So how has Whithorn changed then? You were mentioning that at the beginning. How do you think it's changed over the-- the years?
Zoe:
Dinna ken half the folk that's in it any mare.
Lauren:
No. And the pub's closed. There was a pub doon the street, The Railway Inn, it's closed, so. You don't actually get to see half the folk
Zoe:
No.
Lauren:
that you were seeing at the weekends.
Interviewer:
Mhm.
Zoe:
And everybody just kind of keeps theirsel to theirsel now, dint they?
Lauren:
Aye.
Zoe:
Rather than-- everybody used to socialise the-gither when we were younger,
Lauren:
In the pubs, aye.
Zoe:
and in the pubs and a'. Whereas there's nane of that now.
Lauren:
No, you don't--
Interviewer:
You don't even meet up with your own pals if you're not-- ?
Zoe:
Oh aye, aye, we dae that, but,
Lauren:
Aye.
Zoe:
like, even people that you werenae friendly with, you would--
Lauren:
You'd still meet and socialise with them.
Zoe:
You ken, you would socialise with them. Mhm. But there's nane of that noo.
Interviewer:
Mhm.
Zoe:
Everybody just kind of keeps theirsel to theirsel.
Lauren:
Yeah.
Older speakers
David:
I never done the last year, I was, eh, away at the hoeing and the shawing, and--
Helen:
Aye.
David:
It's when-- my mother and them was fine for keeping me off, so I literally finished the school at fourteen.
So I was in the hoeing and shawing and a' the rest of it. You took the ends of your drills for your mother and them to shaw up next and you went onto the next one off.
Helen:
Aye, aye, that's right, aye. Aye you took the ends off.
David:
Into the-- into the squads, it's-- you went into the squad, the hoeing squads.
Interviewer:
What did you take the ends off?
David:
The hoeing--
Helen:
The-- the turnips.
David:
Potatoes, turnips. The drills of turnips. You werenae big enough so you took all that and marked yours. You were maybe doing thirty. So they were yours.
Interviewer:
Right.
David:
And you can ging out for a week or two weeks and do that that was your-- no everybody could touch them. But your mother's men was out, but they took-- and you helped them and--.
Then the same with the shawing, doing the turnips with the-- in the frost.
Interviewer:
So you persuaded your mum that you wanted to do that rather than go to school?
David:
You had nay option, you were telt.
Interviewer:
You were-- oh right. Oh right.
David:
Oh you didnae-- oh it wasnae a case of-- Oh no no no.
Helen:
'Cause it was for money, I-- I mean it was--
Interviewer:
It was just-- Mhm, income.
David:
Aye, oh it was money. Oh, oh aye.
Helen:
it was income coming in for them, aye.
David:
Oh no no, you had nay option then, you went to the squads with a-- you were just a boy but you were took on just doing the same things and the--
with the men in the squads, and that's where you got your education, believe you me.
Interviewer:
Your education in life?
David:
Oh, at that age it'd curl your hair. You just stood, you-- you just suddenly realised, take in what-- oh lord Jesus, oh, some of the things. Oh.
Helen:
There-- there was nane of this "don't say anything in front of the weans." There was nothing like that.
Interviewer:
They didn't bother about things like that?
David:
Oh, there was nay such thing as that. Boy, Christ you got an early education.
