Here you will find what Francis’ memories of a life on a Scottish farm are like.

• A milk can (1 gallon) – being sent with it to fetch milk.
• Bowls – one brown, one white – of creamy milk in cool dairy shed.
• Geese hooting and hissing, chasing you at the farm gate, almost nipping your ankles.
• A barn with a curved corrugated roof; kittens born amongst the hay bales (later drowned).
• A byre – warm, 4 or 5 cows, hum of a milking machine.
• A woolly black face sheep on the hillside fields bounded by dry-stone dykes.
• A farmer – a flat cap, blue clothes, welly boots, a shepherd’s crook in hand, a red face, a loud voice, striding in fields.
• A kennel by the byre with a black and white border collie.
• A farmer’s housekeeper coming to the porch door to take your milk can to fill – not always very friendly.
• Telling the farmer one day we’d seen a dead sheep in his field (thinking we were being helpful). He was very angry – told us he kent knew and oo should gaun awa and mind oor ain business.

TASK

• As you can see Francis’ associations are expressed in phrases not full sentences. Write a description of a life on a Scottish farm using Francis’ prompts. How different do you think a Polish farm of 30 years ago was?
• Are you interested in learning more about the life in the country in the distant past? Do you know any other sources of information about villages and their inhabitants with their loves and hates?
• Folk songs can be informative, too. Do you know any Polish folk songs that contain descriptions and examples of life in the country many years ago?

If you are interested in learning one traditional Irish folk song click here.