A Word of Ulster Scots 14

At the heart of life in all parts of the country was a relative newcomer to these shores, an import from the Americas named the potato but rendered locally as the "proota". In these low carb times, with the farmer diversifying or setting aside and the chip an endangered species (almost), the spud has declined in importance but once it ruled. "Naw a meal withoot a proota" is a damning indictment of a poor quality kitchen or insufficient hospitality and the search was always for the "dry proota", that holy grail of the Ulster Scots culinary arts. And while modern folk say "potato bread", we didn't say "proota bread", it was always "fadge".

But whatever part "prootas" had on the bill of fare (and it was extensive), the "getherin o the prootas" was gye hard work. If memory serves, there was a school holiday designated explicitly for "proota getherin" though if, as I've heard, the design of the entire school year relates to the agricultural economy's need for cheap or free labour, this should not be too surprising.

"Liftin prootas" was a communal activity, often involving family, neighbours and friends and if cash money was part of the deal, it rewarded the worker spectacularly, or so it seemed at the time. Someone, perhaps the owner of the "prootas", (who micht be different boady frae the yin that owned the land), kept a note of the bags filled by each "getherer" and pay or "pie" was by the bag "gethered". "Ye aye kep a good coont yersel".

"Prootas was gethered" in a "proota basket", a container shaped like a small cot, and full baskets were emptied into your bag. "The quicker, the more, the richer" was the logic but the ache in the back (and I can feel it now this instant, "mair years later than I care tae mine") and the coul o your fingers and the blisters on your hands and your "welton boots" made welts on your bare legs; it was a hard earned fortune. It's funny how you remember the good times.

The bags were about a hundredweight, eight stone; Lord knows what that is in kilograms but well beyond the lifting powers of the pre-teen in any measurement system. These bags were delivered to the "proota chute", a machine that always called to my mind the contraptions employed by Hollywood's gold prospectors to sift out their gold. The "proota chute", a sloping wooden structure down which the "prootas" poured and the sorters sorted and packed into other bags. I suppose we were prospecting for some sort of gold but this process only for "prootas gan oot", "yins for wur ain pot" were "pit in the proota pit", a grave-shaped pile of "prootas" covered with soil, a storage method which worked pretty effectively against all but the hardest of frosts.

"Ony o yes" can e-mail me at liam.logan@mail.com <mailto:liam.logan@mail.com> .
As always, I'd like to pay tribute to the poet and author James Fenton for his help and encouragement as well as his masterwork 'The Hamely Tongue' (available from the Ulster Scots Academic Press) on which I rely heavily. I know Jim "gethered a wheen" back in the day.