Heather Harry, or Harry the Besom as we called him, was a nice gentle old man who came round every August and stayed for a month or six weeks.

Where he came from or where he went to we knew not, but while in our district he lived in a little canvas tent, which he set up inside the circular walls of an old sheep fank out on the moor, and where the rabbit-eaten green grass was as smooth as velvet.

Sometimes we would be unaware of his arrival until he came round selling heather ('squaibean' or besoms) and 'bruiseagan' (pot-scrubbing brushes), but usually the gamekeeper or the shepherd brought news of his arrival.

In either case, no sooner did we learn that Heather Harry had come up we would go to 'ceilidh' on him in his tent at the fank, and to watch him (and help him) sorting out the heather into bunches appropriate for the particular purpose in view, then binding them, separately and together, with wire and fitting them to a birch handle to form a 'sguab' that would sweep the floor of the house or barn, or into the little 'bruiseag' with which to scrub clean the inside of pots and pans.

Harry's working tools were a strong bladed jack-knife and a pair of pliers; his raw materials were pieces of birch, heather and wire.

With these and his pair of skilful hands he would make brushes so neat and firm and well-tied that they would last the year round 'til he came again, and for his best and biggest 'sguab' he seldom asked more then a shilling.

Sometimes we would help him in the pulling of the good heather and in selecting birches suitable for handles; and for such services we would be presented with a 'sguab' or a 'bruiseag', in accordance with the value of the services rendered.

Reference:
Highland Life and Lore.
Colin MacDonald. Mercat Press. 1997.

Every season as it came around brought its own particular activities. In spring there was the usual bustle associated with ploughing and otherwise preparing the land for the sowing and planting of crops; that was mostly men's work.

Summer brought with it turnip-thinning and hay-making, at which both sexes gave a hand. It also brought peat cutting, which was a neighbourly co-operation in this work; two, three, or more families would form a squad that worked together until they had cut peats sufficient for the requirements of all concerned; and anyone who has never had 'a day at the peats' has missed a joyous experience. There would, indeed, be exquisitely aching limbs and backs after the first day of that hard work, but these were only subjects for joke and laughter.

The peat-moss in our case lay some four miles distant from the nearest house; the road to it was up a rough cart-track that led, first through the township, then through a shady fir-wood, and finally through two miles of heather. The whole squad would be afoot by five o'clock of a sunny summer's morning and ready to start off by six. There would be two or three older folk and maybe a dozen young people in all. There would be baskets packed with oatcakes and scones, fresh butter, home-made jam, hard-boiled eggs and - choicest of all - 'speldacks' (a variety of the finnan haddock of particularly delicious flavour) for dinner and tea. And the banter and the laughter and the light hearts with which they walked the miles to the moss!

By noon, peats sufficient for some six months' fuel for one house would be cut and spread on the banks to dry; and appetites would be so keen that they would not have quarrelled with much less toothsome fare than was then provided. And oh! The ecstasy of that meal, spread on an emerald bank by the side of a purling burn, with the larks pouring out their souls in the blue vault overhead!

After dinner the older folk would rest for half an hour while their irrepressible juniors indulged in 'soft-peat battles,' that are infinitely more ridiculous in their facial 'results' than snow-balling. Or, if there was an innocent amongst the company, the catch of 'leum nan tri foidean' (the three-peat jump) would be tried out.

For this practical joke - highly diverting to the onlookers and even laughed at by the victim - a spot was chosen at the edge of a deep peat-hag which contained a pool of black, peaty water.

Those in the know would start a competition in 'standing' long jump; they jumped from the edge of the hag, and landed on the lower level across the pool. When the competition got very keen an expert would suggest that much longer jumps could be achieved if the start was made from a slightly higher level. To demonstrate his theory he would lay three hard peats one above the other on the heather close to the edge of the hag and parallel to it.

He then stood on top of the peats and jumped. But he had to be very careful to spring almost vertically so as not to disturb the peats by the backward pressure of his toes; he just managed to clear the pool as a rule - sometimes he did not, and I have seen the biter bit! But, assuming no such initial catastrophe, the 'innocent' was allowed a try. He - or she - never suspecting a trap, stood on the peats and jumped in the ordinary way - with disastrous results!

The backward pressure of the toes at the moment of taking the spring caused the piled peats to tumble backwards and the athlete to take an involuntary header into the black mess below!

Sleep came without rocking that night; but the muscular pains and aches of next morning were in a class by themselves! However, another hard day at the peats was an effective, if heroic, remedy.

Scarcely any coal was used, and the annual fuel requirement of the township ran to 2500 loads of peat. As the years went by the difficulty of getting squads increased.

Coal had to be resorted to, and by 1925 had so completely ousted the old fuel that in that year not one load of peats was burned in the whole of the Strath.

Reference:
Life in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Colin MacDonald. Mercat Press. 1993.