It's a crofting life

It’s a crofting life

Shetland 1880

I was woken first by the wind, knocking together the stones we used to weigh down the thatch. Then the cold began to seep into the warmth of my dreamscape. I often dreamt of warm, more exotic places than the beautiful, rugged island that was my home.

Shivering, I curled into a ball under my blankets to make the most of remaining heat. I heard the sounds of my mother shuffling around the but end of our croft house placing more peat on the fire.

I crawled out of my box bed, dragging my blankets with me, and hurried over to the fire. My mother put some tea on to steep as my shivering slowly eased, the warmth and distinct woody smoke from the fire settling onto me like a cloak. This was ruined abruptly by my father opening the door and letting in an icy blast of wind, making the flames dance erratically.

“Andrew, time to get moving boy, the peat won’t cut itself and we need a big stock before the winter hits.”

My brother groaned as he rolled ungracefully out of his own box bed, he shoved on his boots and stretched with a huge yawn. He slept mostly in his usual clothes to keep warm; we all did except da, who seemed to be immune to the cold temperatures we endured most of the year.

Da grabbed the remaining bread left over from yesterday and tossed a chunk to my brother before leading the way back out. We endured another blast of cold as they left, leaving me and ma to enjoy our tea in peace. We slowly began the chores for the day, using the remaining hot water to quickly wash before beginning to make bread, chop vegetables and feed the animals. When we were done, we sat down for my favourite time of the working day: the spinning, dying and knitting yarn from our tiny flock of two sheep.

I spun the fleece on the spinning wheel which was a gift to my grandmother from my grandfather on their wedding day. We would both dye the yarn with whatever natural dyes we could make, or occasionally left the yarn undyed. After I had spun the fleece, I would help ma knit the jumpers, though only as far as the yoke. She would insist on doing the beautiful stranded colour knitting, called fair isle, of the yoke herself. My da would often help me knit the bodies and sleeves of the jumpers when he came home from the fields, though Andrew would often refuse, saying his hands were too numb from the cold, but in truth it was because he kept changing the tension of his knitting and we would have to undo and re-knit anything he had done anyway. Together we would knit the jumpers, beanies, scarves, and gloves we could sell to the fishermen when they docked.

I had just settled into the steady beat of the spinning wheel, feeling the fleece flow smoothly through my fingers when a loud knock came at the door. We both jumped ma cursing as she dropped a stitch on the beautiful yoke she was making. She hurried to fix the mistake while I opened the door. It was David, who lived in the nearest croft to ours and kept a large sheep flock as well as helping to farm our joint stretch of land. His face looked unusually red as he shuffled in from the cold. He sat in the chair that da usually occupied by the fire and put his face in his hands,

“I am sorry to barge in on you like this, Cora” he said, the sounds muffled by his large, callused hands.

“There now, its nothing,” ma said, in what I recognised as her calm but worried voice. “Tell us what has happened,” she said, standing and moving to pour a generous dram of da’s whisky into a cup for him. He lifted his face from his hands and ma handed him the cup. He accepted it with a sniff of thanks, tilting the cup back and taking a large swallow. He gave a small appreciate groan and put the cup down. I noticed his hands were shaking.

“It’s Effie,” he said, his voice husky. “You know she had the babe last week.” It wasn’t really a question, but ma nodded anyway. “Turns out there were complications or something with the birth, him coming early and all.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Well she died last night. We couldn’t get the bleeding to stop and she got all pale like and died in my arms.”

He sobbed again, large tears dripped off his chin narrowly missing the cup and ma moved forward to put a comforting arm on his shoulder. “And the babe?” ma asked. She handed him the whisky and he took another sip calming enough to say “Dead too, just an hour ago, I buried him myself, such a wee tiny lad, next to my Effie in her favourite spot up on Rangers Hill.” He stopped again, seemingly unable to continue. My eyes filled with tears as ma said ‘Oh David, I am so sorry. Effie was a wonderful woman.” David had another long sip of whisky and ma gently took the cup to refill it. “Aye,” he said, swiping roughly at his eyes, “and bonny too, the boniest lassy on the island.”

“Aye”, my mother answered softly. “That she was.”

He tipped up the cup and downed the whisky in one long gulp, this time standing up when he had swallowed.

“Anyway, Cora, you know Effie had a smart head for business and things. She had all these big plans, did my Effie. She was going to get a knitting machine from a friend of her cousin and use the fleece from the flock to make a whole lot of jumpers to sell to the fisher folk. She said she would need lots of fleece because with the machine she could make ‘em up faster, a lot faster than with the needles, you know.”

Ma nodded warily. She didn’t trust the knitting machines and said the knitting always came out too loose. “Well, you see, I had just finished a large bundle of fleece, carded and everything ready for her to spin it.” He paused again and took a few deep breaths. “I want you and young Maggie here to take it, Cora.”

I heard ma inhale sharply. With that much fleece we could make a large number of jumpers and easily feed our family over the winter, with some to spare.

“David, you could sell the fleece, get some money for yourself to help over the winter, buy yourself a good bottle of whisky.”

“No,” David grunted shortly. “I can’t face selling Effie’s fleece. I don’t want it in the croft and I know Effie would want someone to have it who could make something really beautiful out of it. And everyone around here knows your knitin’s the best on the island.”

Ma swelled a bit at his words, but shook her head. “David, that is very generous, lad, but it’s too much.”

David walked to the door, opening it and grabbing a huge bag he had left by the door. He slung it inside and shut the door again. “Please, Cora. Do it for Effie. Make something beautiful and give me one to remember her by.”

He waited for ma to nod in confirmation before opening the door again and striding out into the wind.

I felt a swell of excitement at the huge bag of beautiful fleece, ready to be spun, my mind already calculating how many jumpers, scarves, and beanies we could make and sell. I could get a brand-new coat and some hair ribbons like Elise Campbell’s.

Ma pulled the bag open and we both ran our hands through the soft grey and white fleece speckled with black, inhaling the familiar musky smell of sheep. We both breathed it in subconsciously and I itched to start spinning it right away.

Ma and I stayed up late that night, me spinning and ma preparing the different dyes we would use over the next few weeks to create the beautiful rich colours ma would knit into the garments. Da and Andrew had exclaimed in excitement when they had come home the first day, already planning what to buy with the extra money and da staying up late to help ma knit the sleeves of the jumper she had been working on. But after a few days of spinning and dying Andrew and Da complained constantly about the acrid smell of the dyes and the drying yarns draped over every available surface.

It took two weeks for us to spin and dye the entire bag of fleece. Ma had been working carefully to create a new fair isle pattern, hand drawing the charts and counting each row carefully. The first one she made was for David and when she held it up, we both knew without speaking that this new pattern was a revelation of colour work that would sell quickly and easily.

David wept when ma held out his jumper to him. The main body of the jumper was blue with an intricate yoke of yellows and black, the fair isle pattern resembling snowflakes with delicate geometric shapes in between. It fitted him perfectly and he hugged ma tightly in gratitude, fresh tears dripping into his beard when ma told him that she had named the pattern ‘Effie’ and intended to sell it to a local magazine so everyone could make the beautiful design in Effie’s memory.

We were able to sell a few beanies and jumpers before the bad weather truly set in and buy enough food and grain to get us through the winter. Da and Andrew would spend the few hours of daylight doing what work they could in the now frozen land, and ma and I would spin and knit and talk in front of the fire. The men would join us after the light had faded, Da helping knit the plain bodies or sleeves of the jumpers and Andrew put to work winding the freshly dyed yarn into balls. It was the best winter any of us had lived through, though ma was quick to remind us of the tragic cost of our good fortune whenever Andrew and I bickered over the money we expected to get from the knitted garments.

By the time the island had begun to thaw, and the daylight had increased enough for da and Andrew to be out of the croft house most of the day, ma and I had amassed a pile of woollen gloves, beanies, scarves, jumpers and even a few pairs of socks, most of which sported Effie’s pattern. It wasn’t long before we were able to take them down to the harbour a few at a time and sell or trade them to the men on the fishing boats as they came in.

I bought my new hair ribbons and coat and Andrew bought new boots for himself and a large new cooking pot for ma.

Ma’s pattern had sold well and was one of the most made patterns that year and the next, and after the next shearing season David brought another much smaller bag of fleece to say thank you. When ma tried to refuse, saying that he had already been more than generous, he was insistent.

“Take it, Cora, please. And make more of Effie’s pattern. Whenever I go into town, I see glimpses of it everywhere. On children, men, and women, it’s like she is there with me. I even saw someone wearing the Effie pattern down in Edinburgh. You have kept her alive for me and I want you to keep making them and spread Effie’s pattern as far as it will go. I think she would have liked that, you know, to get off the island, and to think she was doing some good, keeping people warm and the like.”

Ma smiled at him. “Thank you David. We won’t forget your kindness to us. You are always welcome to join us here if it gets too lonely for you up on the hill.”

“Thank you, Cora. I don’t like the thought of leaving Effie and my wee lad up there alone though.”

Ma nodded and I watched David trudge back up the hill through the fresh snow, his shoulders slumped in his Effie jumper. I reflected on the mixed emotions of sadness for David and what he had lost, the joy I felt at having a new bag of fleece to spin and dye and guilt at feeling happy because of someone else’s loss.

I sent up a prayer for David, Effie and their wee baby boy, and hoped that wherever she was it was somewhere warm and bright. I wanted to start spinning the new fleece at once but ma put me to work on making the bread while she got out her writing tools and started drawing the squares for a chart.

“What are you doing ma?” I asked

“I have just had an idea for a new pattern Maggie. And this time I am going to call it the David. So start thinking of things we can use to make green dye.”

I smiled, anticipating another cosy winter spinning our beautiful Shetland fleece by the fire and imagining all the interesting faraway places the David might make it to.