GORING HOUSE AND MRS MAC, CHARTRES
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Goring House was a shepherd’s house, on the main north/south track of West Falkland, about half a mile from the crossing and bridge on the Chartres side of the river at Little Chartres. It was important because in 1918 it became the telephone ‘exchange’ for the four West telephone lines which met there, linking Hill Cove, Roy Cove, Port Howard and Chartres to the Government Wireless Station at Fox Bay East and thus the world beyond. To ring Mrs Mac was one ring who would always answer day or night and put you through. The manual switchboard comprised Bakelite electric light switches on a board, and she could arrange the switch positions so that certain farms could communicate while others were excluded for optimum performance. Five rings (or turns of the handle) got the Doctor at Fox Bay, six rings the wireless station and so on. This line revolutionised communications, previously if a doctor was needed someone had to ride all day to get him. It was always busy she did this on a voluntary basis for around fifty years. The only time she was reluctant to answer the phone was when there was lightening about- she had been sitting milking a cow one day when it was hit and killed.
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Mrs McAskill B.E.M.
Mrs Mac or Mrs McAskill was born Eliza Jane (Lottie) McKay at Leicester Creek on 1st December 1889. Her parents George and Barbara nee’ Rutherford McKay arrived in the Falklands from Brora, Scotland having eloped together due to her parent’s disapproval of George. They settled at Leicester Creek where George was an outside shepherd. He had been adequately educated as can be seen in his letters back and forth to Magistrate Hurst at Fox Bay about the travelling teacher’s horse. Lottie was their eldest daughter, sixth of twelve children. Mrs Mac once told me that as children they never wore shoes and if anyone went to visit at Leicester Creek they would run away and hide. George and Barbara left for Australia in the early 1900s, taking the four youngest and she did not see them again.
When she was older, probably around 14, Lottie went into service for the Bertrand and Clement families at Roy Cove. There she met Jack McAskill, a shepherd from Kyles, Scalpay, Outer Hebrides, Scotland (b. 1888). They married at Sulivan, an outside shepherd’s house at Fox Bay West on 10th May 1911. Three of Lottie’s brothers, Richard, Donald and Gideon McKay were witnesses and also Harry Morton & Stanley Turner. They moved to Goring House and spent their entire married life there. They were self sufficient as were all shepherds, Lottie milking cows, baking, doing gardens and riding round the sheep camps with Jack. She always rode her horses with a side-saddle. They had no children, but she had relatives close by at Teal River (brother Dave and his family).
As it was situated ‘on the track’, the main north/south route, nearly all travellers called at Goring House to rest horses and have smoko. Even after Landrovers appeared people still mostly called in. It was always an important place for the doctor to call or to be met on his trips north. In 1961 Mrs Mac’s tireless work with the exchange was recognised and she was awarded a British Empire Medal. Jack died in 1968 and single shepherds took over shepherding his flock, living with Mrs Mac. Eventually, in 1973 she decided to retire to Stanley with Rosie, her late brother Dave’s widow. She took her dog and two cows with her. Mrs Mac died in 1979. |
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Sources: Old records Fox Bay Post Office,
Photographic credits: Header: --Hurst, Mrs Mac - Hurst, Jack Mac- John White, Young Jack and Mrs Mac- courtesy Derek Lee
Can you add/ correct any information or supply photographs for this page, past or present? Contact: falklands.southatlantic@gmail.com
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Mrs Mac at Goring House- late 1960's
