A Time to Reap (2) – How to make a haystack

See previous post on my current serial in The People’s Friend, A Time to Reap, set in a Highland farming community in 1963. In Instalment 3, on sale 20 July, Peggy is preparing for visitors from California while her farmer husband Alec and their boys are making haystacks. 

My lack of farming knowledge is lamentable considering I was brought up on a farm. I wanted to visualise what my characters were doing so I asked my cousin David Allison, who used to farm with his father in the Highlands in the 60s, How do you make a haystack? And I liked his answer so much I wanted to share it with you. (He's the lad in the hat.)

‘Haymaking in the 1950s and early 60s was a rather long drawn-out affair, even if the weather was favourable.

The first job about the end of June or early July was mowing the grass into 5-foot long bouts (rows) and depending on the weather the cut grass was left for a few days to wilt. About 4-5 days later the bouts were mechanically turned over. If it was a warm day with a bit of wind, by the afternoon the turned grass could be gathered into rows – this was done by a hayrake (a curved pronged machine about 10’ wide) pulled by a tractor across four or five bouts. A lever on the rake was pulled and the gathered bouts were released – then the big job started of making the now single row of raked hay into heaps called ‘coles’ (local term).

This was done using a hand-held, double pronged, 8-foot pitch-fork. The coles were dome shapes of layered hay, about 4-6 feet high and a similar base. It was a bit of an art to layer the hay and another art to ‘dress’ the cole so that the outside stems of grass were vertical and tight to shed the inevitable rain. The coles were left to cure and after a few days would settle down to about 4 feet high. A buckrake (a 10-foot wide implement with a series of 5-foot long pointed tines) was fitted onto the back of the tractor’s hydraulic linkage. The buckrake was reversed under the cole which was then transported to a corner of the field to be made into ‘rucks’.

Rucks were built on the same principle as coles and up to eight coles were used to make a ruck – they would stand about 10-12’ high. A couple of ‘hemp’ ropes (tied to a brick, four to five feet off the ground) were placed over the ruck. Over time the ruck would settle down to about 8 feet high.

A few weeks later the rucks were made into round stacks. This was a major operation as stacks were about 16-20 feet high, with a 16-foot diameter base (the radius of the pitch-fork). The side of the stack went straight up for about 10 feet, then coned into a peak. If the hay in the coles and rucks were properly layered it made the stacker’s job a lot easier.

The layers of hay were forked to the stacker’s assistant, whose job it was to place the fork-full of layered hay neatly in front of the stacker who equally and neatly locked each layer. There were usually three circles or rounds of layered hay, each going further out from the centre of the stack and each circle layer locked upon the other. As the stack got higher the hay from the ruck was forked onto a trailer, then onto to the stack. The stacker used a ladder to place the last few forkfulls to make the cone peak. Then the cone and the side of the stack were dressed using a wooden pegged hand rake. Later the stack was netted and or roped down. Stacks could be left in the field until the following March or even April.

I’m amazed now at the continual mental calculations that the stacker would have had to make in order to end up with a symmetrical 20-foot structure without any sophisticated measuring device.

There was great rivalry in the farming districts between farm workers as to who made the neatest and symmetrical stacks. Many Sunday afternoons were spent walking to stackyards to pass judgement and of course great play was made of poorly shaped stacks – with the unfortunate stacker reminded of his efforts long after the stack was carted away.’

The second and third pictures are from the wonderful Scottish Life Archive 

© National Museums Scotland

A Time to Reap (1)

I wrote a post a couple of years ago called Recycling Words 2 in which I said I’d written a poem called Cousin Hugh which I turned into a short story (called Jack’s Lad, unpublished) but then thought I’d like to find out more about the characters and build something longer around them. Well, I did, and the result is my third People’s Friend serial A Time to Reap; it’s in eight instalments and begins in the issue dated 9 July 2016.

Aren't the illustrations great?

 

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed writing anything quite so much as this. It’s set in a Highland farming community in 1963. So, yippeee, one modern writerly problem was dispensed with right away – no need to worry about 21st-century methods of communication (about which I blogged here). And as I was brought up in such a community at that time there would be no requirement to do any research.

Or so I thought.

The main characters, including my heroine, farm manager Elizabeth Duncan, are of course grown-ups; I was nine in 1963 so I had to think from a different perspective. And just because you lived on a farm as a child doesn’t mean you know anything about how to be a farmer – especially if you were a child who spent most of her time indoors with her nose in a book.

Among the many questions I asked Google/long-suffering husband/farming relatives/fashion-expert friend/lawyer husband of (different) friend and a manual bought in a junk shop called The Farm as a Business: A Handbook of Standards and Statistics for use in Farm Management Advisory Work, published for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1957, were:

How bad was that snowy winter 1962/63?

How would you look after your sheep in those conditions?

What would you be planting/harvesting in the different seasons?

Good reasons for expanding a dairy herd?

How do you persuade an angry bull into a pen?

What style/colour of dress would suit tall, fair-haired Elizabeth to wear to the gillies’ ball?

How much did it cost to send a letter in 1963?

Did you have to get a provisional driving licence?

Adoption law in Scotland at the time?

Symptoms of mastoiditis?

The short story version of this was from the point of view of a teenager who was helping to build a haystack. I realised I had no idea how to do that, although I had sense enough to think that there must be more to it than just piling up hay.

I asked a cousin, who farmed in those days, for advice, and he wrote me a lovely piece on the intricate art of haystack building. However, in the serial I didn’t have the young lad’s viewpoint so there was no way to sneak in a lesson on this dying art.

So with cousin Dave’s kind permission I shall be reproducing his instructions in a future post, the first of two guest posts to do with mid-20th-century farming.

Four in June

I only read four books in June.

The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan

Christian Aid Book Sale 2016 purchase. A pretty cover, and a baking competition as a setting – what’s not to like, I thought, when I picked this up. But, disappointingly, I found the characters to be more like pancakes than beautifully risen Victoria sponges and – a complaint I also had about a book I read last month – there were five or six different viewpoints but none predominated.

A Fine House in Trinity by Lesley Kelly

Read on Kindle. Gritty debut novel by Edinburgh poet and short-story-writer Lesley Kelly. Her protagonist is Joe Staines (‘Stainsie’) and his story is told in the first person – perhaps a rather bold writerly move but one that pays off in spades. Stainsie ducks and dives around Leith, avoiding the law and the bad guys (and the parish priest) and it all makes for a tense thriller – albeit one with a rather abrupt ending. I hope there will be a follow-up.

Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves

Christian Aid Book Sale 2016 purchase. A Vera Stanhope novel. Vera is a terrific character and Ann Cleeves' plots always keep you guessing and are ultimately satisfying. In this one, Vera herself finds the dead body of a woman in the steam room of a hotel’s health complex that she has, on her doctor’s advice, reluctantly joined.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Christian Aid Book Sale 2016 purchase. One of the best books I’ve read for ages. In 1995 Cheryl Strayed (she chose a new surname for herself after her divorce) was a very unhappy twenty-six-year-old. Her beloved mother had died a very painful death and her family – stepfather and siblings – had scattered; her marriage to a good man was failing due to her own infidelity and drug-taking. So she decided – as you do – to walk part of the Pacific Crest Trail, eleven hundred miles of the west coast of America, across deserts and up snowy mountains, and to do it alone.

Cheryl Strayed’s writing is stunning and the reader is right there with her as – a complete novice at long-distant hiking – she sets off with ‘the Monster’, a backpack she can hardly lift, wearing boots that ultimately cause most of her toenails to fall off. Aren’t books amazing? – I suffered along with her while at the same time being not too hot, not too cold, not carrying anything and having ten intact toenails; and rejoiced with her when, for example, after a couple of hungry days, she reached a campsite with food and friendly company. And I was there too as she recalled her early life in the backwoods of Minnesota and, later, her colourful life in Portland, Oregon.

Wild was recently made into a movie produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon. I missed seeing it at the cinema where it would have been best viewed – those wonderful landscapes, high above the treetops – but I’m in two minds as to whether or not I’ll get it when it’s out on DVD. The best films can be the ones spooling through your own head as you read.

Summertime Blues

I have two stories in People’s Friend publications this week – and I'm really delighted with the artwork they have given to each of them.

Telling Stories is in the weekly magazine (dated 25 June). A story about telling stories … my protagonist is Dorothy Mackintosh (‘Auntie Dot’ to her niece), a retired head mistress who gives literary tours of Edinburgh to small groups of tourists. For this particular group she has arranged a visit to a book festival – with unexpected consequences. I think she’s a character I might revisit.

Summertime Blues is in the Summer Special (No 125). This one is rather dear to my heart. I wrote a version of it years ago, long before I was Writing. It was around a thousand words then; now it’s three thousand. It was told from the first person point-of-view; then I did a third-person version; now it’s back in first. The setting and the era have always been the same though – an island off the west coast of Scotland in the summer of 1971.

It’s about feeling uncertain when you’re eighteen and are quite sure that you’ve failed your exams and that the boy you fancy doesn’t fancy you. I hope that all readers will empathise with these perennial problems and, for those of a certain age, that the story will conjure up happy memories of cheesecloth smock tops, purple flared jeans, Aqua Manda perfume, Maggie May and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Oh, and for readers of all vintages there’s also a ruined castle under the moonlight ...

Is any of it autobiographical? You might think so – I couldn’t possibly comment.

Five in May

I read five books in May.

A Petrol Scented Spring by Ajay Close

Read on Kindle for book group. Set around the movement for women’s suffrage in Scotland and the hard core of militant Scottish suffragettes prepared to fight for the vote with any weapon to hand, it’s mainly the story of Donella and her troubled marriage to a doctor who has been force-feeding suffragettes in prison. The descriptions of force-feeding are not for the squeamish … but this is brilliantly written with some great characters.

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy

If you have never read Elaine Dundy’s first and most famous book The Dud Avocado, then I would urge you to – it’s a treat. The heroine of The Old Man and Me is as quirkily individual as Sally Jay Gorce (‘hellbent on living’) in TDA, but while Sally Jay was an American girl in Paris in the 1950s, Betsy Lou Saegessor is in London in the swinging 60s. 

Her pursuit of the ‘old man’, the reclusive rich Englishman C D McKee (‘fat and ugly – but boy is he sexy’), has a very ulterior motive, stemming from her troubled childhood. Their relationship is sparky – great dialogue – and believable and Betsy Lou tells her first-person story in a most original style. ‘There isn’t a dull line in it,’ P G Wodehouse, no less, said in a review.

But how can C D McKee be an 'old man' when he's younger than I am ... ?? That's one perspective that means that for me the book hasn’t stood the test of time as well as the The Dud Avocado. Or  perhaps it's because C D has more health problems than you’d expect a man in his mid-fifties to have now (the book was first published in 1963; my copy is in the Virago Modern Classics series); or maybe it’s the swinging 60s thing that make it seem a period piece. But I’d still recommend it for the brilliance of Elaine Dundy’s writing and because as Jilly Cooper says of this edition it is ‘a gloriously funny novel … ’

Basil Street Blues by Michael Holroyd

I read an extract from this online somewhere and thought his writing was wonderful. He’s best known for his biographies of literary greats (none of which I’ve read) but this is an autobiography.

Tolstoy’s famous quote ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way' was never more apt than in Michael Holroyd’s case. When his parents died in the 1980s he felt the need to find out more about them and their immediate ancestors. His father and his mother had each been married and divorced three times and young Michael spent a lot of time with his father’s family, the only child in an eccentric and often very unhappy household.

He’s very amusing about his own perceived shortcomings and accident prone-ness. Once, when he was an articled clerk for a solicitor, he was spending a boring afternoon in court and somehow managed to unleash (fortunately tepid) water from a radiator over some witnesses.

Loved it.

Katherine’s Wheel by Rebecca Gregson

First of this year’s haul from Christian Aid. Published in 1999, it’s about four friends, now aged thirty-five, who met at university and are planning a big party for the millennium. Didn’t really take to it, unfortunately. There were so many viewpoints, not just those of the four friends, that it wasn’t ‘Katherine’s’ story any more than anyone else’s. It was all like looking through a glass darkly – if there was something interesting happening in there I couldn’t make it out.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

This Robert guy – he can write. I loved the first book in this series, Cuckoo’s Calling, and the second, Silkworm, but this one is even better; what a joy to know that s/he’s planning another four. Slightly disturbed though to read that there’s going to be a TV series – who will be cast as Cormoran and Robin??

In which I acquire xx books

Christian Aid Book Sale 2016. Yes, purchases were made (haven’t dared to count them), and if I live to be 101 or 2 (or 3) they will all get read, as well as the others waiting tbr. 

Purchases, in no particular order:

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon (published 2016).

Set during the UK drought of 1976. Lovely hardback edition.

Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (2011)

A Vera Stanhope novel.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (1984)

Set in 1906, small-town Georgia, USA.

Year of the Tiger by Lisa Brackman (2010)

Thriller, set in modern-day China.

The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan (2014)

‘Whoever you are, why ever you bake, this story’s for you’.

Katherine’s Wheel by Rebecca Gregson (1999)

Four college friends reunite for a millennium party in Cornwall.

A Bit of Earth by Rebecca Smith (2006)

Author is ‘the perfect English miniaturist’ says Barbara Trapido no less.

Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg (2007)

More small-town America, this time by author of Fried Green Tomatoes

No Second Chance by Harlan Coben (2003)

Missing child thriller.

Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White (1947)

An unhappy young girl discovers a race of Lilliputians

A Winter in China by Douglas Galbraith (2006)

Thriller, set in China, 1937.

A Writer’s World: Travels 1950-2000 by Jan Morris

‘a vivid evocation of the late 20th century’.

Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill (1994)

A Dalziel & Pascoe novel. May have read before.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (2012)

Italy, Hollywood, and ‘the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’ …

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (2009)

With a ‘sassy, straight-talking heroine’ born in Texas, 1901.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (first pub. 1937)

Virago edition 1986. Author has been recommended by several friends.

The Virago Book of Food: The Joy of Eating edited by Jill Foulston (2006)

Foodie extracts from books. Yum.

Diana Annual 1966

The Best of Girl

These last two to add to girls’ annuals collection.

Seven in April

I read/finished seven books in April.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

Read for book group (my choice). I hadn’t read this before I suggested it for the group – but I’d read about it and chose it because I like books set in the Depression (see Nine in November) and books set in Canada so this ticked boxes. It wasn’t the straightforward narrative I’d been expecting but nevertheless evoked the time and place through a handful of unforgettable characters both human and (sort of) canine. As in Elizabeth is Missing this book has a young author who seems to have got inside the head of her very elderly protagonists.

Austerity Britain 1945-1951 (Tales of a New Jerusalem) by David Kynaston

I finished this book in April, can’t remember when I started it, probably a couple of years ago. It's 692 pages, including the index. I have the next two volumes but haven’t yet embarked on them. Believe it or not I found it rather soothing if/when I was worrying about something last thing at night (I’m a worrier) to dip in and read about post-war industrial relations and statistics on the coal industry. Plus, as well as quoting from eyewitness accounts and newspaper reports the book has extracts from both published and unpublished diaries including Mass Observation diaries which I love – see this post here.

How to get hitched in ten days by Samantha Tonge

Novella, read on Kindle. Mikey is ‘every girl’s best friend – he bakes the creamiest cheesecake, loves movie nights and is a great dance partner.’ He shares a flat (and sometimes a platonic bed) with Jasmine, who is having second thoughts about her commitment to her boyfriend Dave after he bungles a proposal. When Jasmine gets offered a job transfer to New York Mikey comes up with a plan to get Dave to pop the question more romantically. Love the sound of Mikey’s diner – mine’s a chocolate milkshake please.

We that are left by Juliet Greenwood
Read on Kindle. 'Elin lives a luxurious but lonely life at Hiram Hall. Her husband Hugo loves her but never recovered from the Boer War. Now another war threatens to destroy everything she knows. With Hugo at the front, and her cousin Alice and friend Mouse working for the war effort, Elin has to learn to run the estate in Cornwall, making new friends – and enemies.'  Liked this a lot, for its characters and for the vivid descriptions of Cornwall, Wales and the battlefields of France.

Caught up with some recent best-sellers this month:

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

I’m a fan of Sarah Waters and I enjoyed this –not quite as much as The Night Watch which I loved especially for its structure; and it doesn’t have, as Fingersmith does, a terrific twist. But she is hard to beat for conjuring up an atmosphere and here it’s 1922 ‘and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.’

It’s a long book (570 in my hardback copy) and I see that some Amazon reviewers thought it slow but I thought all the detail was necessary to whisk the reader to a different but completely believable time and place and situation – which they would be glad to leave but would think about for a long time afterwards.

Us by David Nicholls

Terrific. Douglas’s wife of almost twenty-five years, Connie, has told him she wants to leave but she agrees to go ahead with their planned and paid-for holiday visiting European art galleries in the company of their moody teenager Albie. Douglas is a scientist, a research chemist. A certain person in my family is not a scientist yet the similarities between him and Douglas were remarkable – I suspect David Nicholls of hiding in my hall cupboard. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s – well, if you haven’t read it yet do find out for yourself.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

An unreliable narrator is always interesting – and tricky to write I expect.
10, 418 reviews on Amazon at the time of writing this (5983 5* and 471 1* with the rest in between). Is that a record? I thought it lived up to the hype – certainly kept me turning the pages. It will be interesting to see how they do the film as so much of what happens/doesn’t happen is the narrator’s head.