Memories of a childhood in Melness in the 1930s and 40s
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While researching her family history, Laura Adkins learned more about her mother's childhood which was spent on the croft at Skinnet, Melness
When my mum died in 2019, she left notes about her childhood in Melness. She had lived in England since 1957, but had held Melness and the Highlands with great affection in her heart and was proud to be Scottish.
I’d like to share some memories of that place and time with you.
Wilma was born in 1932 in Skinnet, Melness, where she lived with her mother, uncle, and grandparents Williamina (known as Mina) and Hugh Mackay, a crofter and fisherman known locally as "Boot". This nickname may have derived from his long leather fisherman’s boots, and his reputation for making boats – he worked a lot with the herring fleet in Yarmouth, where boat was pronounced "boot".
Hugh was a quiet man, but when he spoke people listened. He was over six feet tall, slim, and reputed to be the strongest man in that part of the Highlands. He smoked black twist tobacco in a pipe and, like many Highlanders, was a Glasgow policeman, signed up when not at the herring fishing. Glasgow hired Highland men because of their height and quiet voice of authority.
Mina Mackay (née Morrison) was from Kinlochbervie. She was a fishwife who, along with scores of other Highland women, had followed the herring fleet to the ports on the way down from the north all the way to Yarmouth. She was small and used a stick due to arthritis. She was often in pain, yet had a great sense of humour.
Houses in Melness at the time had no water, electricity, gas or telephone. The Mackays used paraffin lamps, peat fires and water they carried from a spring. They had a tin bath, filled using kettles of hot and cold water. It took so long to fill and empty, that baths were usually reserved for children. They owned a cow, sheep and hens, and grew potatoes and other vegetables.
The cooking facilities were basic, but grandma Mina was a clever cook. Using a griddle, she made triangular shaped scones (similar to those from Ireland), potato scones, brown scones that she called "beer" meal, black pudding and white pudding using blood and suet from their sheep, as well as Crowdie (a soft cheese) and butter with cream from their cow.
Skinnet overlooks the Kyle of Tongue, a shallow sea loch. Wilma collected mussels, cockles and winkles there. Grandad Hugh would go fishing for cod, haddock, mackerel, plaice, and catch crabs and lobsters in cages he had made. The crabs were big and walked around the kitchen floor.
Skinnet had a general store and a post office which had a telephone for the village. A grocer’s van and butcher’s van came from Thurso each week, and a mail bus left each day at 8.30am. There were no pubs or restaurants.
For entertainment, the family had a radio, a wind-up gramophone, and the local hop at the hall. The few children in Skinnet were given a lot of freedom. Wilma and her friends loved to play in Talmine Bay, inventing games, finding shells and climbing the rocks to collect dulse seaweed.
Older people in Skinnet mainly spoke Gaelic but the children spoke English at Melness Primary School, which had two classrooms and two teachers, one of whom was the head. Wilma also went to Sunday school – a long walk, passing a farm with a bull. If it wasn’t for her fear of this bull, she could imagine becoming a vet.
The family had collie dogs and Wilma was especially fond of Prince, who had a blue eye and a brown eye and shook paws with visitors. But Wilma did not like bulls. She became interested in training as a nurse.
Each summer, Wilma’s relatives arrived for a month’s visit. "The Lanes" from Gloucester (including five cousins) came by car, driving non-stop and arriving around midnight. Other aunties, uncles and cousins arrived too. With so many in the house, life became chaotic. To provide extra food, Wilma’s uncles collected gull’s eggs and caught rabbits.
On the stormy night of January 8, 1945, when Wilma was almost 13, a British merchant steamer (the SS Ashbury) foundered and sank on rocks at the mouth of the Kyle of Tongue. It was carrying 42 sailors.
While the family were in bed a coastguard hammered on the door, recruiting people to help save the sailors. Wilma’s uncles hurried to the scene, but there were no survivors. As Wilma walked to school the next day, she saw bodies in the sea. They were brought to shore and laid in the church.
That year, Wilma went to Higher School in Golspie, where she stayed in lodgings. At 17 she worked at a hospital in Thurso, and in 1950, went to Royal Infirmary Edinburgh to start training as an SRN. She qualified in 1953 and soon after met my dad (who was from Gateshead and training as a doctor) at the Edinburgh University Dance.
Mum and dad are at rest now in Solihull, just south of Birmingham, where I live – an area they also grew very attached to. But we have had a memorial stone placed for mum in Melness Cemetery, because of her abiding love of the Highlands and Melness.
