Our boat, The Tern, in calmer waters. |
Our boat, The Tern, in calmer waters. |
Winters could be tough when the boats could not get to sea or across the firth for fresh supplies. Yet, as a child, I don't remember ever feeling hungry or cold, so I guess the hardy island folk were always well prepared.
My mother baked a lot, pancakes, bannocks, and sponges. Biscuits were a treat. Traditional sweets were a treat, but she often made tablet.
We had a plentiful supply of chickens, salt herring, hard fish, and tinned food, and I imagine the shop was well stocked up in preparation for inclement weather.
The coal boat came once a year so the coal had to be rationed to last till the next coal boat came.
In January 1955, we had the worst Snowstorm I ever remember.
School days
I left home on my first day of school clutching my brother's hand. I held fast although we didn't like each other very much. At the top of the hill and in sight of the playground, he refused to take my hand any more. He obviously didn't want this friends to see him hold his little sister's hand!
There were four of us new entrants, three girls and a boy. The school consisted of two ends, the Beeg end for the older kids, and the Peedy end for the younger ones. Once upon a time, there were two teachers, one for each end. When I started there was only one. Mrs Wares. and we all sat in the Beeg end warmed by a small stove. On rainy days, we hung our coats near the stove to dry. No matter how far away we lived, we had no choice but to walk.
There were two doors, one for the boys and one for the girls, but the boy's door was permanently shut, again due to lack of numbers. Our toilets were outside, again separate toilets and consisted of buckets beneath wooden seats with the customary hole.
The school building is no more and used for dipping sheep.
This early photo is dated 1907.
This early photograph is dated July 1932. Back then Children could be educated in the school until they were ready for university if that was their aim. Many had to leave as soon as the law allowed, at age thirteen, as they were needed on the land or to help at home. My mother had to become a full-time carer for her grandmother who was housebound.
The below photo was taken before I started. We joined those children for a year and then the majority of them left for secondary school.
.As you see, a busy school, a busy island. I believe there were four shops on the island and a pub at one time. Also, the Floating shops from Orkney visited every fortnight. they came to buy as well as sell. I will deal with that in a later episode.
When I lived there there was only one co-op shop built in the center of the island.
The manse is attached to the far end and is now used as a home for the owner.
The public phonebox was not added until 1953.
Looking over the firth from John O'Groats, one might assume that Stroma Island is still populated. These sturdy wee houses, built many years ago by the crofters themselves, have withstood the test of time and only on close inspection can one see the devastation caused by the elements, the birds and the sheep.
The Norse gave Stroma its name, Straumsey, the island in the stream. The first written history of the island is by Norsemen who we know inhabited the island in the eleventh century. There is evidence that a Pictish community existed there before that.
From the mainland, Kennedy's mausoleum is also plainly visible near the shore on the Southest side. Built in the seventeenth century, it still stands defiantly against the elements with only part of the upper story, a dovecot, in partial ruins. All around it is the graveyard, where many tombstones bear testament to the thriving population who lived, worked and died on the island.
My parents bought a cottage formally known only as Eben's, and they flitted in. That same evening my mother went into labour, The following morning, on a beautiful sunny October day, I was born. And there I lived until I was nine years old.
The cottage was a typical Caithness croft house, with three downstairs rooms, an outside toilet, and an attic space which my father later converted into two bedrooms, one for me and my sister, and one for my two brothers.
At the front was my mother's vegetable garden. The only flowers there were poppies and a few daffodils. The garden was bordered by small trees with an evergreen at one side.
Sadly, we were the last family to live in that house. We sold our livestock, including our beloved Petty the sheep who we had reared from an orphaned lamb.