Having now posted clips from 30
interviews on our Study website, it is timely to pause to reflect. What do
these clips tell us about life and society across Dumfries and Galloway?
Before doing so, it is first useful
to outline the extent of interview activity undertaken. There are now 25 volunteers who have
conducted, and are conducting, oral fieldwork as part of the Study. These fieldworkers have interviewed a total
of 88 individuals. In addition, the Stranraer and District Local History Trust
have kindly shared 33 interviews which they have conducted in and around
Stranraer over the past 10 years or so.
The interview clips which are on
the website therefore represent c. 25% of the number of interviews conducted thus
far. Seventeen men and 15 women are heard on the clips, ranging in age from
21-94 years. Each clip is approximately 2 minutes in length and is drawn from interviews
which, on average, run for 50 minutes. From this it is clear that the material
published so far on the Study website represents a sample of the whole. In due course the entire content of each
contribution will form part of an analysis of the oral account of life and
society across Dumfries and Galloway. That analysis will take the form of a
large-scale oral history which will be published at the end of the Study. Only once such an analysis has been
undertaken will it be possible to be definitive about the relative balance of
the thematic content of the interviews and what that content tells us about
life and society in Dumfries and Galloway. In the meantime, consideration of
the sample clips will allow us to gain an impression of their content and of
how this type of source can enable subsequent ethnological analysis.
World War II
Given the age-profile of the
interviewees it is perhaps unsurprising that experiences of WWII emerge
strongly. We hear of direct experience
of war as children and as adults. From Catherine Monteith from Stranraer we
hear of how war-time necessities laid lightly on her, with a sense being
conveyed that the carrying and wearing of a gas-mask and practice air-raids
simply formed part of her routine of primary schooling:
Ye’d tae practice, yer gas mask, getting yer
gas mask out and get yer gas mask on to see if you could do it … And then,
there also, there were shelters in the school. Brick shelters built in the
school playground which, I remember lining-up, can’t really remember being in
the shelters but ah can remember lining-up …
Another young view of the War
comes from Dolly Ferries who recalls as an adolescent the influx and coming and
going of new people to the Machars. Dolly’s memory is of the youthful
excitement of these new and exotic people coming to Kirkinner. These memories are
tinged with a wistful recall that some left never to return:
I knew that this was a change-over an you
thought to yourself, well, they didn’t always know when they were goin away and
you maybe had people that came kinda regular every other day and then they
disappeared and that was them – you know that was them away then.
From the interviews it is clear
that the impact of WWII was direct and personal. Margaret Livingstone Bussell from Boreland of
Borgue speaks vividly of the moment when she decided at the outbreak of WWII to
join-up to the Auxiliary Territorial Service:
One day we were crouched round our wireless
set listening to the Old King [George VI] talking … and he started to quote, ‘I
said to the man that (sic.) stood at the gate of the year’ and he paused – and
there was a terrible pause and we held our breath that he would go on and he
managed. And after that I walked around the corner and joined-up in the ATS and
enlisted myself. I was seventeen and three-quarters.
Those who served did so in a
variety of ways, including on the home-front.
We gain a glimpse into the unglamorous life of serving in the Scottish
Women’s Land Army from Betty Murray from Stranraer talking about her duties:
Well, … the week that you were on duty, you
were up at 6 O’clock. Ye had, there was an outside boiler which was down steps
and you cleaned that out, took all the clinkers out of it and then you stoked
it up. And ah remember that it took 40 shovels of coke to go into it and that
heated the greenhouse, the big greenhouse … And we’d that to do and that wis
the week that ye were on duty ye couldn’t go out at night because ye had yer 10
O’clock …
From the interviews we also hear
from Aldo Petrucci from Stranraer of the experience of his father, a
first-generation migrant from Itlay who, at the outbreak of WWII, was running a
café in Whithorn:
I
remember coming home from school when Italy entered the War [WWII] against the
Allies over here, eh, going home from school for lunch and my father wasn’t
there. He’d been taken away … He’d been given fifteen minutes to pack a case
and … be taken down to the … prison. And from there he went to Newton Stewart,
as far as I know and from Newton Stewart he was taken over to the Isle of Man.
Many other interviews not yet
added to the website contain detailed information on war-time experience
touching on themes other than those covered by the sample interviews. For example, many contributors speak of how
food was readily available to some because of the extent to which agriculture
was a main-stay of life in Dumfries and Galloway. This and other themes will
emerge as more material is added to the site.
Working Life
Many of the contributors speak
about their work in agriculture and this will form an important aspect of
subsequent analysis and discussion. From
the sample clips, experience of other types of work is spoken about. For example, from Stranraer on the west of
the region to Langholm on the east we have 2 different accounts from 2 men on
working as telegraph-boys. From David Brown from Stranraer we hear about being
recruited:
We didnae apply. It was the schools, the headmaster that got us the job
… But it was only on a temporary basis and we didnae understand that at the
time. And it was push bikes, great big, big heavy push bikes, just one
gear. And, we did tae start off, we did the town, just the town. And then they
eventually, later on, ah think there’s six ay us a thegither. But you were
treated, oh I mean, you think you were in the army the way they treated you.
You know, you were just a kind a underling.
Over in Langholm, William Friell
also remembers starting as a telegraph boy:
Ah left the school when I wis 14 and ah got
a job as telegraph boy there wasn’t many telephones in them days you see? So my
job was to deliver telegrams, telephone messages – like telexes, nowadays they
telex them but in my day they were telegram. And ah had a uniform – a pill-box
hat, a leather belt wi a pouch … And a bike. A big double bike wi a double bar
– a super bike ah fair enjoyed it.
There were other jobs which
involved travelling around. From Irene
Brown from St John’s Town of Dalry we hear about travelling to farms across Dumfries
and Galloway in her job as a milk tester:
The worst thing was having to get up at about four in the morning
sometimes – where you had to be there at the milking and take a sample from
each cow, night and morning. To arrive with all your stuff at the farm before
the milking in the afternoon.
Travel also provided employment
for those who worked on the railways. May Sisi of Newton Stewart recalled her
time as a clerkess at the town’s train station during WWII:
… there’s lots o forces and of course they
had all to move, and you found out where an awful lot of places were that you’d
never knew … They would ask for certain, and then your had to find out where
they’d to change the train and all these kind … and on a Sunday we had to go,
one of the employees had to go out on a Sunday because they sent the rabbits
from Nelson’s on the train. And they sent, in the spring time, they sent the
snowdrops.
A key aspect of working life for
all is health and safety and this emerges with frightening clarity in a
contribution from Robert Ross from Creetown:
Regularly the stanes wid block in the jaws [of
the stone crusher] and we hud tae stand there wi a … we had tae lever them oot.
I’ve seen us standing on top o them, in the jaws. Kinda thing … ye felt them
movin and ye jumped back oot … Aye, it wis still on. We stood on top o the
stanes, we hud tae bar them …. There wis nae Health and Safety … Health and
Saftey wis a great thing fir the workers aye, there’s no getting away from that.
The range of work activity
associated with life-events is revealed in the contributions of John Wilson from
Whithorn, Alan Faulds from the Isle of Whithorn and Robin Kinnear from Port
William all of whom provided services for those arranging funerals. In speaking
about this we also learn of the practices associated with funerals in
Wigtownshire in the mid-twentieth century:
John Wilson: But ye see the thing was as well, every community where
there was a joiner would have an undertaker. There was an undertaker, the old
joiner in Port William was an undertaker; the joiner in the Isle of Whithorn
was an undertaker; the joiner in Whithorn was an undertaker. So, and it was
simply because, this tradition of making the coffins … the funerals were mainly
from the house in these days, at that time, yeah. That began to change, ah
would say aboot, in the sixties, the early sixties. And it got, it was more
convenient because… Especially in Whithorn, if we had a funeral, say, at the
Top of the Town where the streets narrow, people would – the funerals were
always well attended, as you know round about here they are always well
attended – and what would happen at the Top o the Town, they would stand around
the door-way and the Minister, we would get the Minister to stand at the
door-way so the people, the relatives could hear but also the people outside
could hear what was being said.
Alan Faulds: At the front door. There’s a
wee service inside the house for the women-folk. And then the ministers came
out to the front door, gave the service for the men-folk out in the street…
when the minister finished outside, it was carried out and put in the hearse,
and away we went.
Robin Kinnear: a tremendous urgency that
could be done for weddings and funerals, was getting a suit made-up quickly if
it was for mourning. You could wire [telegram] through the measurements or you
could phone through to Yorkshire and you’d have it in three days, you know.
Which was really quite astonishing. And of course, if you wrote a postcard off
on a Sunday to Glasgow, if you got it away in the post before one o’clock, they
would phone you up on a Monday morning inquiring about the order you had sent
in. And it would be sent down that day by train and would come into Whauphill
Station. And there was a lorry from the contractors, MacLeans the lorry
contractor, who went three times a week to Whauphill, so these were all
delivered to everyone – all these parcels, very, very rapidly.
Working life is shown to have
extended beyond paid employment. For example, John Armstrong of Langholm speaks
about peat-cutting which he continues to do, in part, as a form of exercise and
as a pastime. Asked why he continued to cut peat he replied, ‘Ah jist dae it fir the fun of it.’
Shops and Shopping
Everyday life is a focus of
ethnology in general and of this Study in particular. Within the everyday there are activities
common to many which help us build an understanding of aspects of different
lives. Study of these discrete aspects
of the everyday provides us with insights into the particular theme being
considered and can provide information on other, linked, aspects of living. One
such theme is shops and shopping.
In talking about going to
Dumfries from Ringford to shop as a girl in the 1960s, Isobel Sutherland gives
an insight into the impression made upon the mind of a girl form a small rural
village by travelling to the bustling town of Dumfries:
Dumfries wis, it seemed such a lang wuy away, and such a distance place
for us … ma granny would take us on shopping trips and that was really exciting
because ye were getting gang on the bus wi yer granny … And I mean that wis
jist excitement for us seein a these different things. But getting into
Dumfries wis, and I remember Dumfries up the vennel an that it was such a busy,
busy bustling place. Wi shops a up the vennel and, you were just overwhelmed by
the amount of folk an a these great big shops but it wis Binns that ye went, ye
went tae.
A notable feature of the
contributions on shops and shopping is that very often the shop came to you
both to sell and deliver goods. Joseph Sassoon of Kirkcudbright recalls the
practicalities of obtaining groceries in Kirkcudbright in the 1930s and 1940s:
I
didn’t often have to go for messages very much. We bought all our requirements
in the town. And, if I remember rightly, the message-boy would come round and
take a note of what we, of what was required and then I guess that was
delivered and the bills were paid maybe monthly or quarterly.
Similarly, Jim Wright recalled
how clothing and drapery were purchased by his mother in Newton Stewart in the
1940s from the drapers from Port William:
We’d
a local draper that called, he called regular too frae Port William. And we
bought all our clothes, we bought a our clothes fae this draper. We ordered
them, we ordered them and he supplied them and if we wanted we could pay him
the next time when he come, we didnae need to, he’d come every three months and
you’d pay him, you’d pay for the, an then whatever you’d owe him.
In giving an account of how they
shopped these contributors also provide information on the availability and
operation of credit; the systems which allowed rural and town dwellers without
transportation to obtain goods by delivery; and, the feelings of a young girl from
a small rural community on visiting a town. This last is perhaps one of the key
strengths of ethnology in that the internal thoughts and feelings of the
contributor are given directly and immediately. The mental world of the individual
does not have to be conjectured upon or interpolated from other sources by an
analyst. Whilst interesting on an individual basis, consideration of cumulative
testimony on the feelings and mentality of a number of contributors allows us
to be clearer and more accurate about how life was lived and, importantly, what
that life experience felt like.
Internal World
The internal world emerges in
other contributions on various aspects of everyday life. The emotional response
to everyday events can be such that the feeling remains as part of the
individual’s mental landscape. For
example, the perception that corporal punishment at school was often used maliciously
or unfairly is readily apparent in the recollections of George McMillan of
Moniaive and David Doughty of Whithorn:
George McMillan: I felt it was barbaric and
it should never go back to it now. Because one incident always sticks in my
mind. When I was about 9 there was a girl – I don’t know what she did – but the
women who was teaching us was quite keen to use the belt and she was
going to give her the belt and when she went to hit her, she pulled her hand
away. She was so, and she was crying, she was in a terrible state. And the
teacher got another teacher to actually hold her arm out so she could give her
the belt and I really felt that was a terrible way tae treat people. That’s why
I would never want them to bring back the belt because I think some teachers
actually really enjoyed using it.
David Doughty: Ah’ve seen them dooin’ things
wi that strap wi … wid get the jail nowadays an some fella, maybe, boy did a
couple o things he shouldn’t been doin and insisted on doin it, they would,
they would haul him out ‘pull up yir sleave’ they would hit him maybe 6 or 7 or
8 times. I’ve seen them, their wrists marked and all. Nowadays they’d go to the
jail for it.
Further examples of the early
impression made upon young minds which have stayed with the individual are revealed
in the contribution of Margaret Hawthorn
from Whithorn who clearly recalls the exception made by the laird in the ‘big house’ at Glasserton
on a Sunday to allow them to pass by:
... when we came up from Claymoddie it was an old road and ye had to go round by
the laundry. But on a Sunday we were allowed to pass the big house and he used
to be standing at the from door saying, ‘Girls, you come this way fir tae go to
the Sunday school. You don’t go round by the laundry ye’ get yer feet dirty on
this’. Yes he was a very nice gentleman.
The acute observations made by
young people are further evidenced in contributions from Phylis Harvey from
Creetown and George McMillan from Moniaive on the phenomenon of itinerants or
tramps:
Phylis
Harvey: We also had a tramp that came
every year, auld Wullie. And when ever the sky went dark, that man came. And,
he never knocked, he never did onything he jist went intae the barn, went up on
tae the – where, the potato loft, whaur it was new wood and a staircase up tae
it – and there was a single bed there. And ma mother always waashed two
blankets and folded them and put them on the end of the, in her spare
time. At the end of the bed. And in the
mornin these feet would come doon, ah can picture it yet. And she would say,
‘Oh, here’s Wullie comin.’ Now he was excellent because he would, if it wis
snowy and the kye wurnae oot, he wid carry watter, he would bed them doon, he
would muck the byre … He wis an auld sodger that had been through the Somme and
couldn’t settle. So he wis on the road wi his bag on his back … It’s so sad ah
could greet when ah think aboot it.
George McMillan: And ah can remember tramps
askin ma dad if they could stay the night at the farm out-buildings, sleep the
night. And one man in particular came for years and ah can. He always slept in
the byre, where the cows were in the winter. And he would make a bed o straw
behind the cows and he would lie there … a lot of them were people that had
been, during the War [WWII] they had been fightin, and ah think they jist, they
never could settle-down to civilian life and, because quite a few of them had
actually been fightin in the War. And it was quite a common sight to see them.
The variety of sensory observation
is evident in the contributions of Felicity Gelder who recalls the sounds of
Kirkcudbright from her childhood and Rosie Lindsay from near Wigtown who speaks
about traditional music in Dumfries and Galloway:
Felicity Gelder: I never realised that the Tolbooth bells were
ingrained in my head until they were actually stopped from ringing at 11
o’clock at night. I hadn’t realised that they rang all night – it was just
there all my life. Plus the 6 o’clock curfew and the eight o’clock curfew. And
7 o’clock on the first Thursday of every month they rang the bells for the
Council meeting. And we as children used to love to go and help ring these
bells … What other sounds? Well the siren used to be – I understand it was the
‘all-clear’ siren for the War. It used to sit on top of the Court House which
is next-door. They used that as a fire alarm which called the people in.
Rosie Lindsay: … the traditional music in
Dumfries and Galloway’s quite under-appreciated, under-valued as opposed to
like, maybe, the traditional music up in the Highlands or in Aberdeenshire or
somethin like that. Nobody thinks of … tunes or songs from Dumfries and
Galloway very easily. But there are … a lot of song collectors an people ah
know … through, sort-of folk festivals and that … have their archives an lots
of books full of songs from, like, from all over – particularly in Wigtownshire
and also, sort of Sanquhar sort of area as well, ah mean it’s … there’s a lot.
Reflective views on the internal
world can emerge upon discussion with contributors about specific themes. As in
the contribution of Alastiar Reid:
We had no technology to speak of. When I think of then and I see all
the cars in Whithorn which is such a difference you know, such an extraordinary
difference and you realise now the amount of domestic technology we’ve taken on
since then. When I think back then, the technology then was the population and
we had people who were, who came and did the washing and people who looked
after us as children and so we knew by name and well most of the population of
Whithorn it seemed then.
Language
As well as the information already
discussed, each of these clips carries information which only becomes available
when they are listened to. That information being the sound of the voice of the
contributor. That sound being the accent of the contributor and their manner of
speaking. Language is a key that helps
to unlock the identity of any location, individual or group, so having direct
access to language as used in a number of places is invaluable in our effort to
elucidate the identities of Dumfries and Galloway. One of our volunteers has followed-up this
line of enquiry by surveying the use of Scots terms by a large number of Creetown
residents. The results of this work have
now been published in booklet form and this work will be drawn into the wider
ethnological analysis which will be presented in the oral history book to
follow at the end of this Study.
Looking Ahead
As already noted, the clips
currently on the website are a sample of a sample. However, it is already apparent that there is
much useful and interesting information to be gleaned from even this sub-set of
data. In the sample clips we learn, amongst other things: of the construction
of air-raid shelters; that there was an influx and frequent movement of military
personnel during WWII; that the impetus to enlist to active service during WWII
was generated in each gender; that individuals could be directed into
employment without their opinion being sought; that funerals services were
gendered and located in domestic rather than religious space; that there was a
highly integrated transport-mail-delivery network which linked town, city and
country; that use of cash was eased by making credit available; that Scots
language is used by many; that school discipline could be cruel; that itinerants
or tramps were often looked after by the wider community on an informal
basis. This partial list could easily be
added to, even from the sample clips considered here.
A sense of time is necessarily carried
in all of the contributions as each interviewee is speaking of a specific time
or period. From this specific information we are provided with material which
touches on wider social phenomena. For example, that schooling ended for some
at the age of 14 years. As more
contributions are added it will become possible to delineate a time-line for
twentieth-century Dumfries and Galloway based upon the experiences of
individuals, rather than broader social, economic or political phenomena. Of
course, these broader movements are touched upon, and are formed by the lives
of the individuals whose contributions we are now gathering.
One of the great strengths of the
approach adopted in this Study is that the work is undertaken at a highly
localised level. Whilst non-statistical in approach, the Study is gaining
coverage of the region. There remain
geographical gaps and we will work to ensure that recorded interviewing takes
place where these lacunae exist, e.g.in the town of Dumfries. However, the sample clips on the website do provide
acute insight into place. Specifically,
we have information on life in a number of locales. More broadly, information
is revealed about life in different types of place: the dangers of some workplaces;
that mid-day meals were eaten by some at home rather than at school; that all
the necessities of food and clothing could be obtained in town and country due
to deliveries; that the presence of the ‘big house’ of landed estates could
loom large in the consciousness of the local population etc.
Perhaps the strongest element to
emerge from the sample clips is that of context or milieu. It is perhaps this
aspect of the material generated which adds most to the information available
on lived-life in Dumfries and Galloway.
The context or milieu of life is grist to the mill of those who are
interested in the history and presence of a place and a people. It is
this rich seam of information, as well as those on time and place, that will enable the subsequent ethnological
analysis to be made in which experiences and recollections are compared with
the information revealed by other sources; experience in different parts of
Dumfries and Galloway; and, experience elsewhere in Scotland and beyond.
