Aitkenhead

1940-1996: Farming at Kilquhanity: A Commercial Enterprise?

Running a school costs money 

The series of three articles on Farming at Kilquhanity shown on the index of the Aitkenhead archives and ending with this one, begins with the following quote from John. 

Kids and Cows

I often think that if I wasn’t a schoolmaster looking after kids, I’d be a crofter, looking after cows. As it is I am very happy being both even if the double job is sometimes waring.

The quote is undated but John mentions his first attempts at starting some sort of a “farm” at the Kilquhanity, long before the first records exist of documents referring to the purchase of agricultural stock which really only began in 1958  . . . .

fifteen Khaki Cambell ducks from a neighbour. . . our first cow, Susie . . . .

 and generally ended by 1969.

Be that as it may, here are some of the documents that hint at his attempts to get his farming ambitions going during this period,

1954   Purchase of 2 bacon pigs

1954   A claim to the Ministry of Food for milk from the School farm cows, presumably supplied to pupils 

January 1957    300 pullets @£22 each and other fowl bought for  an investment of at least 

£6 600 - not exactly chicken-feed at the time

February 1957   An insecticide manufacturer carried out a survey of what they called a “small Home farm" attached to Kilquhanity School and found a heavy infestation of rats. They would solve John’s problems based on an annual contract of twenty-four Guineas per annum. Not exactly what John wanted to hear at the time. 

March 1957 The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was sent a small male chicken presumably taken from Kilquhanity’s flock for a post mortem examination. 

The result suggested poor husbandry, which cannot have been much to Aitkenhead’s liking either. Difficult to tell how many chickens he had already bought but as shown above, he must have already had a few already.

It must have been around this time that John drafted an advertisement:

Good company, wage and board and accommodation offered to a single man capable of taking charge of 1000 bird deep litter unit being built up. Must also be keen and able to rear replacement birds and help generally on small farm run as integral part of small well established community school

I don’t have a date so it is impossible to tell if this was sent in desperation or because things were going so well.  suspect the former.

1958   A licence for a boar

1960   A licence  for 1 Large white boar

Generally, I would say that the pigs were doing quite well. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I remember sitting up through the night to wait for a pregnant sow to start delivering piglets - sometimes up to ten, one after the other.

A Saddleback sow and piglets - Kilquhanity pigs seemingly wallowing in Squalor 

1961    Invoice paid for sale of eggs from Kilquhanity.

John must have managed to keep at least some of his old his flock going after all.

1961    Perhaps a reluctantly purchased pony called Patch.

There were several horses or ponies in Kilquhaity. This one is Patch. 

The girl is Sally Anderson an American pupil. Her father owned  a huge orange farm in California

1963     Invoice for the purchase of a portable electric milking machine – By now the school must have had at least three cows.

1968  A cow called Polly swallowed a piece of wire which was successfully removed by the local vet in the presence of two observers, John Aitkenhead's son Gavin and somebody called David. The removed "wire" was kept and curiously still exists today as shown above.

1990s        The tractor is a Massey Ferguson 135 and about 60 years old but still going strong

It was purchased in 1990s by which time all thoughts of making a commercial success of the school farm were over

John Aitkenhead may have stressed the importance of a school farm in the education of children. But I am sure that he also hoped that the farm could create much needed income for the school. There were also perhaps other more subtle reasons. If he hadn't decided to open a school he probably might have been able to make a go of being a proper farmer - or even better - a "crofter", as he himself put it.

In later years the school accountant made separate references, for Income Tax purposes for the school farm. As far as I can make out from the archive material, neither John nor Morag ever paid any Income Tax – neither from the farm nor from the school. But of one thing I am almost certain. 
Neither of them were ever driven by money. 

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