One of my recent tasks has been to list the contents of some photograph albums.  It has made me reminisce about ‘the good old days’ when we would send the film off to be developed and then patiently wait to see the end result.  There was always that slight annoyance at the shots wasted due to a stray finger, a strand of hair or were blurred; and wonder why you had taken some of them, who on earth were you standing next to?!  Individual photographs were precious, after all you could only take so many per film.   You would then take those photos in to school or work and recall the memories all over again with anyone listening, whether they wanted to or not!  You would glare at anyone who dared to mishandle them, after all you didn’t want your memory spoilt by someone’s errant fingerprint.  Nowadays some of that is lost, photographs are taken and shared on social media in an instant, bad photographs are quickly deleted, edited, filtered or re-taken.  It does mean, however, that more than ever we have access to photographic images. 

The albums record day trips, holidays, family, friends and of course some pets too.  Updating the catalogue with their contents is very much a team effort.  The staff at the Archives are still working partly at home and in bubbles when in the office.  This means that things do take longer than ‘normal’.  One of the team dealing with digitisation took individual images of each photograph as well as the whole page of an album so that as much information about the people and places represented can be captured whilst listing at home.  As well as content, unique references are added to the catalogue for each image; these individual references are bulk uploaded at a later date behind the scenes so that the image becomes visible to the end user via the online catalogue on the Northumberland Archives website.  In the office reference numbers are added, the digital version is cross-checked with the original photograph to ensure they match and then stored in accordance to archival standards. 

The most recent albums that I have worked on are from a collection of eight albums from Mary Hanington who lived in Ponteland in the 1930s.  It was difficult to narrow it down, but here are a couple of my favourites so far, a picture from ‘the Hoppings’ on Newcastle’s Town Moor and a lady having fun on the swing being described as “trying to be an ‘Ovingham School Child’ (it was their playground)”. 

Bob Hepple was born at Sook Hill Farm, Cawburn, near Haltwhistle in 1891.   Bob had always preferred helping out with the sheep on his father’s farm and dedicated his life to shepherding on the hills in the Tynedale area.  This week I got the pleasure of transcribing the oral history recordings from 1974 where Bob talks about his life working on the hills.   Listening to Bob talk it was obvious that he had loved his job – at one point saying that shepherding is a vocation rather than just a job.  At the time of the interview, he would have been 83 years old and still looking after sheep!  He explains the life of a shepherd with sufficient depth that on more than one occasion Robin Gard, the archivist conducting the interview, comments that he’ll be a shepherd by the end of their chat. 

A large part of the interview is based on Mr. Hepple talking through a year in the life of the shepherd.  He starts with May as hirings took place in that month, this would be when the shepherd would start work.  Lambing would finish in mid-May.  Lambing was done in the field; it was cold work.  A straightforward birth could take place in half an hour; a more complicated birth required intervention from the shepherd whether that was to move the lamb in the correct position for the ewe or dealing with the arrival of twins or even triplets.  Some lambs sadly wouldn’t make it; the surviving ewe would be introduced to another lamb to take on.  Next, the lambs would then be marked for the allocated ‘cut’ of land or part of the hill that they would live on.  The size of the cut and the number of sheep upon depended on the size of the farm; sheep generally recognised where their ‘home’ was and mostly stayed true to it, if they did wander into the land of a neighbouring farm, they would be retrieved using the sheepdogs.  Tup lambs would be castrated and later sold on, the best one’s were kept for the ewes. 

Sheep shearing would start the end of May, early June subject to the weather.  Bob preferred to use shears and would stand using his knee to keep the sheep still.  Starting down one side of the neck and then the other; most sheep were docile, but the odd one would give him a kick.  Knowing when to start the shearing was important, if it was done too early the sheep could get sunburnt in the summer.  The timing was right when the new wool was visible and the neck was bare.  All the sheep, except the lambs, would be clipped, it took about four-minutes per sheep by hand, producing roughly 8lb of wool.  The clipped wool would be folded, bound, tied and sold in bulk.  Sometimes shepherds would wash the sheep in the river so that the wool could be sold for a better price. 

After clipping the sheep would be dipped to get rid of ‘keds’ insects like tics and spiders.  A long trough would be used, the sheep put in it, the head ducked beneath the water and they swam out; it was done twice a year, after clipping and before the winter.  Some of the sheep, hoggs and wedders (castrated males) would be sold in a summer market at Haltwhistle, some later in the year.  The age of the sheep was identified by a mark on the horn; ewes were known by age, lambs, hoggs (aged 1), gimmers (aged 2), young ewes (aged 3) and draft ewes after that.  By October it was time to take the hoggs to be ‘wintered’, which was a common practice.  When Mr. Hepple worked at Whitfield, the hoggs were taken to Bardon Mill for the winter, a walk of about 10-12 miles over the hills with sheep and dogs, the sheep would be looked after another shepherd until they were collected in the following March. 

November was market time again, some of the male tups and older ‘draft’ ewes aged 6-7 would be sold.   The tups and ewes, from the age of gimmers up, would be kept separate until mid-November; the younger ewes having been taken elsewhere for the winter.  Tups were sometimes bought or ewes taken to a tup at another farm avoid in-breeding.   Five tups would be enough for 20-score (400) sheep.  The winters were cold and harsh, Mr. Hepple recalled having to dig the sheep out of the snow in a particularly bad winter, he was lucky never to have got frostbite! 

Bob would collect the ‘wintered’ sheep on 1^st March.  When he wasn’t lambing, shearing and dipping there were numerous daily duties to be done, including the sheep being ‘turned in’ and ‘turned out’ each day, moving them from the hilltops to the lower grazing ground, dressing lame feet, moving any sheep that got stuck, checking drains, helping possibly with hay or other duties on the farm as well as training the sheepdog puppies.  Lambing would usually commence early April to bring us to the end of the year in the life of a shepherd. 

If you would like to hear Bob Hepple talk about different aspects of the shepherding year and a little about his life outside shepherding, why not listen to November’s podcast which will be available to listen to later this month.