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David McCarlie from Broxburn. Posted 29 Oct 2004.
A not-so- fond memory of mine was cutting turnips in the late 1970's. Today, this is all done by machinery but back then, it was done by hand.
I was given the job of topping and tailing turnips on a "Piece Work" basis for 20 pence per hundred yards. With hindsight, not a great rate for the work involved. I was given a hooked knife, looking a little like a sickle, but with a hook in the end. The idea was, use the hook to pull the turnip out of the ground and holding it in one hand, whack the top and the tail with the knife. It was sugested that I work with two "dreels" or rows, cutting the tops to the right and the tails to the left and drop the turnip in the middle of the "dreel". That seemed very simple.
Turnips have a thick tail root and copious foilage on top. Not particularly heavy but a solid vegetable nonetheless. I sailed through the first day, pulling the turnip by hand, twisting to the right a little and slicing the top off, swinging to the left and slicing the roots and dropping the turnip bewtwwen the rows. A day of standing bent over, twisting and straddling two rows of turnips left me a little sore and tired at the end of the day. A quick calculation suggested I had earned a disappointing £1.40 for my efforts. The next day would surely be better.
Besides having copious foliage, turnips have another characteristic of maturing in the winter time, which meant that all these leaves were going to hold a great deal of water. As it happened, the next day was bitterly cold and rained incessently. I was completely soaked and miserable after my efforts and worked out that I had made little over £1 for the day.
Worse was to come the next day, which started with sub zero temperatures. I found out why the hook was needed on the knife. The freeze during the night had stuck those turnips firmly in place and it was exhausting pulling and kicking these things out of the ground. The ice on the leaves was freezing my hands and I could barely feel the turnips. In fact, I could barely feel the knive dig in to the top of my hand. Noticing that the top of the turnip was still in place, I swiped the knife again, missing and adding another wound to my hand. Fortunately my hands were so cold that I felt no pain but I knew the wounds would need stitching.
With a heavily bandaged hand, it was clear that I was not going to finish the job. I was thanked for my work and paid £3.60.
I look back on this memory with affection, sporting two large scars on my hand some twenty years later. Affection not for the money, but for the satisfaction of sticking in and getting on with a hard job and puting up with the hardships.
There's not a chance that I would do it again though... |
