Anderson, Michael
Michael Anderson (1874 - 1972)
As you pass through the Farming section of the Heritage Centre, you cannot help noticing the striking portrait of Michael Anderson, a well-known and much respected shepherd on the remote farms of Tynedale and Redesdale. Famous for smoking a clay pipe that he maintained gave a cooler smoke, he is surrounded by the “tools” of his trade: sticks, crooks, hand clippers and, in a display case, the traditional tartan shepherd’s plaid.
Michael had a truly remarkable long and varied life. Before his marriage to Barbara Adamson in 1896, Michael Anderson and his sister were brought up by their grandparents on Wagtail farm near Hunstanworth. Michael was shepherd on the nearby farm of Gibraltar, when James, the first of his nine children, was born in 1898. Michael and Barbara remained at Gibraltar until shortly after the birth of Annie Agnes, their ninth and youngest child, in 1913. The couple then crossed into the North Tyne. In the 1921 census, Michael was working on the remote farm of Burngrange near Emblehope as one of the forty or more shepherds employed on the grazings of Mr. Robert Bruce of Sunnyside, the famous Borders upland farmer.
In 1932, his son Michael married Ciscelia J. Anderson. By the time that the Second World War broke out, Michael Anderson senior had retired to West Woodburn and Michael Anderson junior had become shepherd at Emblehope Farm. During his retirement at West Woodburn, Michael senior was often asked to judge sheep and stick dressing at local shows.
After Barbara his wife died on 9th June 1952, he lived at West Woodburn with Nancy, his youngest daughter. It was at this point that a famous artist, who lived at Lowlands, West Woodburn, asked if she could paint his portrait with him wearing the traditional shepherd’s Northumberland tartan plaid, a long length of woollen tweed worn around the shoulder. Her name was Marjorie Kingston Walker (1891-1968) and she included this iconic portrait in a prestigious exhibition in London. During winter and spring months, shepherds wore these plaids on their twice-daily trips around the hills to check their sheep and lambs. In cold weather, many a weakly lamb would be wrapped in a plaid for warmth before being nursed in the farmhouse kitchen. Plaids were also used as an overcoat or even a raincoat.
During his working life, Michael Anderson was always to be found in isolated areas, where the shepherd’s year had hardly changed for centuries. Neighbouring shepherds and farmers would gather at busy times to help each other with sheep work: gathering, for example, which was bringing sheep to the farm from the hills to clip (shear) in early summer, or dipping them in a dipper to kill any nasties in their fleeces. These occasions were enjoyed by all and the shepherds’ wives would make huge meals for everyone to enjoy when all of the work was finished.
Apart from sheep work, a very important job was haymaking. The hay was what kept sheep, cattle and horses alive during bad winters. Each farm had a work horse. Milk cows, as well as eating hay, were given corn which had to be bought. Milk cows supplied the family with milk and cream. Wives usually looked after them, milking and making butter with the cream.
Michael always had a garden growing mostly potatoes and all kinds of vegetables to feed the family. This kept the family going most of the year. They would have a grocery delivery around every six weeks. This was one of the occasions when the horse and cart was used as they had to travel to meet the grocer. They always bought flour in big bags. They always kept hens, so eggs were plentiful. Their way of life really did not need much input from outside and generations had lived in the same way before them.
The following notes come from Clive Dalton who spent his boyhood and youth in Noble Street, Bellingham, before migrating to New Zealand. Everyone knew and respected Michael Anderson.
“Everybody in Noble Street made their own mats - either Hookies or Stubbies, and the ‘clippings’ to make them were any old materials such as old clothings or rags. Nothing was ever wasted. But a high quality job justified a bus trip to Otterburn Mill to buy some tweed offcuts which created a problem as they had to be cut into long lengths and rolled into balls for the Hookies, and cut into short lengths about 6 inches long for the Stubbies. Scissors were mostly useless and never sharp enough. So this is where Michael Anderson’s sheep shears solved the problem after we asked his daughter Margaret Smith, our neighbour in Noble Street, to borrow them from him. Over time they got blunt, with the whole street borrowing them, and we were all sworn with a fate worse than death never, ever try to sharpen them. Each shepherd had his own angle on the cutting edge and to alter that by the angle of the stone would take hours to correct. The shears always went back to Michael to sharpen or he would touch them up when he called to visit his daughter and his family in Noble Street.”
From a grand-daughter’s memories, edited by Stan Owen
