Black and white photograph of Iain, the herd boy.
Photograph from a small album from Silversands, titled `The herd laddie` taken in the late 1920s to early 1930s. Herding was done by boys when they left school at 14. As the common grazings and many fields were unfenced, their job was to keep cattle, sheep and horses within the township boundaries and out of the crops. Until wire fencing was introduced in the 1890s, fields were sometimes enclosed with turf or stone walls. From May to October, Iain would have stayed in a ‘bothag’, a small round building constructed of stone and roofed with turfs over a timber frame.
