Before the larger ‘corporate’ farms were sub-divided to locally owned and operated farms (first in 1979) every large settlement/ farm had a cookhouse or bunkhouse, accommodation for single men employed on the station. Some might be locals and others were men recruited in the UK and brought to the islands on ‘contract’ to a sheep station. A contract could be for 5 years after which a passage back to the UK was paid. Very often a man would enter into another contract or settle in the islands permanently.
The gang in the cookhouse could be split into ‘navvies’ to maintain and run the settlement, and help in the shearing shed, and ‘shepherds’. There was always a resident cook. The cook’s room was very often off the galley. Breakfast was always porridge and mutton chops and perhaps eggs if they were available. If bread was being made that day there might be dough-fries (tortas fritas), dough deep fried as well. The mid-day meal or ‘dinner', was nearly always roast mutton (termed 365 as it appeared every day)  or beef and the evening meal ‘supper’ invariably cold meat and bread. In between there were two ‘smoko’ breaks, one in the morning around 10.30, and the other in the afternoon. This was a cup of strong tea with cookhouse cake (plain cake with currants or sultanas). This was also an opportunity for a cigarette if the person was inclined.

Vegetables were always scarce, the cookhouse always had a garden but members of the gang often did not stay at a particular settlement long enough to take a great interest in gardening. Canned vegetables could be bought at the store along with other basic ingredients on the ‘cookhouse account’ which was divided and paid by the residents. Generally a cook kept the costs down as well as he could and bread and meat was the staple food. The monotony of diet was sometimes broken by someone catching fresh fish (usually mullet) or shooting Upland geese. The cookhouse also got their turn, along with the houses, at the ‘giblets’ from the weekly mutton kill. This could give a welcome treat of fried kidneys and brain fritters.

Anyone could apply for the job as cook, qualifications were not required and generally they were older single men. There were no Health and Safety food standards, no fridges and freezers, and no one ever died or seemed to get ill on cookhouse food. 
The cookhouse was generally a two storey large building. Upstairs was divided into small rooms, usually running either side of one long passage. They were unheated and often draughty and cold. Most settlements only had electricity from a generator for limited hours each day.  Life could seem unhospitable and lonely for a new recruit arriving from overseas to work. Downstairs, besides the cook’s gallery and room, there was a bathroom/ bathrooms with laundry facilities for the men and a huge communal/ mess room with long trestle tables and bench seats.  A large open grate peat fire kept the chill off the room but it could be draughty and cold if not stoked well.  This room often hosted dances and other social functions before settlements got community halls. Much drinking on weekends often took place in the cookhouse. Some farms limited the amount of alcohol an individual could buy from the store to one or a half bottle. The communal downstairs was kept clean on a rota between the residents. The current cleaner would be ‘Peggy’ for a week/ fortnight. Peggy meant giving the whole downstairs area a good mop out on a Saturday morning and cleaning the bathroom.

In 1921 the Fitzroy cookhouse burned down. A new one was completed in 1931 and cost £ 1,110.

FIC ZD2P75 Jane Cameron Archives.

Photographic credits: Header, Charlie Maddocks

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