Anecdotes about clothes sent to Barra; the barter system in...

Original Track ID

SA1986.162

Original Tape ID

SA1986.162

Summary

Anecdotes about clothes sent to Barra; the barter system in the Hebrides; meanness.

Morag Fisher sent money home to Vatersay when she went away to work as a girl. She details how she divided up her twenty-five shilling wage. Her sister Mary, who worked for Lord and Lady Eldon in Peebles, sent clothes, some of which had belonged to Lady Eldon, to their cousin Mary, a crofter in Barra. Mary in Peebles discovered that Mary in Barra was passing some of the clothes on to other people. She didn't approve, and stopped sending things. Anecdote about stockings that never came.

Talk about the picturesque turns of phrase Mary in Barra had. Anecdote about her getting a neighbour's two boys to stack bales of hay for her. It was part of the barter system in the islands. Mary applied the same system to clearing the dung from the byre where her cattle were wintered. Mrs Fisher recalls that when she was a child there were always two or three big crocks of butter at Mary's, but she would put margarine on Morag's piece [sandwich]. Morag's Auntie Annie on Vatersay, to whom she would go to get some food, having eaten her piece on the way to school, was similarly mean with food.

Recording Location

Item Location

Language

English

Genre

Story Information

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good