Uphouse and the Herra School

[the house further up]

'Before leaving the West side, I may give it as my opinion with reference to a school site. If only one school is to be put up the children who will suffer most will be those in the Herra as they are far from Mid yell-1878'

After the newer school was built the older one at Uphouse has been used as a dwelling house. When the telephone came to the Herra a public call box was put in and the occupier took, and passed on messages. If a message was for a family at Effstigarth a piece of white material was laid over the yard dyke, north or south, corresponding to whichever house the message was for. When the occupier left the Herra the public phone was relocated to one of the lower houses of Gremister. The building at Uphouse was upgraded and an access road was laid to it in 2000.

Hamarlea and Uphouse 2005

As well as the inhabited house there are two small adjoined houses, one used as an outhouse and the other in ruins.

Of the two adjoining old dwellings at Uphouse that furthest from the road was called John Omand`s house after the last person to live there. A John Omand was put out of a croft in Bouster and in the 1850s a John Omand was at the goldfields in Victoria, Australia. It is not known if they were this John Omand.

In the 1920s the house nearest the road was occupied by an elderly woman who was bedridden. Census lists describe her as a seamstress. People who remembered her said her only source of light was from a wick in a bottle. It was a very dark and smoky house. Her son went south and was said to work with Charlie Chaplin. He eventually returned looking prosperous and well to do but he was unable to keep up the look with his earnings at the local fishing station. A poem was written about him. Remembered parts are:

'Wee yin he cam hame fae sooth

A tale tae you tae tell

A very stylish gentleman

That landed in Mid Yell

His boots were of the shining kid

And suit of blackest cord

And all of his belongings

Was the best he could afford

His boots sae fine hae lost their shine

and turned roond aboot

Now he’s come doon in rank and station

As Burness message boy

Is now his occupation'

Chas named the rig below the two houses as the Stable Rig.

Here from the brow of the hill we were able to see the lower houses of Gremister, the beach and the voe. The building at the roadside on the right was previously the school.

As the Herra School was next to see on our journey Chas and I both had feelings of nostalgia. We reminisced about our times there and the pupils we had shared our days with. Most of them had moved away from the Herra as they grew up. When built the school was looked on as a great improvement to the old building that had been a source of complaint from parents.

The Herra School

The local people protested that a new school was required as the school at Uphouse was considered no longer suitable for the purpose of education. Two elderly men refused to pay their rates and the school was built by 1896. The Herra school closed in 1954 when pupils were bussed to the Mid Yell School. The earliest photograph taken at the Herra School shows the pupils and their teacher Gilbert Scollay. Scollay was remembered with affection by his former pupils. One story told by the boys was how he tried to get across the size of a new ship which was being built. So that they could understand the scale he took them outside to where a dyke had fallen and there on the ground they used the stones to mark the vessel's length and width. They then constructed the shape with pegs so that the boys could imagine moving about on the deck of such a large ship.

Teacher Gilbert Scollay and pupils, latest Herra School about 1911

L to R back row: Gilbert Scollay (teacher), Magnie Johnson, Katie Davidson, Charlie Inkster, Eenie Robertson, Robbie John Robertson, Jessie Gardiner, Jamsie Keith, Nancy Scollay (teacher's sister)

Front row: Gilbert Davidson, Jessie Anderson, Laurie Davy Robertson, Beena Inkster, Willie Anderson, Aggie Davidson, Tammie Goodlad

Soirees were held in the school at the beginning of the 20th century.

In war time the school windows were covered with net for protection. Drill was carried out so that the pupils knew what to do in case there was an air raid. They all carried their gas masks and practised putting them on and getting under desks and tables for safety. When outdoors they were trained to lie flat in any hollow if there was any danger.

Inside the school the one class room was on the end nearest the road and had a window to the front and a high window facing south. The room was heated by a pot bellied stove from 1912 and in the corner beside the front window there was a large fitted wooden bunker for peats. In the porch was a shelf where the pail of drinking water brought from the well stood. The water had been brought in before the pupils arrived in the morning. Both water, heating and cleaning were done by Herra residents. In 1926 the cost for flawing, cutting, raising, lumping, carting and building a stack was £4. 8s 4d for 126 hours work at the school peats.

Children from Gremister could run home at lunch time but the others usually brought snacks to eat in school.

When the school closed, the building which combined a classroom and schoolhouse, was converted into a dwelling house and given the name Hamarlea. Although the interior of the building has been altered the outside looks much as it did. The playground wall and the outside toilets still stand.

After looking around the school building we walked through the front gate and down the park to where we found the foundation of a shop which was owned by Johnie Pole until about 1908. When it ceased to trade the building was used as a stable and then the foundation was used to build peat stacks on.

I recalled hearing the names of two early teachers from the Herra.

Catherine Laurenson, born 1806 at Graveland was a schoolteacher. In 1861 she was living at Effstigarth. In 1831 Bourmaster Spence was a teacher in Graveland. For a time Bourmaster Spence was teacher at Quarff where he was convicted for the theft of shirts.

Instead of continuing down the hill we walked north from the school to where we could see a rocky area of sloping ground.