Interviews of Phyllis Harvey aged 84

This is the first of two autobiographical interviews with Phyllis (Fay) Harvey. Part 1 conducted in May 2012.

This interview covers Phyllis' early life up to the point at which she began formal schooling. Phyllis describes in detail life on the family dairy farm. The interview is conducted in Scots and some parts, e.g. the description of the harvest, contains an explanation of the Scots words used e.g. 'coals', the small stacks which were set during a wet harvest to encourage the crop to dry through.

Phyllis descibes the animals kept (and sold e.g. at Christmas) and talks about the visitors who came to stay on full board during the holidays and who provided additional income for the family. One man, Mr Watt, a sanitary inspector from Motherwell, came as part of a family group each year and he painted both Carsluith Castle and Garrochar. Phyllis reflects on times of bad weather, particularly the winter of 1935. The domestic economy of the farm is described, including the working day and foodways (food cooked at home, killing and curing pigs, getting groceries from the town).

Also recalled is the disruption caused by preparations for war (from 1938) when lorries were busy taking sand down to build the barracks and the aerodrome at Baldoon and transporting timber for construction of the barracks and also for mine pit props. Anecdote about Auld Wullie, a former soldier who had been at The Somme and whose life experience had led to him being unable to remain in a settled community. Also mentioned is the curling pond near Carsluith and moving on to secondary school (where Phyllis was taught by both the mother and father of the interviewer, Robert McQuistan).

DG2/1/1/3 Follow up interview conducted in August 2012.

In this second (of 2) interviews with Phyllis (Fay) Harvey, she begins by describing the accident which left her mother badly scalded and prevented her from attending school until several months after she should have done. Phyllis then describes in great detail the school room and the arrangements of desks and pupils, with children between 5 and 11/12 being taught in one large room. Lots of information is given about the subjects studied and the teaching methods. The youngest children started off using a slate with chalk before moving onto a blackboard. The teacher taught the whole class and reading tuition was done one-to-one at the teacher's desk. A child moved up a level only when they were ready and went on to senior classes around the age of 11. The school day started with a hymn and a prayer and the country children and the town children tended not to mix. Phyllis recalled that she sailed through the 11+ assessment process due to the impact of the arrival of large numbers of evacuees (Protestants in 1939/40 were followed by Catholics in 1942). Senior classes (where Phyllis was taught by the fieldworker's mother and father) is covered in detail. At age 14 the children when on to work in the quarry etc. or to the Douglas Ewart High School in Newton Stewart.

Her parents gave up farmimg when it became too difficult to cope without the additional service of the single man (the shortage caused by so many men being away at war) and they moved into the town where her father worked as a joiner. There is a brief biography of Phyllis' father and his initial decision to go into farming. After school, Phyllis, and her sister Doreen, went on to college in Glasgow (paid for by their parents) where they graduated with distinction and thereafter both got work in Glasgow. Phyllis worked under the direction of the film star, Pat Roc, looking after groups of young people from Brest, France. She remembered that the French tuition she had received at school helped her a lot in this work.