The Kaim

Grandma Crawford was an Orr. Agness Orr of Kaim, a three-hundred-acre farm about two miles from Lochwinnoch, just off the Greenock Road. It had been in the Orr family for about fourteen generations. The family tree, however, only goes back to 1700. The generations before that are vague. I

know of no records covering that period. There were three Kaim farms each with their own farm buildings and within 500 yards of each other. It was a custom in the unsettled times of the Middle Ages for the farmers to keep near to one another for mutual protection. The wild Highlands were only sixty miles away across the Clyde.

The three farms were known as: the Orr’s Kaim, the Johnston’s Kaim and the__________Kaim. I have forgotten the name of the third. It was the smallest of the three. I think it was McLeod.

My grandmother was one of a family ten children, eight of which were daughters. Farmers believed in having large families in those days so the work could be spread over many hands. Besides, as they grew their own food the cost of bringing them up was not excessive. Of the eight Orr daughters, one died in infancy, two married and settled in Scotland and five emigrated to Canada. Grandma Crawford was one of the two who stayed in Scotland. Those who came to Canada, about the 1840’s, settled first in Woodstock, Ontario except for one who had married a Campbell and stayed first in Toronto, I believe.

When Grandma Crawford was widowed in 1881 she lived in the family home at 35 Calder Street, my sister and I were often out for a holiday at Lochwinnoch. We liked it best in gooseberry time. She had fifteen varieties of gooseberry in her garden. Some with especially fine flavour. The long garden stretched from the house to a high wall at the foot. At the top of the wall a gasometer could be seen which supplied the town with gas.

There was a bower of laurel bushes and trees at the end of the path down the center of the garden. It was a secluded spot, a nice place to take a young lady visitor who was not too close a relation. It wasn’t so good, however, when the children of the gas maker happened to be playing on the other side and climbed the wall to see where the voices were coming from on the other side. This happened more than once at an inconvenient time. There was a well, in the middle of the garden in the center of a small washing green. It had a concrete slab on top with a small, round opening in the middle. It was just big enough to let a pail through. The pail was lowered on the end of a round pole with a hook at the end and a spring latch to hold the pail handle. At one end of the washing green or lawn was a stone sun dial (see image above). On the base it was engraved with the date 1750. So, it must have seen many a sunny day. The lawn was big enough to play croquet on. I can remember Addie and I buying a set of mallets and hoops, a wooden ball or two and having many a game of the old- fashioned kind.

Between the time Grandma Crawford died in 1891 and the time my mother and sister moved out to Lochwinnoch in 1895 our house in Lochwinnoch was rented to a Dr. Low. It was an old house of eight rooms with four of the rooms upstairs and four downstairs. It had a hall running from the front door to the back door paved with great, flat stones. The kitchen floor was also of stone or rather some hard kind of cement. The sitting room behind the kitchen was on a slightly higher level, a step or two up. The cellar under the sitting room floor had been used as a stable for a pony and a milk cow in my mother's younger days. There were outhouses at the back with flower gardens and gooseberry bushes. A great water barrel, full of rainwater, stood in one corner of the stone-paved patio. There was a washing boiler set in a stone or a brick setting nearby under a separate roof. The three coal cellars to one side of the back door were roofed with a great, flat slab of rock six feet square covering each one with stone steps leading down to the garden walk. Every one of the eight rooms had a box bed. That is a full-size bed for two built into the side of the room, closed at the front or room side by double doors.

In the kitchen the bed was under the stair to the rooms above. Therefore, I did not have much head room at one end. The house had stone walls that were two feet thick. The stone and lime was of so hard a nature that it took a plumber a full day to drive a hole through for a water pipe. They built substantial houses in the olden days in Scotland. We had a gravel sidewalk in front of the house-about five feet wide. However, there was no room for a surface drainage system in the street. A steady stream of water ran down the gutter beyond the sidewalk curb. On wet days we could hear the music of water rushing along in all the rooms in the front of the house. There was always a stream of water running there even in summer. It was a favourite place for children to build dams and the boys liked to divert the water down the street. The local name for the gutter was the ‘goat’. So, when a boy was heard to say, “Let’s dam the goat.” It was not as bad as it sounded. We will come back to Lochwinnoch and its ‘goats’ again later.

Aunt Orr, (Christina McBride Orr opposite with William Orr Jr who died in 1916), of Kaim, the old estate of the Orr family, should enter the story now. She was a wonderful woman and had married William Orr of Kaim as his second wife. William Orr was the elder brother of our Grandma Crawford whose maiden name was Agnes Orr. It was a two mile walk from Lochwinnoch to the Kaim. Every other Sunday my mother, Addie and I would take a walk up there for an afternoon to have a chat with Aunt Orr. She lived by herself with the help of a country girl from Arran.

Our walk to the Kaim was one that I never tired of because of the beautiful scenery of the Lochwinnoch countryside. Up Calder St. from my mother’s house the road wound first along an old water course or water lade that once fed the now extinct flax mill with water power. Part way along this lade a large single arch bridge crossed the river Calder to a row of cottages. This was known as Bridgend. We would not cross this bridge but instead continue along the bank of the river Calder for a few hundred yards passing the waterfall over the old flax mill dam. Not far past this was the mill that had once belonged to my grandfather. The old buildings were set in a cleft of the Calder Glen with beech and maple trees lining the river, the road and buildings. Then the road climbed steeply from the wool mill buildings and its water lade up and out of the glen to a small farm at the top of the hill called Little Cloak. This was farmed by Wm. Love who had a milk sale business. He ran a milk cart around Lochwinnoch. From here the road joined the main Greenock Road and passed a farm or two before passing through an avenue of beech trees. On the other end of the line of beeches the Kaim road went off to the left and crossed a small stone bridge

over the Kaim Burn. It was here in a deep dell of the Kaim beside a noisy

waterfall where a story about witches had its origin. Addie and I usually looked down into the dell from the roadside to see if any of the witches were about. My mother’s usual comment if she saw us staring intently was, “Now you two, don’t be silly.” We did get a fright once when we saw a cloth cap moving along the bushes at the burn side but it was only a farm lad taking his girl down to see the waterfall.

The road then led to the right through the Kaim fields with hedges on either side past a great, black heap of rock that had been quarried from underground when William Orr thought he had a fortune in copper under his land. The mine, however, barely paid expenses after the ore was shipped to Swansea for refining. The Kaim buildings stood high looking out over the fields and away across miles of country to the hills beyond Lochwinnoch and Beith. The smoke of Kilwinning was seen off to the right and the trees there were the only screen blocking the view of the sea coast at Ardrossan. The Kaim buildings were surrounded by great trees and a small fir plantation between the house and the road. I tried several times to catch trout in the Kaim Burn but the only thing I got there was a big, squirming eel that chewed my line to pieces before I got it off the hook. Aunt Orr’s cat got that eel for dinner.

Johnstone’s Kaim farm was a little farther up the road past the back of the Orr’s barn and cow byre. It was also surrounded by trees. The Johnstones had not been there for more than two generations. The first Johnstone bought the place when he made some money in Glasgow after he sold his property on St. Enoch's Square to The Glasgow & South Western Railway Co. It was on that site that the large St. Enoch Station was built, an immense building of hotels, offices and a great glass-roofed station with platforms for eight to ten trains. This was the station where we took a train for Paisley, Lochwinnoch or the coast of Ayrshire. The main line continued on to Kilmarnock, Dumfries and Carlyle in the north of England. Many a weary wait we had there when the trains were late or when we had arrived too early.

We were often at the Johnstone’s Kaim when I spent a weekend at Lochwinnoch. A Miss Johnstone had been a school friend of my mother. She never married and was frequently an invalid. Sometimes there were five daughters of her brother spending their summer holidays there from Stewarton in Ayrshire where their father was a lawyer. They were bright girls, fair-haired and we had many pleasant evenings with them. The best fun was the playing of all kinds of card games. Jimmie Johnstone, one of the girls uncles usually joined our games. He was a little simple but knew his cards well. He also knew how to manage the cows they kept. His sister managed the financial affairs of the farm.

I spent many of my holidays at this time up the river Calder with my fishing rod. The old fishing creel that hangs in our basement here in Victoria, BC was on my back. I would trudge about six or seven miles up the road past the Little Cloak Farm and the Meikle Cloak Farm of the Muirhead family until I got up beyond the Calder Glen and a rocky ravine to the moors. I did not go up as far as the small lake at Muishiel House as I would then have to pass the Muishield gamekeeper’s house. I had been refused permission to fish from the English owner of the shooting estate when I applied for it once. However, I dodged the gamekeeper by arriving at the upper end of the Calder ravine by four o’clock of the morning. By the time he was awake I was down river a ways behind the shelter of the trees and rocks in the deep gulley of the Calder. The gamekeeper only caught me once and it was down the river near the boundary of the Muirhead’s land where I did have full permission to fish. Arthur Muirhead and I had been at school together in our boyhood days and we were related through marriage. The trout in the Calder were mostly in the deep pools where they lay near the waterfalls. It was no easy matter getting down from one pool to another. At some places rod and creel had to be lowered over the face of a precipitous rock. The fisherman then lowered himself by grasping the tree roots and slithering down the rock. Of course, the biggest trout were caught in the deep pools that were hardest to get to. A deep, black pool into which a fifteen-foot-high waterfall thundered was my favourite place. It was called the Reikan Linn as there was always a vapor rising from it. I would sit and dream in the sunshine beside the Reikan Linn  when the trout were not biting. With the roar of the falls in my ears and thinking of the beauty of the Calder Glen I could imagine I saw the footprints of many of my forefathers in that place.  There had walked Orr’s, Crawfords, Holmes and other ancestors. I often wished that I owned a mile or two along the banks of the Calder to wander along whenever I pleased.

We often called on the Muirhead family. More often when old Mrs. Muirhead was alive. She was related to us somehow. I think she was a Reid and a sister to the wife of William Holmes who had a carriage building business in Irvine, Ayrshire. William Holmes was my mother’s cousin. His mother had been Janet Orr of Kaim and she married Sandy Holmes.

Roland Muirhead is now living in the old house of Meikle Cloak. He has practically retired from the management of the Bridge of Weir Tannery, I saw just the other day that he had been awarded the Fletcher of Saltoun medal for his life’s work advocating home rule for Scotland. The Muirheads were a serious minded family and they liked to think for themselves. Often they were the supporters of minority factions and lost causes. An elder brother, Roland Muirhead was a strong socialist. He was also a professor at Glasgow University. He was what people then called a ‘rationalist’, i.e. he did not conform to any church creed or belief. He got into trouble with the director of the college for expressing his views on religion and had to resign his professorship.

Roland fought a battle in Lochwinnoch with the Church of Scotland minister there. His land of Meikle Cloak was subject to a tax to support the Established Church of Scotland called ‘tiends. He said that he disapproved of the Church of Scotland, did not belong to it and therefore should not be taxed to support it. The minister of the parish church at Lochwinnoch had to take him to court every year to get ‘tiends’ from Meikle Cloak. Of course Roland would have to pay expenses for the legal proceedings but he thought it was worth it to show everyone the bad principal of taxing people for a church that he did not want to support. In other words he was working for the Disestablihment of the Church of Scotland like the Irish had done in the time of Gladstone with The Church of Ireland.

Canada has a better system. It is a younger country and farther away from the olden days when the established churches had power and influence in the government of the country. All Canadian churches of whatever sect have to support themselves from their own pockets. The only benefit they get from the government is an exemption from property taxes. This is a much fairer system. We will meet Roland Muirhead again later in this narrative.

One of my mothers sisters was Janet Orr, who had married Sandy Holmes of Ladymuir Farm about a mile further out the Greenock Road. Sandy was quite a character. He was very fond of a fast-riding horse and a fast drink of whiskey every time he came to the weekly village fair. After a time, the whiskey got the upper hand and work at the farm degenerated even though he had a large family to feed. There were six sons and three daughters, one of the last yet a baby. Some of the Orrs had by that time emigrated to Canada so Janet Orr decided to leave Sandy to his whiskey and do likewise. She and all the family left him and took up residence in her sister Agnes Crawford’s house to wait for a ship sailing to Canada. They were there a few weeks when one fair day Sandy Holmes rode up the street with a basket of eggs on his arm. He shouted and swore for his wife to come home but did not get down from his horse. Grandma Crawford had no men folk in the house at the time but picked up her heaviest poker and stood behind her front door, ready for Sandy if he should enter. Sandy seemed to know the character of Agnes Crawford for he confined himself to loud abuse and the battering of the strong door with eggs.

Shortly after that the family sailed from the Clyde for Canada. My mother remembers the day well because her cousin, Peter Holmes, the youngest son of the family hadn’t a suit of clothes fit for a boy of four. So, he got one of my mother’s best velvet frocks and had to go dressed as a little girl. When he came back to Scotland to begin business as a carriage builder in Glasgow when he was a young man my mother didn’t mention anything about the velvet frock.

Sandy Holmes followed later to Canada and was again the head of the house. He was older and wiser then but I never heard any details of his life in Canada. The Holmes family had their headquarters in Woodstock. In 1954 I met there a Miss Mary Holmes who was still staying in the original Holmes house at 58 Finkle Street. She was a granddaughter of Sandy Holmes and Janet Orr from Ladymuir in Lochwinnoch, Scotland.

To complete the story of the Kaim I must tell you about Maggie Orr, the daughter of William Orr’s first wife. She married James Dickie of the London importing firm of Bulloch Brothers several years before my mother was married. She and my mother had been companions and were full cousins. The Dickies lived in South Kensington, London. Aunt Orr had one son, Willie Orr, who was then in Burma representing the Bulloch Brothers. He later lost his life during the First World War when the ship he was on was attacked by a German submarine.

This sad event has a link back to my career. The last trial trip I was on was that of the Persia a fast steamer built for the P. & O. Line. This liner was a fatal one for the Orr family. My mother’s cousin, William Orr of Kaim and James B. Dickie. his nephew, were sailing on her in the Mediterranean in 1916 during the First World War. They were returning to duty in Burma after being home in Scotland. This was after I had gone to Canada. The Persia was torpedoed by a German submarine and Willie Orr went down with her. J.B. Dickie managed to get into one of the lifeboats and after several days of trouble was landed at Alexandria. J.B. never recovered thoroughly from this ordeal and died in Burma some months later. It was an odd coincidence that I should have helped to build a ship that drowned my mother’s relations seventeen years later. Also, that Aunt Orr, Willie’s mother, should have died when he was home on that last trip. This ended the direct line of the Orr’s of Kaim. The estate was inherited by the Dickie family.