farmhouse and sent home on the bus to Hexham later.

One big lake
Over the next two hours the river continued to rise so that, eventually, the whole of the flat land from the Riding Bank to Charlton and from the old railway embankment to Hesleyside hall was just one great lake of surging, brown water. Of the valley road which ran parallel to the river, only the top six inches of the fence posts on either side were visible.

The water receded almost as fast as it had risen but in the aftermath, we found fences flattened, our giant muck midden had disappeared down stream and that we had inherited all the turnips from our neighbour’s farm on the other side of the river. “ It’s an ill wind (or flood)”, as they say! I’m surprised they didn’t find out and arrive to collect them.

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: The King wants a hand

Northumberland, farming, humour, dialect, military service, morse code, Korea, history, 1950s

By Donald Cleggg

The King wants a Daft Laddie
For two years I was a guest of His Majesty King George VI, followed by Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and spent much of my National Service in Korea as a Wireless Operator in the Royal Corps of Signals – an “Operator Wireless and Line BII”, to be exact.

Dot Dot Dash
In this role I was required to read and send Morse Code at 18 words per minute where a ‘word’ in this context was a group of five characters. A BII operator must achieve 25 words per minute, or over two characters per second. Not that Morse code was used all that much – only for sending Secret or Restricted messages to HQ in Seoul or Tokyo. I was never expected to send messages back to friends and family to Rochester or Kielder!

We operators worked a 13 hour night shift, using old acid-battery operated radios called “19 sets”, chock-a-block with valves and covered in dials, knobs and switches – just like Captain Scarlet or Dan Dare would have had. We were housed, initially, in an army truck known affectionately, but obscurely, as a Gin Palace. Our Gin Palace was perched near the top of a hill above the main tented camp, on a broad ledge carved from the hillside.

Because we were on Active Service we had to be in constant readiness to move out in the event of a ‘push’ by the Chinese-backed forces. This readiness also applied to the vehicles, of course, and every morning the driver of the Gin Palace climbed the track to conduct his regular checks of oil, fuel, water and air pressures. The last wheel to be checked was always the spare which stood on its edge tucked into a narrow space between the truck’s cab and the body.

Kick her in the guts - Oops
Each morning the driver rolled the wheel out of its cubbyhole, bounced it on to the ground, then used his foot to kick it flat back to the floor. On this occasion the kick misfired and the wheel set off down the hill towards the camp, accelerating as it went according to the laws of physics.

We soon worked out that these things have both momentum and centrifugal force!

We all watched in fascination, then horror, as the heavy projectile hurtled onwards, heading for the Field Hospital, directly in its path. It seemed inevitable that the Hospital tent and its occupants would be flattened but, at the very last second, the wheel struck one of the metal stakes securing the tent’s guy ropes and sailed into the air, clearing the tent’s ridge by a mere twelve inches.

It then bounced mightily on the other side, jinked neatly to the right and disappeared into a deep gully by the roadside. Suddenly, everyone came back to life and rushed down to see where it had ended up. In fact, although it had miraculously avoided crashing into the Field Hospital, it had scored a direct hit on the campfire of a group of local Koreans who had been quietly cooking their breakfast and chatting amongst themselves.

Imagine their surprise when their “flied lice” was suddenly splattered across the countryside by a huge, black rotating missile! It took three men the rest of the morning to heave, haul and roll the recalcitrant wheel back to its cage on the Gin Palace and, in the end, it was found it didn’t need inflating after all.

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: Rocks & plough socks

Northumberland, farming, history, dialect, humour, machinery, ploughing, plough sock(shares), 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Rocks
Not all a Daft Laddie's knowledge was gained the hard way. Some came simply by asking questions of the boss, or the old hands on the farm.

I had been ploughing a field ready to sow corn, or maybe turnips, when the plough struck a rock. This was a very common event on farms in the North Tyne and Rede as most of the soils were of boulder clay which came with the compliments of the ice age from the Scottish Highlands, mixed with large round boulders. It would have been nice to send the back at times.

Rocks to wreck socks
The big boulders which had worked their way up to just below the surface were a real hazard to plough socks (shares). The socks were the removable, pointed bit of the plough which dug up the soil after it had been cut by the coulter, and before the mouldboard inverted it.

The two-furrow mounted plough designed by Harry Ferguson.

Note the round disk coulter to cut the soil, the sock or share to dig it up, and the long mouldboard to turn the cut furrow over.

Socks were a made of hard brittle metal and broke quite easily, and were expensive to replace, as the boss was forever reminding us. So if possible, nuisance stones were dug out and rolled or carted in whole or in bits to the edge of the field, out of harm’s way.

The share or sock on a Fergie plough. The disk coulter is on the right

Use the other end ‘o the heed man
This large stone proved to be a bit of a brute, as I discovered by digging a deep trench right round it. The boss then came to investigate the hold up and, deciding this boulder was too big to dig up, sent me to fetch the sledgehammer to see if we could smash a lump off the top. This particular sledgehammer weighed about ten pounds, with a three-foot hickory shank. The head had one square face and the other chisel shaped.

I was then given the job of trying to break enough off the top of the rock so that it would no longer present a risk to passing plough socks, while the boss looked on. I, in my wisdom, was using the chisel-shaped end, hoping to split a sizeable chunk away, when the boss intervened.

The sharp end and the blunt end

“Howt howt! Use the other end man!” he said. Knowing that, in the distant past he had once worked in a stone quarry and new that these sandstones or freestones (as opposed to the Northumbrian whinstone) had a “grain” or lines caused when they were formed in layers. I bowed to his superior expertise, but asked him why he thought the square end would be more successful than the chisel end? “Whey man, the square end’s heavier!” was his reply.
Obvious, isn’t it?

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: Savin' the boss money

Northumberland, farming, history, humour, Daft Laddie, machinery, dialect

By Donald Clegg


Set hor ganin & loup off
It’s well known that farms are among the most dangerous work places in any industry and that familiarity breeds contempt. The situation never was good on farms, and despite all the bureaucracy of today’s Health & Safety regulations, things are no better and probably worse, because there is more machinery today always waiting to deal to daft human complacency.

That fact nearly resulted in tragedy for me one day in the tettie field. The field had been neatly ridged up the day before and my job was to fill each of the drills with good old Farm Yard Manure (FYM), discussed endlessly (especially at the dinner table) with enormous reverence.

To save labour, it was standard practice in those far off days to set the tractor off in its lowest gear with its full load of muck, at the beginning of each pair of drills. Once the tractor had settled into following the drills, you jumped off, ran roond the back, leapt onto the trailer and started forking muck off the back (at the correct rate) as fast as you could to fill the drills as they appeared.

Nuw loup on again
As the tractor neared the end of the drills, you once again, leapt off the trailer and climbed back into the driving seat. On this occasion, at first all went according to plan, and the tettie drills were filled two-by-two at a nice steady rate. Ye had’nt got te put ower much oot remember as the boss wasn't maed o' muney!

It was raining that day and I was wearing a very old and tattered raincoat (the standard garb), tied in the customary fashion, with binder twine around the waist. As I louped off the tractor at the start of another pair of drills, my holey coat snagged over the knob on the hydraulic lever on the Fergie which raises or lowers the drawbar.

I was hooked!
I was hooked, and couldn’t free myself and was being dragged along sideways inches in front of the tractor wheel. In desperation, after what seemed a lifetime, I managed to rip yet another tear in the old coat and fell back on to the muddy ridges as the tractor and its load trundled on past me. I had to slip and slide twenty yards to catch up with the tractor and clambered aboard via the draw bar to bring it to a stop. Shouting, “Woah ye old bitch”, which would have stopped the horse in former times but didn’t work with Fergie.

I found my legs were shaking so much as I realised what a close shave I’d had, that I had to wait for ages before I could reverse the load to the edge of the field and get back to mucking drills. I still have visions, which I can now laugh about, of being squashed into a tettie drill while the tractor tried hour after hour to climb the stone dyke at the end of the field.

The Boss would probably have given my corpse a good swearin' for wrecking his tractor front end and the dyke at the end of the drills if I had not survived!

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: Bracken crushin

Northumberland, farming, history, dialect, daft laddies, farm machinery, bracken cutting, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Dead bracken, smothering the pasture by Kielder dam

Crushin' the bracken
On another farm, with several years’ experience behind me, I was required to spend some days bracken crushing. On hill farms, good grazing for the sheep was at a premium so any encroachment on to grassy areas by gorse, heather or bracken was tackled with enthusiasm.

Gorse and heather could be burnt, which effectively stopped their advance, at least for a year or two. Bracken on the other hand, with its creeping, under-ground stems, was a different kettle of fish. Cutting it just encouraged more underground growth. Burning, similarly, had no effect. And bracken was poisonous to cattle at the green, actively-growing stage if they ate too much. It didn't take much to kill them.

Heather and bent grass could be burned to keep it short and nutritious, but burning bracken did no good. Its roots (rhizomes) below ground were well proteced from fire

Choice of weapons
Various pieces of equipment came onto the market in the 1950’s, and the simplest (and probably cheapest) was acquired by my new boss. It was pulled behind a tractor rather like a gang mower used for cutting sports' fields – three mowers in line abreast followed by two more behind them.
In the case of the bracken crusher, the mowers were replaced by heavy, square- section rollers, the idea being that, as the rollers turned, the sharp cutting edges of each roller would bruise and chop into the bracken’s root system just below the surface.

Eventually, after repeated application of the crusher, the bracken fronds would weaken and finally give up the ghost, allowing grass once again to grow through and flourish. This was a Daft Laddie’s dream of a job – spending days sitting on a tractor, dein’ nowt but steering and gazing out over the rolling hills, thinking of the next Saturday night dance. Couldn’t be easier, I thought.

Var nigh couped!
All went well for the first two days apart, that is, from one occasion when I almost capsized the tractor by driving across the face of a too steep hillside and another when I got much too close to a dry stone dyke and took ages to extricate myself. About three o’clock on the third day I had dealt with most of the bigger patches of bracken on the hill and had come down to a burn side just to finish off.

There was a particularly lush patch of bracken on the far side of the burn so I slithered and slipped the tractor and its crusher down a short, steep bank, through the burn and on to the other side. Half an hour later the bracken had been crushed and chopped to my satisfaction and I recrossed the burn ready to return to the farm. Now, however, the short, steep bank I’d so gaily slid down earlier, proved too steep and slippery for my tractor.

Late for lowse

The problem lay in the drag from the heavy crushing rollers so, after a lot of heaving and straining, and the loss of a considerable amount of sweat, I concluded I had no option but to start dismantling the rollers, one by one, and manhandling them to the top of the bank.

As each roller must have weighed about ten stones (140lbs), by the time I got all five of them, one at a time, dragged over the burn, hauled inch by inch up the bank and rearranged and reassembled on the opposite shore, I was totally exhausted. I eventually reached the farmyard nearly two hours after lowse (finishing time). The boss, in passing, remarked on my dedication to duty – but I never did recount the facts or claim the overtime!

Bracken (Pteridium esculentum)

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: A load ‘o Hareshaw coal

Northumberland, farming, humour, dialect, Fergie tractor, Daft Laddies, history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Hareshaw Head Farm, farmed in the 1950s by Barty Armstrong who also owned the drift mine that was on the right side of the Bellingham to Otterburn road, just off the bottom of the picture. (D Clegg)

Wor oot o' coal - hadaway te Hareshaw pit
Then there was the time when the boss sent me with the Fergie and trailer to fetch a load of coal from Hareshaw pit, about three miles from the farm. The pit was an old drift mine at the very top of Hareshaw Moor, reached from Otterburn cross roads up two long and steep inclines known as the Lang Banks. About a ton of coal was duly shovelled into my trailer by the pit workers and I set off for the farm.

Trundling downhill for home at 15 miles an hour soon became boring, so I decided to hurry the job alang a bit and save the boss fuel, and therefore money (being ever conscious of his not bein made ‘o muney). So I knocked the ever-willing little Fergie out of gear.

The increase in speed was at first exhilarating, then exciting, then downright alarming. Shouting 'Woah' didn't work! When the trailer began to sway from side to side and the tractor felt like it was about to overturn at any moment, I stamped on the clutch and eventually, after several desperate attempts, crashed the engine back into gear.

For a few terrifying minutes (it may only have been seconds), I thought all the Fergie’s 45 horses were trying the get oot of the stable at once! The noise of the screaming, tortured engine was unbelievable. as tractor and trailer fought each other for supremacy. Thankfully, the tractor gradually slowed, the swaying ceased, and the equipage resumed its steady 15 miles an hour.

An instant medal for Harry
I personally awarded Harry Ferguson with the Order of the Garter, and owt else he fancied for his engineering genius! Needless to say, the remainder of the journey was sedate in the extreme and the boss never did get to know how close he had been to losing tractor, trailer, his load of Hareshaw best coal, and his Daft Laddie into the bargain!

Harry would have appreciated an honour from Don Clegg as he never got one from the Queen. He was an Irishman and should have been given The British Throne for his contribution to mankind!

Daft Laddie tales of North Tyne & Rede: Racin' the little racing grey Fergie

Northumberland, farming, humour, dialect, Daft Laddies, tractors, haytime, history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

The little grey Fergie that revolutionised farming around the world.
They didn't come with mobile phones in the 1950s!

An approved driver

Soon after starting on my first farm, in Redesdale, at the age of 17, I was eventually allowed to drive the little grey Fergie to lead hay pikes from the field up to the hayshed in the stack yard across the farmyard from the house. The farmer’s son, aged 14, was similarly employed, driving his uncle’s Allis Chalmers, borrowed for the occasion.
The hay field was some way down the farm track and, inevitably, he and I soon competed to see who could get to the pikes first and lead the most to the waiting farmer and his helpers, discussing the local scandals while filling their pipes to keep the midges at bay by late afternoon.

The Fergie was much faster than the Allis and easily swerved past it, dodged skilfully through between the stone gateposts of the hayfield, and reversed neatly up to the chosen pike. Alas! In the excitement I hadn’t realised that the bogey’s drawbar pin had jumped out, and the bogey was now parked neatly in the middle of the cornfield near the farmhouse.

With the farmer’s son’s triumphant laughter ringing in me lugs I retraced my tracks, collected the bogey and brought my pike up to the stackyard to face the accusing stares of the boss and his friends.

Me lugs chowed!
Thereafter I endured days of lectures about reckless behaviour, endangering life and limb and especially the valuable Fergie, and generally buggerin’ aboot insteed o' concentratin' on the job in hand.

And like at the end of every good sermon, he always ended with the blessing - “An remembor Aa’m not made o’ money ye knaa!”

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: Steep larnin curve

Northumberland, farming, Daft Laddies, humour, dialect, learning , history, 1950s
By Donald Clegg

A steep larnin curve
In the first few months of life on the farm, the Daft Laddie would be faced with a steep learning curve as he discovered that mud and muck were a major part of his daily routine, and that a gate left open, a bucket of milk spilt, or forgetting to bar the hens in at night (all by accident of course), would earn him an earful of colourful abuse from the boss, and a reminder of his lowly status.

This was described by the boss to neighbours as 'the bluddy Daft Laddie, that fool of a Daft Laddie, that goniel of a Daft Laddie, that bluddy Bellingham or Rochester Daft Laddie' - and these were the nice ones!

Gradually however, as the daily round of mucking o0t, beddin up, milking and fothering became a familiar routine, the Daft Laddie would perhaps be allowed to get involved in a variety of farm maintenance tasks without the boss breathing down his neck.

Fettlin fences, rebuilding dry staene dykes, rickling gaps that were ower far gone to repair fully, cleaning oot fell drains, redding oot the caert shed, pulling Runch, Redshank and man-high Fat Hen from among the turnips, (napping) breaking stones into the potholes and spurlin’s on the farm track, and other similar jobs that required little or no decision making, regularly came his way and he gradually began to feel a part of the regular cycle of farm work – a very small cog in a very large machine.

This newly acquired independence meant that the Daft Laddie had even more scope to dee dafter, and sometimes more dangerous, things. His confidence grew and he began to wear his Rogerson’s ‘heathor louper’ boots with more panash as I well remember doing myself. I can think of a number of incidents involving tractors that illustrate this particular point.

You always lived in hope that your improved status as a 'half-trusted Daft Laddie' may impress the Sarvant Lass on the next door farm - but it wasn't something you could place much money on. As sure as God made little apples, her boss would have been taakin to your boss ower the dyke when they were lookin the hill, and would have shared the news of your latest faux pas!

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: True Daft Laddies

Northumberland, farming, Daft Laddies, humour, learning

By Donald Clegg

True Daft Laddies
But the true “Daft Laddies” on farms were always the non-farmer’s sons because of the daft things they did, through ignorance or over-enthusiasm to please.

Farmers’ sons seemed to know instinctively what to do, and more importantly , what not to do in any circumstances, whereas the Daft Laddie had to weigh up the pros and cons of every situation before coming to a decision – usually the wrong one. He knew that his boss was always, (in modern parlance) ‘in search of excellence’ so in plain lingo, this meant if you made a stuffup, you’d get your lugs chowed for sure.

Handling stock was the high risk area for a lug-chowing, as inevitably the Daft Laddie always stood i' the rang bluddy place', so the sheep or bullocks bolted in the opposite direction - inevitably in a direct line for the boss!

Unfortunately, in the 1950s at least, any additional ‘book larnin’ was certainly regarded with great suspicion by all the ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ traditionalists in the hill farms of Northumberland and Durham.


They had always done things as their fathers had before them. There was nee need for change – what they had done had stood the test of time. “If it was good enough for 'me fathor' it’s good enough for me” was the mantra, usually trotted out against any new-fangled notions put forward by the newly recruited farm hand.

And of course the 1950s in the North Tyne and Rede valleys saw what to the old guard were mind-boggling innovations with the change from horse power to the tractor

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: 'Aam not maede o' money'

Northumberland, farming, daft laddies, humour, history, dialect , 1950s

By Donald Clegg & Clive Dalton

Farming for profit or for lifestyle?

Waste o’ gud munney
Many farmers’ sons had never been off the farm, as their fathors thowt “it was a waste o’ gud munney to gan away to larn book farmin’ at some college or university”, and even allowing them away to work for someone else was not popular, unless there was more than one son or daughter at home. The idea of a son taking off on a world farm working holiday in those old days would have had the ‘old man’ eating his mart cap!

And in any case it was argued that the lads couldn’t be released off the farm from October till June, as “thor was elwes work to dee at haem” over this winter, spring and early summer period. There was a slight possibility to get away for a few days between the end of the hay (if it had been a decent summer) and the start of harvest – but such years were as scarce as hens’ teeth.

The ‘old man’ could feed enough guilt into the son’s heed to make him decide not te want te gan away – and so bear a grudge for the rest of his days. As the ‘old man’ aged, then there was even less incentive to leave the farm. And there was always the risk of scandal in the valley from “Eeh, what’ll folk say?”

Aye but divn't be late heme
“Gannin’ to a Young farmers, Club meetin’ was aalright – as lang as they wor haem in good time to bar the hens in as thor was elways a fox aboot or a cuw ready to calve”. This also reduced the risk, in the old fathor’s mind, of the son starting to take an interest in any female Young Farmers, ‘cos this could lead to taking time off the farm – and what was worse, mebbee asking for a lend of the new car that the old man had just agreed to buy under massive family pressure. It was worse than being persuaded to get the phone in – and that was bad enough!

The Landlord & Tenant Act
Then there was the complication of the Farm Tenancy Agreement with the landlord as, once it was given up, there was little likelihood of it being regained. Under the ‘Landlord and Tenant Act’, tenants gained a lot more protection from being thrown off the farm by the landlord unless he could prove ‘bad farming’ in court, which was never easy.

A tenancy change and consequent re-letting of the farm was a great opportunity for the landlord to really hike up the rent to a new level which, under the Act, was very difficult with a sitting tenant. When a farm did come up for let, there was always a long list of keen young folk willing to take on this new financial challenge – even though it was widely known that the previous tenants had clearly failed to make a living. The drive to have a farm and land has always been an unexplained urge in homo sapiens, even if they were just custodians of it for a short while.

Three generations
So, if the father had been the first tenant, the pressure was always on the son to keep it going and then this onus went to the grandson, as three generations (of males) were allowed under the Act.

So, giving up the tenancy and leaving farming got harder as the years and generations went on. Being the third generation of Armstrongs, Ridleys, Dodds, Robsons, et al to farm Mowdy Haugh was seen as something of a status symbol when, financially, it was a massive millstone round the neck of the current tenant as economic conditions got worse

A house off the farm
Another problem of tenant farming was that the hill farm tenants of North Tyne and Rede could rarely make enough money to invest off the farm in the form of a house to move in to when their farming days ended. So they were reliant on the benevolence of the landlord to provide a tied cottage on the estate for them until they passed on. The older generation of landlords made this provision for their loyal tenants but it would be unwise to expect that this situation would remain in common practice in future, the way agriculture is moving.

There’s some good Kiwi wisdom that says - “The worst form of child abuse is to leave your son the farm”!

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: 'Startin larnin farmin'

Northumberland, farming, daft laddies, history, humour, dialect, history, 1950s

By Donald Clegg

Startin larnin
Young lads who had ambitions to join the ranks of the agricultural workers could be roughly divided into two groups: farmers’ sons who had grown up on the farm and already had vast experience of farm work, and those with no previous connection or experience of farm work other, perhaps, than ‘helping’ in the hayfield or cornfield by learning what to do.

Some of us as school kids went to the hayfield to “help” as we knew there would always be a spare scone when the supper arrived if you did a bit of hand raking, always appeared willing, didn't 'set up yor gob' (be cheeky) – and didn’t break any rake teeth or 'prog' (stick) anyone with the hay fork!

Some of these prospective farmers, of course, went through an agricultural college course before embarking on the muddy path to farming, riding on the bogey or ushering sheep or cattle to or from the mart from early childhood, and long before “Health & Safety” regulations were thought of.

We were called 'Daft Laddies', as we were not endowed with great farming wisdom at that stage in our careers - if we made a career out of farming.

Daft Laddie tales from North Tyne & Rede: 'Beestins puddin'

Beestin's puddin

By Clive Dalton

The hoose cuw
Before the days of supermarkets, fridges, powdered and tinned milk, every ootbye farm up the North Tyne and Rede had a ‘hoose cuw’, as well as a heifer timed to calve when the main cow was dried off. Shepherds and hinds were allowed to keep a cow as part of their job, and it got free grass and the pleasure of the farm Galloway bull free of charge too.

‘Milkin the cuw’ was part of the twice-daily routine – generally by the women folk, who were very proficient – and the cows appreciated that. The job could also be the Hind’s job or the Daft Laddie after his milking skills had been learned and approved.

After the ‘tit pullin’ the milk warm milk was taken to ‘the dairy’, which was usually an area in the big cool darkened pantry. The flagstone floor, big thick bench of stone, slate or concrete, and small louvered window, kept the temperature cool in summer.

The milk was left to stand in large shallow enamel dishes for the cream to rise to the top, before being skimmed off and accumulated over a few days until there was enough to be worth making butter. Ancient milk setting bowls were made of wood.

Wooden dairy bowls from the 1600s

If butter making became a serious business, then it was worth buying a mechanical separator

Churning to make butter which could be timed with the weekly walk or trap ride to the local village where regular orders were delivered or aimed at the local market day. Cheese was also made but in much less quantity.

An old North Tyne barrel churn, no doubt with many memories!

The new-calved cuw
Everyone looked forward to the cuw calvin – for a number of reasons. First, there’d be fresh milk again in abundance, and all that went with it. Then there’d be a calf to rear and add to the yearly income. Then there was the colostrum or first milk of the cow after calving, that nature has designed to be rich in protein, energy and antibodies, which protected the calf from any diseases in the environment.

You would have thought that Mother Nature would have designed mammals so that the foetus was loaded with antibodies from the dam through the bloodstream during pregnancy, rather than risk the hazardous business of getting them into the calf at the first suckle after birth. The calf’s gut is only permeable to these large antibody molecules for the first 6-12 hours after birth, so if the calf misses out on colostrum, chances of survival and good health later are greatly reduced. Nature works in wonderous ways!

The beestings
But a special feature of the milk from the newly-calved cow was ‘the beestings’. ‘Beestings’ is a word common in Scotland and parts of England with some modification for example to “beestlings” in the Yorkshire dales.

Beestings (colostrum) is more like thick cream than milk, and is a rich golden yellow, and is thickest in the first couple of days (four milkings) after which it gets thinner. In some cases this colostrum is more like glue, and regularly had streaks of blood in it from the oedema of the rapidly expanding udder tissue!

But the thought of making colostrum into anything for the table is unimaginable to many modern folk and the word “beestings” doesn’t help.

Colostrum rediscovered!
To New Zealanders, colostrum is definitely not for eating - it’s for feeding calves or pigs. The very thought of eating it is too much to contemplate. But things have changed recently with the recognition of colostrum as a ‘Neutraceutical’ (health food) for which there is a new and expanding export market. It’s most popular with body builders, so if such folk reckon it has something, then that will be good for what used to be considered stock feed. It’s certainly expensive enough when packaged and aimed at this market, developed mainly in Asia and Japan.

Over recent years, New Zealand Dairy Companies have paid farmers a premium for colostrum in spring, instead of penalising any who dared to sneak it in the vat before four days (8 milkings/cow and 10/heifer) after calving. In the past dairy factories making milk powder hated colostrum, as it clogged up the driers when heated and had to be chipped off the drier plates.

Beestings pudding
In the old days, after the calf had had its first feed, the mass of surplus beestings were made into ‘beestins puddin’, which was very much like a junket or very light custard. You certainly didn’t have to chow it – you could just "suck it doon”. There were plenty of different recipes which were passed on over time, and the ones below were taken from and old recipe book published by the UK Farmer’s Weekly in 1946 (the weekly is now part of the internet, with blogs an all!). Notice the instructions about which day’s milk was best to use, after the cow calved.

Beestings – a note from Mrs H.M.Watkins, Wrexham
We do not use the very first milking, as it is so deep in colour. I always test it by putting a little on a saucer in the oven. If it sets too thick, I put a pint of milk to 3 pints of beestings (or in proportion, according to the way it sets), sprinkling a little pudding spice on top, and add a little sugar. Let is simmer in the oven but not boil, just as if you were making an egg custard. I make tarts with it just as one would make egg custard tarts.

Fruit beestings – from Mrs E.J. Cotty, Devonshire
Take the beetings at third milking of the cow and set in a pan. After 6-12 hours, skim off about 2 pints of the rich head of the milk. Take a good sized pie dish, grease well. Mix 1oz cornflour, with a little milk in a basin until smooth.
Put the remainder of the milk into a pie dish. Add 1oz of sugar (brown if possible), 2 oz sultanas or currants (prunes, chopped would do). Then stir in the cornflour and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown and set.
When served, the fruit will be in a layer on the bottom.

Beestings cheese – from Mrs McLennan or Argyllshire
Fill a pudding dish with milk from the second milking; stir in 2 tablespoons of syrup and mix well. Spread on top the cream from the first milking, put into a moderate oven and bake until firm to touch and golden brown.
This cheese cuts into smooth, creamy slices and is short and free in texture.

Beestings curd – from Mrs Duckles, Yorkshire
2 pints new milk
1 breakfast cup water
1 breakfast cup beestings
Heated quickly on a bright fire, makes about one and a half pounds of delicious curd.
One teacup of beestings is equal to 2 eggs in Yorkshire pudding. And do they rise!

Beestings custard – from Mrs Burkett, Cumberland
Take 1 pint of beestings milk; 2 tablespoons of sugar; pinch of salt. Add salt and sugar to milk in pie dish. Stir well. Cook in moderate oven until set.
The result is a delicious custard-like pudding; but much depends on the correct heat.

Beesting puddings – from Mrs Duckles, Yorkshire
Take a dozen small puddings, allow 3 tablespoons batter to each tin (cake tin size). Tins should be warm, bottoms just covered with melted fat. I use:
2 breakfast cups flour
1 breakfast cup beestings
2 tablespoons water
1 level tablespoon salt
Half a pint of milk

Mix the flour and salt; pour in the beestings and water. Beat out lumps, thin down with milk (separated or milk and water) to creamy mixture. Bake in a hot oven for 20 –30 minutes. As with Yorkshire puddings, do not open the oven door till they should be ready – it only wastes heat and makes the puddings go flop.
In case you should be tempted to use more beestings – Don’t! You will get better results with less if it’s the first time you have tried them.

Beestings tarts – from Mrs Johnson, Yorkshire
Add 2 parts beestings to 1 part water and stir over a fire or stove till it thickens. Don’t let it boil. To this add 3 eggs, half a pound of sugar, a little nutmeg, currants (sultanas will do), a little marmalade instead of peel. Add if possible a small quantity of rum.
Line tins or saucers with paste and put a good filling of the mixture and you’ll find this delicious.

Beestings “new cheese” – from Miss Christian Milne, Aberdeenshire
I wonder how many country women make that old fashioned farmhouse dainty “new cheese”?
For this you fill a pudding dish with milk from the second milking of a newly calved cow. Heat 2 tablespoons of syrup and add, stirring until thoroughly blended. Remove cream carefully from first milking and use the “top” cheese.
Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown and firm to touch. (An oven suitable for a baked custard is just right). New cheese make thus, cuts into smooth, creamy slices, and is short and free in texture. Served with cream, it is a delicious change from the usual milk pudding.
Note – a too intense oven ruins the texture of new cheese, making it tough and leathery instead of tender.

Acknowledgements
To the ladies who contributed these recipes (where every they may be now), and to Margaret Dagg, Hott farm, Tarset, Northumberland who was wise enough to keep her old recipe book, and kind enough to send me the recipes.

Request
If you have any more beestings recipes, I'd love to have them for the blog.

Daft Laddies - North Tyne Milking Farms

Daft Laddies. Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on.

By Clive Dalton and Donald Clegg

An extract from the book - Daft Laddies. Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on (2003) By Clive Dalton & Donald Clegg. If you would like a copy, contact donaldclegg@btopenworld.com

The call for milk
The North Tyne’s heather and bent land was sheep country, but in the 1940s and 1950s there were many farms that responded to the war and post-war cry for more food, especially milk, to feed a hungry nation.

Farms below Humshugh always milked cows where there was plenty gud grund to grow fothor (hay/straw) and roots (turnips/mangel) for the winter. But in those far off days, dairy cows were milked right up the valley from Kielder doon to Redesmouth. The table below is based on memory and a guestimate or two, so your verifications would be welcomed.

Hand milking
Electricity hadn’t reached the top end of the valley at this time so hand milking was the order of the day for farms above Bellingham. It was a great job on a cowld winter mornin’ snugglin’ up tiv an aad cuw with your peaked cap on backwards, provided she was a nice easy milker and she wasn’t yooky with lice. The area up atween the cuw’s bag and her back leg was a grand place to revive your frozen fingers before you started milking. But neebody gat upset when milking machines arrived - except the cuws for a day or two.

The milking machine
 All farms had a 'Simplex' model milking bucket plant machine.  After assembly, you carried the unit with the tubes and pulsator on the lid, in between each cow and milked each in turn.  When the can was full, you emptied it into a separate bucket to take to the cooler where the milk trickled down over a corrugated plate with cold water going through inside.  Then the milk flowed into the big churn to go off to the milk stand and be picked up by truck to go to the factory.  Other farms would take the churns to the station to go to the factory at Stocksfield.

Simplex milking machine bucket unit

 
Where did the milk go?
Well it was first siled (filtered), and then tipped into a small holding tank and run over a plate cooler. The cold water circulated inside the cooler as the milk flowed over the outside into a 10-gallon can. When full to the mark, the can had its lid brayed on and a label attached.

In the early days you had to take the cans to the nearest railway station by whatever means you had, horse and cart, Fergie tractor and milk box, motor bogie or barrow. But then road wagons collected it from milk stands at farm gates on the road side. Journey’s end for the milk was the Co-op Dairy in Stocksfield.

The cleaned and sterilised empty cans then came back and were collected when you delivered the full ones. There was a communal milk stand in Bellingham beside the Demesne farm for the Demesne, Foundry farm, Reenes and the Boat farm. It was a great spot to catch up with local scandal, and get your leg pulled about where yi’d been seen on Saturday night, and whee yi’d been seen wi! It made you review and improve your evasion plans for the following weekend!

Pickering the Hexham vet
Dairy farming resulted in a lot more work for the Hexham veterinarians (the Pickerings) who serviced the valley. Compared to beef cows, there were many more cases of “ewor clap” (mastitis), “splet tits” to stitch up when a cow stood on it’s bed mate’s delicate udder.

There was also milk fever and staggers when the cuw went doon and refused to get up. It was often assumed that a cow that couldn’t or wouldn’t get up was just being an akward lazy owld bitch! So an ancient trick to get her up was to take the cat by the tail and pull it back along the cow’s back so it stuck its claws in. That did nowt for the cow or the cat! The cure was a bottle of calcium or magnesium and not milking her for a day or so. And even blowing air into her udder with a bicycle pump was used to stop milk secretion.

A hingin cleanin was the worst problem. This retained afterbirth was dealth with by the poor vet having to strip off to his bare torso (often in a freezing byre) before feelin inside the cuw and fishin oot the stinking afterbirth. Sadly for us Daft Laddies there wor need women vets in them days.


Which breed?
There were constant arguments as to which was the best breed. The well-respected Shorthorn that evolved in County Durham was the obvious choice. There were dairy types of Shorthorn and places like the Cumberland where their county Farm Institute at Newton Rigg had bred noted strains, as well as breeders in the Allendale district.

The Shorthorn was classed as a “dual-purpose” breed as it provided both milk and beef which in the end was the main reason for its demise. Dual-purpose was seen by many as “nee porpose”. The heifers could throw to beef and the steers or bullocks were ower dairy type and wouldn’t fatten. Trying to keep the right balance got too complicated so it was easier to swallow your pride and change breeds to a real dairy type.

The Dutch Friesians were seen as muckle greet hungry brutes that milked weell but wud eat an eye o’ hay afore-noon, and fill fower barras o’ skitta eftor-noon. And another complaint was that theor tits wor like Porcy Bolam’s prize parsnips - far ower big and easy to get squeshed. Daft Laddies liked them for hand milking as you could get two hands on the one tit! These were not good when milking machines arrived.

Fettlin the owld byres
The dairy regulations required a lot of money to be spent on renovating the old byres and making a milk room for the cooler and sink to wash the dairy utensils and the milking machine. Many byres had to be gutted and concrete laid to replace the hardened muck floors. Many a North Tyne cuw-standin’ in a byre was just a railway sleeper to form the edge of the grip (muck channel), and accumulated solid dry muck for the cow to lie on. It was cheap and effective and a warm lie for a cuw, if perhaps not ower hygienic for the dairy regulations.

To comply with the law, the Milk Marketing Board’s Dairy Inspector (Miss Armstrong) had te cum from Hexham to approve the farm for a milk license, and for that you had to have cement rendered waalls up to a certain height, and there were specifications for the height of the back and front of the grip, and the faalls (slopes) on all the floors. And you had to have concrete divisions between cuws to replace the historic wooden stanchions, and much more.

At right of picture is the old 'dairy' at the Hott Farm which had to be built to keep Miss Armstrong happy! Don't think it would pass now.

Many a comment was made that with all this bureaucracy, the milk was nee cleanor than frae the owld byres sweethed in cobwebs! And of course every pint of milk had te gan in the can. You dare not sneak a bit of cream off the top of the can to put on your crowdy in winter, or strawberries in summer - at least not officially!

Changes in the valley
It brought about major changes in valley farming. More root crops (turnips, mangels and kale) had to be grown, and more cereals (oats and barley) for both grain and straw. The result was mare muck to spread back on the farm so more machinery had to be bought – and all this meant more work for farm staff. It was a time when more purchased artificial fertiliser (bag muck) had to be bought – which resulted in heavier hay crops that the old hands sartainly didn’t like in catchy weathor! The one big positive of those milking days was the farmers got a regular income which they had never had before.

It all ended about the early 1960s when farms went back to beef. The farmers and their families who worked long and hard in those dairy days should be proud of the contribution they and the valley made to Tyneside’s milk supply during the war and post-war years.

Monument needed
They deserve a monument in Bellingham, maybe where the old milk stand used to be at the Demesne. A silver milk can would be nice, surrounded by three or four figures filling their pipes or maybe taking a pinch of snuff from Dobbin’s shop, having a crack aboot we’s gittin away, we’s wife hes tean off wi’ the dip salesman from the Scotch side, and the middlin trade at the mart.

Daft Laddies - the Weightman’s hay rake

Daft Laddies. Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on.


By Clive Dalton and Donald Clegg



One thing guaranteed to lift the heart of anyone workin’ lowse or hired for the hay, was to knaa that the farm had some decent rakes and forks. This was because so much of haytime was handwork which could start with turning sweathes, kilin’, shekin’ oot, rekilin, rakin’ trails, pikin’, dressin’ doon pikes and stacks - and a whole lot more skills.

Even we Daft Laddies could appreciate what these experts and the resident hinds were on aboot. These connoisseurs of hand tools could rave on for hours about rakes and forks they'd met, while at the same time filling their pipes – a job ye’ll appreciate that could not be hurried.

These tales always started with the words - "Aye Aa mind the time Aa was hired at the So & So!” If this statement coincided with the baccy pooch cumin’ oot then you knew it was going to be a while before work resumed! That ‘threatnin’ shooer’ cumin doon the valley’ would just have to wait! We Daft Laddies didn’t mind this legitimate rest period, as it provided great material for our mimicking performances later.

While working as a daft laddie at the Demesne farm in Bellingham for many summers in the 1950s, I (CD) well remember a fork called "Tommy Hedley". It had been left by the Hedleys when the Beatties took the farm and it was revered, especially for forking corn. It had fine prongs, a smooth supple ash shank and was the Stradivarius of forks.

And oh man! One day helping at a threshin’ at the Reenes I broke the shank, forkin’ lowse oats and peas and trying to break some Daft Laddie record for stupidity! That horror still haunts me because the new shank from the Northern Farmers could never be the same! When I relate me sins to St Peter (or more likely Owld Nick), top of the list will be that "Aa brok Tommy Hedley"!

Rakes and forks
Rakes and forks were like fiddles in a way. Some played well, some canny and some were just plain numb. You could spend hours selecting a strite-grained shank but when you'd had it for a week or so, it was still not the Strad you'd been hoping for. You could get an owld fashioned waltz oot o' them, but they were hopeless for a hornpipe!

But hidden away up the North Tyne was a family that made the Strads of hayrakes! To find them you had to travel up to Lanehead on Norman's bus and knock on Weightman’s door. They were respected joiners and undertakers and used to make a tremendeous hay rake. The head, with 14 teeth nicely spaced and angled, was made of ash. The bow, a critical part for strength was also of ash. These bows were bent with steam and not cut so the long grain gave added strength.

The length of the ash teeth was critical to get a nice bite when pulled through the hayfield stubble, and the little chamfer on the end was an important touch to stop you getting catched in holes, mowdy hills and bull snoots. The angle they were set into the head was a very clever refinement too for efficient raking.

The long, 71-inch shank made of straight-grained pitch pine was a lovely feature, because in certain movements you delicately threw the rake forward to cover as much grund as possible before drawing it back. The shank was flattened and tapered to enter the head then squared off for the bow to go through, after which it was shaped not round but slightly oval. Now that was also a clever touch, as this was easier on the hands and gave a better grip, especially when racing to dodge that shooer cumin’ doon the valley.

But the overall pleasure of a Weightman's rake was its "balance" - a thing hard to describe but lovely to experience. A bit like a good dance partner for a polka! The rake was an instrument for the real craftsman who could make it sing and was the combination of lightness and strength that was the key, because a hand rake got a lot of use and abuse.

One minute you may be drawing in hay over rough ground rakin’ trails, and the next minute dressin’ doon the sides of a pike with great meaty whelts. Then you could even be rakin’ back heavy wet grass from in front of the cutter bar when mowing a laid crop, but it was best to use a very old rake for this as many a Daft Laddie managed by ower zealous rakin te git the mower to cut some teeth off! This practice was aaful hard on rakes.

On farms where grass was cut by a single-horse reaper with a three-foot cutter bar, the hay was often turned by hand rake before they had a horse drawn turner. It was here that you really appreciated a quality rake with good balance as you made rapid strokes, lifting the thick end of the sweeth over towards you while walking quickly forward in unison with others in the gang. It was a great job until your hands got covered in blushes!

We Daft Laddies used to spend time on wet days tryin’ te fettle broken rakes. It was always a botch of a job as you could never get them back owt near their pristine state. Milly Dagg of Stannersburn and Lawrence Dagg of the Hott remember the cost of a rake would be around twenty five shillings. If ye hev one lyin’ aboot, then contact the Bellingham Heritage Centre - urgently. They'll tek yor hand off and gie ye twenty five bob!

Daft Laddies - Corn Stacks

Daft Laddies. Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on.

By Clive Dalton and Donald Clegg

An extract from the book - Daft Laddies. Farming Tales of North Tyne and Rede 50 years on (2003) By Clive Dalton and Donald Clegg. If you would like a copy, contact donaldclegg@btopenworld.com

Corn stacks at Moat Hill farm, Wark, North Tyne in the 1950s

Tidy little roond corn stacks
When the boss declared that the corn was riddy te lead heme, it was a signal for the hind and the daft laddie to git away and sort the stackyard. The sheaves of corn would soon be coming in to be stacked and there was more air of excitement aboot. It was another opportunity for the hind to show his skill, and any hind worth his crowdy secretly saw this as a highlight of his year.

It was also a time for the Daft Laddie to larn, and we remember being all eyes and lugs in the expectancy that one day we could maybe clim doon the lang lethor from the top of a completed masterpiece that we had built. Sadly, we were beaten by mechanisation in the form of the combine harvester.

The size and shape of the stack was determined by the grain, how fit it was, and tradition. There was also the point about the stacks being seen from the bus or the train, remember! Your stacks made a public statement about your standards and skills. Very dry barley would go into suw (sow) stacks about 5 yards long which were the shape of the an Ethel Bell's white loaf. Oats that had been cut on the green side to make good fother, and maybe wor not ower dry, would gan inti tidy little roond stacks about 3 yards diameter that really challenged the stacker's art. Here's an attempt to describe it.

The bottom
The stackyard sometimes had permanent stack bottoms made of flat staenes raised about 10 inches high, or on some farms they had permanent staene trrestles like a round table about 18 inches off the ground. But to start on the flat ground you made a 3-yard diameter circle of old fence posts like spokes in a wheel, or laid maybe 3 rows of draining tiles on the grund (that rats loved). This was for ventilation and to stop the damp creeping into the stack and causing mould. On top about a foot depth of bedding was laid.

On top of the beddin’ you made a stook with about 6-8 sheaves and wapped some twine arroond them te stop them collapsin. This started to raise the middle of the stack for when you started to build. Now if there was one rule that all the hinds and Daft Laddies will aye remember - it was to"aalwes keep your middle fuu!" The reason was simple. Like the hay stack, if the middle was full, then every sheaf you laid would have the straw sloping to the outside so any wattor that gat in wad rrun strite oot.

The sheaf
Now the key to stacking was to recognise and use the shape of each individual sheaf. The bottom or butt end of the sheaf was beaten at an angle by the binder (Fig 1) to make stooking easier in the field.

So when you laid it to form the flat outside wall of the stack, the sheaf had to be laid at an angle (Fig 2).





The forst roond
For the forst roond, you made a complete circuit of the stack on the outside and then came back around again with an inner layer in the opposite direction to tie in the outside sheaves(Fig 3). A ventilation hole was sometimes made up the middle of the stack by filling a poke with hay and then pulling this up the middle as the stack grew. Sheaves were laid around this hole (Fig 4), which added a fair bit of extra challenge. And remember the mantra - "Aye keep the middle fuu!”

Keep ganin’ rroond
Once the middle was sorteed oot, then start again on the outside layers as before, changing direction every round or every second one. You can see what a tightly bound work of art developed on the inside, while the outside looked quite plain. Any lang straas or butt ends that stuck oot were beaten in with a battor - a small flat board on a long handle (Fig 5).


Layin’ the sheaves
The stacker worked on his knees and wore proper knee pads, or sacks tied aroond the knees. Leather straps (Nicky Tams) tied below the knees were a help to keep your breeks lowse so they wouldn't drag doon and wear. The straa was gae hard on breeks because the sheaves were not just flapped doon - they were grasped, squeezed and rolled and pressed into place with your hands, then your knees. All this added to the binding of the whole structure. The person forking or pitching the sheaves to the stacker had a responsible job too, as the stacker expected the sheaf to land right at his hand just ready to pick up. You got a gollarin or two if it landed the wrang way, or you twisted some of the straws in the sheaf – or knocked his cap off.

If you were pitching sheaves, the target was always changing as the load you stood on got lower, the stack grew taller, and the stacker kept moving around the stack. On really big stacks there was a person called the stack heedor (header) who did the final pitching to the stacker. The pitcher on the load pitched to the header. Some of the women folk were experts at pitching sheaves and loved the job. They were good for a bit of fun anaal, while waiting for the next load if ye didn't mind gittin’ yor lug cracked occasionally.

Layin’ oot
This was the process of making the base or leg of the stack quietly grow so that when the rain ran off the pitched roof, the wattor wouldn’t run doon the side of the stack. If the vicar wasn't aboot you would explain this as “stoppin’ the stack pittlin’ horsel."

Layin’ oot was a kittle business as if the stack grew ower fast, then you may have the humiliation of gittin’ some props in afore she couped or went flat like a failed Yorkshire puddin’. (Fig 6). Funny thing was that stacks, like ships, were always referred to as “her”!

If you had to use props, then it was important not to put them in ower tight because when the stack settled you would never get them oot again. That was a real humiliation as these props lasted right through to the threshin’ when they would sartinly be noticed. So the first thing a hind did when he got to work the next day was te gan away and ease the props if they had been needed, and git them oot as soon as possible.

Layin’ the easin’
The "easin’" was the start of the roof and a layer of sheaves was laid to protrude slightly over the edge of the leg to shed the rain. The easin’ was laid when the leg was about 10-12 feet high and was done by laying sheaves on edge with the "lang ends doon" (Fig 7). At this stage, if there was a hole up the middle, it could be covered over with sheaves.

The top
Next came the tricky job of building the top or roof of the stack, remembering that the whole row of stacks had to be identical when viewed from all angles. Also remember the critics in the bus and the train, and the hind’s reputation! The top could be the same height as the leg, but stacks with tops taller than the leg always looked more dramatic and reflected your advanced skill. But mair roof meant mair theak and maire ropes remember – aall costing time and muney!

Layin’ in
The angled shape of the sheaf butt was also used to make the slope of the roof (Fig 8). This was “layin’ in” which was the opposite process to “layin’ oot”. However, the slope could be modified by giving the bottom of each sheaf a dadd before you laid it to alter the angle if it didn't suit you. The main point was that the sheaf was laid on its back and the same procedure followed to bind them all in as in the leg - ganin aroond in different directions and keepin the middle fuu.




Toppin’ out
Toppin’ oot could be a kittle business anall as there wasn't much room to work. A good dry stack had a fair bit of boonce which added to the fun. The easiest way was to top-oot with a forkfu’ or two of straw or bedding, to get a good round top to shed the rain like in a hay stack. You stood on the top until all was finished and shooted for the lang lethor. The top of hay was dressed with a rake to help shed wattor and tied on with some short ropes until the stack was covered.

Coverin’ or theakin’ (thatching)
If corn stacks had to stand a fair time before threshing, then they had to be properly covered or thaeked to keep out the winter weather. Covering was left to the end of harvest before the bad weather set in, and the key was to get some nice strraa or mebbe you would hev te gan away and cut sum reshees. The reshees were usually found on some wet bit of land or on the fell. They had to be good and long and without ower much grass in the bottom. That made them hard to cut with the scythe and meant mair work to clean them off.

The best reshees were those growing in deepish water, although cutting them meant wading aboot up to or ower yor wellie tops. Once a good area had been cut, the reshees were gathered up into sheaves, just like corn, except each handfull as it was picked up was whacked against your leg to get rid of the grass and short straws before layin’ it down on to the sheaf-to-be.

Next, two more handfulls were whacked then their tops knotted together to make a band which was wrapped round the sheaf, the ends twisted together and tucked under. All the sheaves were then carted back to the stackyard to be stored until needed.

It was great if some of the first stacks were threshed straight away to give some fresh bottles of straw to use as thatch for those threshed later. Straa was a lot nicer to use than reshees as it was very slippy when newly cut. It was best to leave straw bottles until the shine got off them. If the stacks needed protection for only a short period, and you didn't want all the work of covering them, then you could use a technique of letting some sheaves stick out in each layer so they hung down like thatch (Fig 9). It looked a bit of a rough job and wasn't popular with the experts.
Maekin’ the stingin’s or stobs
A “stinging” was a lump of covering or thatch that you pushed or "stobbed" into the butt ends of the sheaves in the roof. The thatch wasn't just laid on - it was actually pushed into the butt end of the laid sheaves so that the wind wouldn’t blaa it off.

To make a stingin’ you got a bottle of straa and pulled straa oot of it at both the ends with both hands. Literally drawing straws. You then put these together and maybe drew some more until you had a nice fat handful. You did the same with reshees.

Then you wrapped one end into a sort of knot and there you were, (Fig 10). You pushed this knot into the stack and let the lang ends hing doon. You had a short hazel stick to dress off any lowse strraas as you worked around the roof. The stingin’s were like tiles on a roof (Fig 11). When you got to the top, your artistic flare could then run rampant by tying the straw into a knob or a cock pheasant or owt you dare risk to impress your critics.

Roping
This was a delicate job and started with a girth or belly rope (Fig 12). All the other ropes were tied to this anchor. The ropes around the roof were called sweape ropes and started at one point and swept around the stack (Fig 13). When a series of these had been tied, the effect was that of a net (Fig 14).
When ready-made nets became available, then people opted for these as it saved hours of time as you just hoyed the net ower and hung a few horse shoes around the bottom until you got time to tie it down properly. Some of the old school considered nets to be almost cheating.

The final dressin’
The final dressin’ was where the real expert could win the day with some artistry. It was an art akin to dressin’ tups! Any lowse ends on the leg were again treated with the battor and then trimmed off with an old pair of sheep shears. Now the master stackers were not content with that. They got an old scythe blade and literally shaved the leg of the stack. The edge of the thatch around the easing was critical. If that was not level you really got your lugs chowed.

So now, all that there was te dee was te gethor up aa' the slaistor, ease the props and stand back and bask in a bit of self admiration. The highest accolade you would expect to hear was "Aye, gay tidy Jock, gay tidy."

Oh, there was one other thing. It was to hope that at that moment of the hind's glory or very soon after that the vicar, the bank manager, Bella big-gob from The Nettles and Hamish the hind from Mowdysike would just happen to be gannin’ past in the bus!

It always seemed sic a waste though, that these works of art, in only a few months, would aall be pulled te bits and swalleyd doon the drum o' Billy Irvine's thresher!