Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire newspapers include a number of accounts of work at the threshing mill at various times of the twentieth century. Some of these are reflective accounts of what it was like to work at the travelling threshing mill.
One such account was published in the Aberdeen evening express, of 12 December 1962. It is worth quoting at length for its reflections and observations:
“Old style thresh on new style mill
Alex Keith
We had “the mull” the other day. It used to be called “stem mull” in the age when nationalisation had never been thought of and coal sold at its economic value. New imported diesel has taken the place of home-raised coal and the tractor has supplanted the steam engine.
Soon, no doubt, there will be no travelling mill. The combine, driven by penal taxation and other so-called forms of social and economic progress, is ousting the older style of threshing grain. The farmer will be losing money by the change, but he’ll keep his reputation for being “go-ahead”.
We got on fine with the mill. The day was lovely, one of the pleasantest of the year-though not in Aberdeen five miles away! We were only getting four ricks out of the way. The big thresh will come after the New Year, when the grain will have matured and mellowed.
So the proceedings only occupied the afternoon yokin’, and fitted the time and daylight perfectly, allowing for “a piece” half-way through. The results were satisfactory. They confirmed the impression gathered at the time of harvest that 1962 is going to turn out the best in twenty years; both in grain and straw.
Let it be admitted that this mill procedure is old-fashioned. So-if we’re going to be metaphysical-are people and crops and the securing of them! The mill is comparatively new-fangled. No one seems to take those points into consideration.
Display
Still, this form of threshing has been going on long enough to collect its little halo of pleasant memories. If the chuf-chuf of the engine and the occasional pyrotechnical display of sparks from its lum have displaced by the steady girn of the tractor, the drone of the mill, rising and falling as the sheaves are digested by the threshing mechanism, is as friendly and soothing as ever.
And there’s a social side to the mill. From a dozen to fifteen people are required, the larger number when the corn has to be loaded up immediately for dispatch and when the straw is bunched and built into stacks. If the straw is baled the smaller number is adequate.
Usually two people lowse-that is cut out the bands of the sheaves. For this purpose a gauntlet with a sharp knife attached is strapped on the palm of the hand. With a little practice the sheaf is picked up, loosened, spread out and fed head foremost into the mill in a single steady and rhythmical motion.
Adept lowsers will keep a couple of forkers going. Then at the business end of the mill there is a battery of chutes, festooned with hooks to which the grain sacks are attached. Usually there are five.
Busy
To deal adequately with this corny discharge keeps four men pretty busy, and three very busy. The full sack has to be detached, lifted, weighed and adjusted to 168lb-a cwt and a half-the mouth tied, removed from the scales, hoisted on a man’s shoulders and conveyed to the bogie or lorry or whatever other temporary repository is being used.
The farm kitchen on mill day is a busy place with the womenfolk cooking and baking and peeling potatoes and masking tea. When the thresh is over the personnel come in and have their meal, with much talk and fun and laughter. The clash o’ the countryside is teen throu-han!”
