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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Caithness Memories

    Now that Bo Peep (or her techies) have fixed the repeating text problem, I thought I would post a transcription of a letter written in 1975 by a nonagenarian, taking personal memories of Caithness well back into the 19th century. One of my family is mentioned, but I post it because I think it will be of interest to all with Caithness ancestry.

    "Now a little of their history of how they lived and worked in Caithness in the days of long ago which I was told by my grandmother when I was a young girl. I have always been interested in people and especially in my relations so I listened to all her stories with great interest - some of them very sad, some very funny, and so on.
    "To begin with she told me her grandfather came from Forfarshire (now Angus) where I live. He moved to Caithness and married a Caithness woman. I have found there are a great many Hendrys round about here who spell the name the same. There had been a fairly large family of them too as grandmother used to speak about her uncles and aunts. On her mother's side she had no aunts and only one uncle.
    "William, their father, had a small farm or croft in Latheron and was also a butcher. He had no shop; he just went round the countryside selling his meat. I don't know what transport he had or if there were vans in those days, but he was bound to have a cover of some sort although the word hygiene wasn't spoken of then. I doubt if anyone died from food poisoning although some do now.
    "Caithness had very few industries - farming and fishing were the main ones. There were the flagstone quarries at Achscrabster (in the Parish of Thurso). Caithness at that time was famed for paving stones and blue slates (before concrete) which went all over the country. When I went to Edinburgh in 1900 the only remaining street of Caithness pavement was in George Square.
    "The Hendry family were mostly employed in farming and fishing. In the herring season the men went to sea and the women went to gut and pack the herring into barrels. When the harvest came round they went to work there. There were no reapers, not to mention a binder. The men may have had scythes but the women had hooks (or hukes as granny called them) and she said it was very hard work. At the end of six weeks (the time they were engaged for) they were paid the sum of one pound each. No wonder Britain is suffering from inflation now. The food then was very different from what we get now. Granny said their family was a well nourished one brought up on wholesome food as she termed it - 'porridge and brose, oatbreid, beer and barley-breid and fish', and there was of course the traditional dinner of tatties and herring, and I don't think they lacked for butcher meat in one form or another. The lassies and their mother had tea once a week, on the Sabbath day, and loaf which had no doubt been their cake in those days. I don't think I ever heard what the males got.
    "In later years Donald, William and John had a boat of their own. I don't know if Adam was in with them as he was the baby of the family, but I know Sandy (Alexander) wasn't, as he was already married and had a butcher's business in Wick, and also farmed Barnyards. After some years at sea they decided they would like to be back on dry land. Donald and William took the lease of the farm of Bardnaclavan (in the Parish of Thurso) for their mother (who was a widow) and two sisters and Adam and my step-uncles, the Mackenzies, who had made their home with their grandparents. John emigrated to America. Donald and William also had a butcher's business in Thurso - sorry I can't give dates - the only clue I have was reading in 1961 or 1962 in the John o' Groats Journal old files of 100 years ago of a bad storm at sea when their boat was long overdue, but had been brought in safely by her skipper Donald Hendry. From this I would think they had gone to Bardnaclavan in the early 1860's or not later than the mid sixties. My grandparents and their family came to live at Janetstown early in 1870 and they had been at Bardnaclavan some time before that.

    (continued in next post)
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  2. #2
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Part 2

    "There were many changes in the mid and late seventies - Donald and William got married and Donald got a farm of his own. William went into the carting business back in Wick and I think Adam did as well. After a few years William came back to Thurso and remained in that business. Adam married and remained in Wick in his own carting business and in later years when his family were grown up he also had a farm near Wick which his son, Adam, farmed. My two uncles, the Mackenzies, also left. John went into the navy and became a seafaring man. Angus married a Wick girl and joined the police force in Edinburgh where he stayed for a year or two before emigrating to Sydney, Australia. John returned from America, married and took over the lease of Bardnaclavan, and his mother stayed there until he retired in 1913 and went to live in Thurso where he died in 1922.
    "I must say I knew Donald, John and their families best and was closer to them as we lived in the same district and went together to Janetstown School (James F. Duthie was the teacher - a very good one, but very strict). Of the fourteen cousins who went to that school I am the only remaining one. John's remaining two daughters Elizabeth and Christina (Mrs. Irvine) died in June 1974 and the last surviving member of William's family, Georgina (Mrs. McLeod) died in September 1974. The only remaining ones would be in Adam's family.
    "In 1900 when my grandfather died, my uncle, who was unmarried, got a house for himself and his mother in Edinburgh where he worked. After Thurso it was a little strange, but my grandmother's sister Margaret (Mrs. Oag) and her family were there and one or two Hendry cousins so she was soon quite at home. I remember her telling me a funny story about the first time she went to the butcher's shop when she asked for a pound of rump steak. When she got home and opened it up she found it was shoulder steak, so back she went with it. There were two assistants, but she remembered the one who had served her and told him he had given her the wrong steak. He opened the parcel and still said it was rump steak. At that she got indignant and said 'don't you dare tell me that, my father was a butcher and I know every part of the animal far better than you do', so she got the steak changed. The next time she went back to the shop she saw them winking and laughing to each other as she went in at the door as much as to say 'here's that Heilan Steak Wifie again', but it worked and she was never cheated again. In fact they became good friends and she always got to choose whatever she wanted and got many little bargains, so she felt compensated for the advice and information she had given them. She had a great sense of humour (the whole family seemed to have). John was a real comic - all his family were known to him by nicknames and he had one for me too - 'Brow' - and I didn't like it. It's a Gaelic word, but I have never found out the meaning of it. He also had nicknames for his brothers and sisters - my granny was 'The Pilot' and Donald was 'Lord Ratter'. How he got such a grand title I really don't know. Many of the neighbours whom he nicknamed knew this and seemed to take it all in good part. I think I was the only one who didn't, but perhaps in your early schooldays you don't have much of a sense of humour. He seemed to be gifted with great patience and always had a smile on his face. I think Donald was a favourite uncle - Angus McKenzie (my step uncle) in Australia always kept up a correspondence with him and called his eldest son Donald Hendry McKenzie after him. Donald Swanson (who lived in Edinburgh) always made Donald’s his holiday home when he came north and I also spent many happy days and nights there in my schooldays. We used to look forward to going to Achliepster for the peat cutting, but it wasn't really the peats we were interested in, it was the picnic, making a fire and boiling the kettle for the tea and getting out all the good things packed in the basket by Aunt Christina. Uncle Donald worked very hard all day keeping three or four of us going spreading out the peats to dry. On the ten mile journey back home at night in the cart we had a sing song and some games such as 'The Minister's Cat'. Some of us would fall asleep on the way. When we got home there would be a roaring peat fire and a lovely tea (or supper) of home cured ham and egg prepared by Aunt Christina. Then the Good Book was read and a prayer was said before going to bed which was the custom in most homes in those days. Like the peats we young ones were not so interested in the prayers - our thoughts being elsewhere. But still we would call it 'The End of a Perfect Day.'
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  3. #3
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Part 3

    "I was very pleased to have a visit last summer from a granddaughter of Donald's - Christina Mackay (Mrs. Harcus) and her husband. I hadn't seen her since she was a little girl and she is now a mother and grandmother. Her husband, Robert, is an Orcadian who now farms on a large scale in Morayshire.
    "Now to finish I am going back to my grandmother who had great courage and faith and endured many hardships. This is one of her sad stories. After her husband and little boy died in Africa she had to return home in one of the old fashioned sailing ships which then took three months from Africa (Cape Town was where they lived) to London, but on her return trip she was six months at sea. It was a very stormy time and for as many knots as they made one day the next they were back to where they started and being so long overdue they ran short of food and water (the water being carried in barrels on the ship). She and her two children and the Captain's wife were the only passengers and I don't know how many of a crew, but they were on starvation diet and she told me her eldest boy (John) would pick up the crusts the monkeys threw away and eat them - he was so hungry. She prayed to God that if He spared their lives she would never waste food or water again and she never did. They eventually arrived in London (or wherever they docked) and the Captain and his wife took her to their home where she stayed for a week until she got a boat to take her to Leith and from there on to Wick. She said she could never repay their kindness to her and her children, but she said 'God would'. She always likened herself to Naomi who went out full and came back empty - Ruth:1:21.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  4. #4
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Part 4

    "In 1908 after being eight years in Edinburgh she felt she would like to go back and spend the remainder of her days in Caithness. Her sister (Mrs. Oag) died that year and she was now the only remaining one of the five sisters, but four of her brothers were still there, and my parents. My uncle married so she went back to Thurso. In 1912 my uncle came from Edinburgh to Thurso to live and work, which pleased her very much. She had seen many changes in her lifetime. She lived to receive the old age pension which was only 5/- then, but she thought it a fortune, and you could get a great many things in your basket for that amount. She had the pleasure of meeting two of her McKenzie grandsons, one of them twice, as he was over studying chemistry in Sheffield. The other came over with the 'Aussies' in 1914. Angus joined up with his brother Gordon and they both came to visit her in the spring of 1915. Their father remained in the police and rose to high promotion, but never returned to Caithness. Granny enjoyed good health apart from "rumatics" (as she termed it) and was able to look after herself until two weeks before she died when she was nursed by her only daughter (my mother). She died in July 1915.
    "Donald died in 1916. I'm not certain of the years when William and Adam died, but I know that Adam (the youngest) was the last survivor of the family.
    "After reading a copy of the family tree I got from a Miss Cameron (a great niece of my late husband) I was inspired to write this for three of John's granddaughters who seem to know very little of their Hendry relations. Two of them - Elizabeth Spey and Tessie Spey (Mrs. Easton) pay me an annual visit and the other Isabella Sutherland visits me often as she is Matron of a Boys' School (Lathallan) not very far from where I live. Their mothers were very dear to my grandmother as she looked after them and did a lot for them when their mother died. They were very young and couldn't remember their mother at all. John was left a widower with seven of a family, the eldest ten and the youngest only six months. My grandmother adopted the youngest child, but she died before she was two. After they grew up they always remembered her with affection and kindness and she was their favourite 'Aunt Keety'. She was of a very happy disposition and never grumbled. She also had a wonderful memory which I think I have inherited and I thank God for my memory too.
    "My memories of Janetstown have never faded - I can still picture in my mind's eye all the houses and places as they then were, but it will be very changed now. I was born in Victoria Cottage in March 1884. I expect it will still be there as it was quite a new house then. Like my granny I have seen many changes in my lifetime - the biggest, I think, being for the working class who are so much better off now compared with my young day, but they don't seem to appreciate it. They have got to the stage where they are never satisfied and if they don't see sense before long their greed and love of money is to ruin their country. But I sincerely hope that will not happen.
    "I hope John's granddaughters will enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. They may be surprised to know they had so many Hendry relations. My granny was very proud of her family and I have heard her say 'the Hendrys were a faimily o' strappin' men and weemen' and they certainly were a good looking family.
    "I have happy memories of all my relations and my dear grandmother's memory has been a keep sake which I have treasured all my life."

    Williamina S. Kinnear (nee Wilda Gunn) aged 91
    West Mains of Keithock
    Brechin
    Angus 26 May 1975
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  5. #5
    Brick wall demolition expert! ChristineR's Avatar
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    thanks Sue.

  6. #6
    Michael Duke
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    Smile Barbara Mackay

    Hello Sue,
    A great story! Do you have a Barbara MACKAY in your tree from the Thurso area who married Peter ANGUS before or after travelling to Canada early 1800's ? Best Regards Michael

  7. #7
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Duke View Post
    Hello Sue,
    A great story! Do you have a Barbara MACKAY in your tree from the Thurso area who married Peter ANGUS before or after travelling to Canada early 1800's ? Best Regards Michael
    Not to my knowledge. My husband's Mackays were over in Sutherland and then moved to Glasgow, Wales and points thousands of miles further west.

    My connection to Caithness is through the SINCLAIR family. John SINCLAIR and Catherine ROBERTSON of Janetstown had James, George, Janet, William, Margaret, John, Robert and Christina between 1836 and 1850. Margaret was my great grandmother. Christina, the youngest, married John HENDRY and is the 'Aunt Christina' in the above story.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  8. #8
    busyglen
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    Thank you Sue for sharing that with us....it is such a wonderful story!

    I can fully understand why you weren't able to share it with us earlier....the dreaded bug!

    Glenys

  9. #9
    Ken Berry
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    Default Hendry family Shetland Isles.

    Hi Sue.
    Thoroughly enjoyed you family and other family history.Apologies for not answering sooner.I am still trying to find out a wee bit more about Henry John Hendry.His son John William Hendry,although as I sdaid he appears as Berry in the 1901 census.Thomas died in 1918,of wounds.My Nan Minnie (Willeamina) had quite a few things returned to her from the Scots Guards.But Pa my grandad after she died in Nov.1932 after i was born in July and she had looked after me while my Mum was so crook(ill) he became a very solitary man my Dad always said.Yet he was also a gentleman and never swore except maybe when he sang some of his sea Shanties,certainly never got angry.Mum brothers and sisters all lived with us as her Dad due to Alcohol and loosing his legs below the knes didn't help.So when my Nan died,Lunty's wife in 1935 all the rest of the Lunts came and lived with us.But Pa Berry was great and they all loved him so much.A they all did Lunty but unfortunately not quite rightly.I got to know him a bit before I went up to Renfrew.Lunty's last sentence before he would leave was,"Well lad I'm a bit short this week could you lend me a few bob".I was playing with the Liverpool Reserves,A,B teams.He only ever came to away games Blackpool Fleetwood,Clitheroe,Wiganand Many oters never knew how he got there.Tom Bush and Jimmy McInnes were ther coaches and Manager and they asked me one day is that your Grandad,I said "Yes".From now on there is always a lift back to the Pool for him.First stop,first Pub as we came into Liverpool.Thanks for sharing Sue.Best Regards and Godbless Ken Berry

  10. #10
    RobynAus
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    Smile

    Hi Sue
    Not related but I enjoyed this wonderful letter
    My G-father came from Caithness, they were fisher folk but I know little about the life they led
    Thankyou for posting
    regards robyn

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