Embo Street - Kate Campbell & John MacDonald

Date Added: 05 December 2017 Year: 1948 Institution Name: dnhhl Cat No: ◀ | 2017_054_02 | ▶ Picture No: 13562

Second in a series of five monochrome photographs relating to Embo Street showing the collection of buckets of water from the well by Kate Campbell and on her left John MacDonald (donor's father)

Dimensions: digital image

Groups: Hidden Gems

1 Comment

In Embo during my childhood in the early 1940s we used identical wooden squares when carrying pails of water from the "well", as shown in this photo. We placed the wooden square over the pails as shown here and then stepped inside the square and lifted the pails by their handles. The water pails when being carried were kept outside the wooden square. Somehow this made the full pails of water much lighter and easier to carry. I have tried over the years to find the scientific reason for this, but have failed.
For some reason in Embo we called our water sources wells, but they were in fact water taps placed at a number of locations in the village. The water from these taps came via a water pipe from a reservoir that was just inland from the three way crossing inland from the village on the road to Dornoch. This reservoir consisted of a corrugated iron hut built over a large water tank that was was sunk in the ground. We used to pass this reservoir often when rabbit hunting but never went too near as a man that had been missing for some weeks in the early war years was found drowned in its water tank. The man that drowned was not from Embo but was from one of the farming communities inland of the village. Comment left on 13 January 2018 at 14:01 by Kenneth Mackay Always fascinating to hear stories about Embo. Administrator

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