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Living and eating arrangements on farms in the 1920s: chamer...

Date 18 November 1980
Track ID 49077
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1980.102

Original Tape ID

SA1980.102

Summary

Living and eating arrangements on farms in the 1920s: chamers and bothies compared.

Charles Reid explains the difference between chamers [rooms] and bothies (typically found south of Aberdeen) as farmservants' accommodation. Farmservants living in bothies did their own cooking. Mr Reid recounts a description of porridge on an Angus farm being stored in a drawer for days, with bits cut off as needed, and sausages and fried bread as a treat on Saturdays. Farmservants living in chamers were provided with their meals, of variable quality, in the farm kitchen. The quantity of brose for breakfast depended on status. Mr Reid describes the table etiquette. He tries to remember a quotation about somebody helping himself before the foreman did. Oatcakes were made on a girdle. Mr Reid's mother-in-law had a particularly big one that she called Drumdelgie, after the large farm.

Chamers and bothies had similar sleeping accommodation. There were two recessed double box-beds plus a single one for the orra loon [odd-job boy] on a big farm. Clootie [cloth] coverings were made by the farmer's wife. Mattresses and pillows were made of ticking bags filled with chaff after the threshing. The men never removed their hand-knitted underwear. There was so much of a rush in the morning to feed the livestock that the men did not do up their pints [bootlaces] until after their own breakfast. In connection with box-beds, Mr Reid quotes a line of poetry.

Item Notes

The quotation attributed to Tennyson is actually "I cross my arms on my breast, / And all is peace within" from Longfellow's 'The Windmill'.

Recording Location

County - Midlothian

Parish - Edinburgh

Village/Place - Edinburgh

Language

English, Scots

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good