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The tattie holidays are a school holiday in Scotland typically falling around October. The holiday started in the 1930s, when children would be taken out of school to help with the local potato harvest, with other children just not turning up for class. The tradition continued into the 1980s, when the advent of new farm machinery such as potato harvesters made hand picking potatoes obsolete. The word "tattie" comes from the Scots word for potato.[1]
Tractors would plough the fields to uncover the potatoes then pickers or howkers, usually composed of women and schoolchildren who were better suited for potato picking,[2] would pick the potatoes (or howk the tatties), piling them into laundry baskets that farmers would empty onto a pile.[3] Children from towns and cities would be transported to the fields by a farmer.[4][3] A day's work in the 1980s could earn a picker around £9-£10 with up to two tonnes of potatoes gathered.[5][6] The payment would be used to supplement a household's income.[4]
^"Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: tattie". dsl.ac.uk. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
^Linklater, John (22 November 1983). "Howkers dig heels in over tattie holidays". The Glasgow Herald. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
^ abSmall, Peter (19 October 2018). "Looking into the history of the 'tattie holidays'". Press and Journal. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
^ abMunro, Mary. "The Tattie Howkin | The Elphinstone Institute | The University of Aberdeen". www.abdn.ac.uk (in Scots). Elphinstone Institute.
^Cite error: The named reference Campsie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Khaleeli, Homa (21 April 2013). "Why Michael Gove wants to cut the 'tattie school holiday'". the Guardian. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
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