When you are attempting to live a self sufficient life cash is king.
In order to get some cash to buy the essentials that we couldn’t make, gather or grow, I would spin, crochet and knit in order to sell to the holidaymakers in the summer. I kept bees and the cash crop of wonderful cut comb heather honey was a welcome bonus.
Eggs from the hens and ducks I sold, I made crowdie from the goats milk.
In the winter, gathering winkles was a profitable occupation. In the depths of the harshest winters and they were harsh then, the snow would ice over the rock pools and plunging your hands into the icy water wasn’t an experience to be recommended.
Picking winkles individually off the rocks is as you might imagine a time consuming task. You are driven on by the thought of £18 per hundredweight. That was the most I ever remember getting per bag. The price reflected the time of year, the scarcity, as not many people were up to such an onerous task in the freezing conditions.
A vehicle came to pick up the bags gathered. The trick was to leave them in the sea until the day they were due. This way the winkles stayed plump, alive and fresh. Oh and the water helped with the weight!
This is were the best winkles were to be found.
The old man of Stoer.
It was just a matter of scrambling down the scree to reach the bonanza of handfuls of winkles trickling through your fingers like gold through Silas Marner’s.
The trickiest part of the whole exercise was climbing back up the steep gulleys with wet cold net bags of your watery prize on your back. Wind with every gust tried to send you crashing to the bottom. The walk across the uneven moorland to the van, then home, cold but fuelled with the thought of the cash coming your way.
It certainly was a good life, hard, but one I wouldn’t have changed for all the world.
Picking winkles individually off the rocks is as you might imagine a time consuming task. You are driven on by the thought of £18 per hundredweight. That was the most I ever remember getting per bag. The price reflected the time of year, the scarcity, as not many people were up to such an onerous task in the freezing conditions.
A vehicle came to pick up the bags gathered. The trick was to leave them in the sea until the day they were due. This way the winkles stayed plump, alive and fresh. Oh and the water helped with the weight!
This is were the best winkles were to be found.
The old man of Stoer.
It was just a matter of scrambling down the scree to reach the bonanza of handfuls of winkles trickling through your fingers like gold through Silas Marner’s.
The trickiest part of the whole exercise was climbing back up the steep gulleys with wet cold net bags of your watery prize on your back. Wind with every gust tried to send you crashing to the bottom. The walk across the uneven moorland to the van, then home, cold but fuelled with the thought of the cash coming your way.
It certainly was a good life, hard, but one I wouldn’t have changed for all the world.
What a wonderful post, I loved it. I really felt transported through time and space back to the islands. I swear I could feel the freezing sea and the weight of those nets full of the freshest winkles as I tried to get back up to the top. Scotch pancakes with crowdie and jam for tea!
ReplyDeleteSo pleased you enjoyed it Elaine. This isn’t the old man you are maybe thinking of... the old man of Storr on Skye? This is on the Stoer peninsula not very far from where i used to live. I was being asked recently about my time in the highlands by a couple who know the area well. Husband said well, it was forty years ago, I can hardly believe where the time has gone, to me it seems like only yesterday. Oh and of course the old bod and legs were forty years younger, although I would still give it a blooming good go even now!
DeleteLX
A beautiful place to be but hard work!
ReplyDeleteYes, I loved every hard working second, so rewarding. When I took the husband back to show him where I lived, he could hardly believe the remoteness of it. A chapter of my life I shall never forget, a magical time.
DeleteLX
A hard living, the winkles. All the wool work I can relate to; I've done it. Not the winkles, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteIn the winter when the weather closed in, I sat happy beside my peat fuelled Rayburn spinning and making things to sell. Happy at the thought of the injection of cash coming in the summer along with the visitors.
DeleteLX
A lovely story from the past, but I expect it was dangerous those slippery rocks. It reminded me of a tale about the Shiant Islands. They used to collect puffins from the cliff, and would go down attached by rope. One day a husband and wife team, with the wife going down. The rope broke, and she fell into the sea, kept buoyant by her petticoat full of puffins and she drifted away waving to her husband. I think it is a sad story but very unusual.
ReplyDeleteWhat did they do with the puffins? Eat them I suppose! It certainly was a sad story, did he try and save her I wonder?
DeleteStruggling up the scree was an effort, I well remember having a long raincoat buttoned up to my neck as a cloak in order to keep the water of me. It was very scary when the wind tried to use it as a sail to float me on the thermals back to the bottom of the cliff.
LX
A hard but very satisfying lifestyle I would imagine. Having scrambled about the rocks at the schoolhouse at Inveraligan many years ago I can almost feel your pain. Great memories. x
ReplyDeleteHappy memories, hard graft never killed anyone and the satisfaction of a job well done was something else.
DeleteLX