The log books of Yetholm School make fascinating reading. YHS has copies starting in around 1900. Most of the entries relate to the progress - or otherwise - of reading, writing and 'rithmatic in the village. Inspectors regularly visited and their reports are carefully transcribed. Attendance is noted. It is striking how often pupils numbers dropped because the children decided to take time off to watch the fox hounds, or attend a ploughing match at Cherrytrees or a farm displenishing. There are also frequent references to the school being closed because of infections - chickenpox, impetigo, whooping cough and so on; on occasion the school was closed for months. Even though there was no National Health Service, medical officers frequently visited and it is clear that the school was the main contact point between health authorities and the local population. Most of the entries are fairly business-like, but the entry shown above, from 1902, is unusually irritable. The teacher must have been having a bad day. It is interesting that 'Royal' Kirk Yetholm is perceived as the scruffy end of the village. One suspects this may have been an accurate observation (at the time) - ? A few years later parents complained that their children were having to sit next to pupils with lice ('pediculi corporis'): Admittedly, in this case, no aspersions are cast against Kirk Yetholm and, who knows, the dirty children may well have come from Town Yetholm - ? Anyone who has done family history research into ancestors from Yetholm in the late 19th and early 20th century will recognise the unusually angular handwriting of these entries, as George Mather, the head-teacher, who wrote the log books, was also the inspector of the poor and registrar of the village - all death certificates, for example, were transcribed by him. Some of the log book entries will be looked at in subsequent blogposts, but the rest of this one will be devoted to 'Geordie' Mather - who exactly was he? George Mather was baptised in Morebattle in May 1865. His father, John, was a coachman, and subsequent censuses show the family living in Kelso. It was presumably there that George received his education. The 1871 census decsribes him, aged 16, as a 'pupil teacher'. Where he subsequently trained is unclear, but in August 1887 he was appointed head teacher of Yetholm School. He is probably to be seen below, in a school photo taken soon after his arrival: George married Susan Dick in Ednam in 1889 - and at some point grew a dapper mustache, which features in all subsequent photographs. Like Andrew Richardson Blythe he was obviously a lad from a relatively humble background who, through good fortune and native ability, was able to rise through the social and financial ranks of Border's society. His income must have been supplemented by his role as registrar and newspaper reports show him frequently being appointed to greet visiting dignitaries to the village with a few well-chosed words of welcome. He played in very prominent role in organising the 1898 gipsy coronation, which brought Yetholm world-wide fame. The speech, in Romani, which the new king read from his throne was written by him - though one suspects King Charles II was never a very good school pupil and the speech was probably delivered rather badly. In the large photograph which was taken of the participants of the coronation he (left, below) and Dr Rodgers (right) are shown lounging on the grass in front of the other participants. It is interesting that these two prominent middle-class figures are dressed in their best suits, while everyone else is standing in their fancy dress costumes. George and Susan's marriage was childless, though financially they did well - by the end of his life they were living in Elmbank, the large house on the Morebattle Road, next to the even grander Romany House, which is where Dr Rodgers lived. Clearly this was the posh end of the village - about as far removed from down-at-heels Kirk Yetholm a it was possible to be! The school log books give the impression of a very diligent and devoted teacher, who did his best for his pupils. He seems to have been respected and well-liked. Tragically, though, he seems to have had heart problems and in June 1921 he was forced to resign. He cannot have been able to enjoy life in Elmbank for long. His last entries in the log book are shown below, after which the angular handwriting disappears (click to expand the image): George Mather died in an Edinburgh nursing home on the 28th May 1922, aged 56. Despite having worked in Yetholm for over thirty years he was not buried in the village - presumably his grave is somewhere in Edinburgh. His wife died, in Jedburgh district, in 1959 aged 88.
YHS has several school photographs in which he features. The one below must have been taken circa 1920, almost at the end of his time in the village. Douglas Turnbull, who died recently, has identified some of the children and his notes can also be seen. Interestingly, the child on the left of the middle-row is John Gray, the very eminent scholar and subject of last month's blog, who lived in Kirk Yetholm. His daughter says that he was sent home for bad behaviour on his first day at School! However, as noted, he went on to achieve academic excellence - proof that even ramshackle Kirk Yetholm wasn't as hopeless as it may have appeared, on occasion, to the village headmaster.
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This year Shrove Tuesday falls on Tuesday 13th February. As discussed in two earlier blogs this day would have been an eventful one in Yetholm - the date on which the Fastern's E'en games were held; a tradition which must have dated back to medieval times, surviving the abolition of such festivals from the ecclesiatical calendar at the establishment of Presbyterian worship in 1688. The first blog can be found HERE and the second HERE. This seems an appropriate moment to round off the series with a look at a very exuberant poem about the Yetholm Fastern's E'en games, the first verses of which are shown above. First published in the Kelso Chronicle, the YHS archives contain a carefully cut-out copy of the poem, although the author has remained a mystery until recently. The verses are signed 'Gangrel Body' and dated February 20th 1943. Fortunately a few years ago Jean Reynolds gave to the Society a copy of her father's poems and - lo and behold! - there is the mysterious poem. 'Gangrel Body' (ie a ragged tramp) was, it turns out, none other than the Rev. Prof. John Gray, one of the most eminent academics that Yetholm has produced. A scan of the full poem, with a brief biographical note at the end, can be found by clicking HERE. The biographical note which we have included is somewhat mistaken in saying that John was born in 1913 in Yetholm. In fact he was born in Roxburgh Street, Kelso, the son of James Gray, a master tailor, who served his apprenticeship at Humes. James was called up in 1914 and while he was away in France his wife, with baby son, decided to move to Kirk Yetholm. At the end of the war he returned and joined his wife (and unfamiliar son), who were living in Cross Keys House in Kirk Yetholm. He obviously liked it, because that's where he remained for the rest of his career, earning a living by making Sunday suits for the many shepherds that there once were in the area. Jean says her grandfather would walk to farms to take measurements and when the job was done the finished article was wrapped in brown paper and sent out to the grateful client. Her father was once dispatched with one of these parcels - at the tender age of 7 - up the Halterburn valley and over the hills to the farm steading at Trowupburn in Northumberland! James Gray was, according to Jean, a somewhat stern figure, but he clearly joined in festive activities such as the Fastern's E'en games. He was a keen bagpipe player and while serving in France (as a tailor - which perhaps helps explain how he survived the bloodshed) he made his own set of bagpipes from bits of cloth, which have remained in the family. His grandson Walter Gray, chairman of the Scottish Piobaireachd Society, once owned them and they are now played by great-grandson Will. In a newspaper extract quoted in one of the earlier blogs it mentions that in 1922 the Fastern's E'en festivities began in the early morning when 'the village was aroused by the martial strains of Johnnie Cope played by piper Gray'. Whether everyone in the village welcomed being awakened in that way is open to question! As there is only one family called Gray living in Yetholm in the 1921 census it is safe to assume that the 'piper Gray' mentioned here must be James Gray, the tailor from Kirk Yetholm. The poem by 'Gangrel Body' is full of vivid pen-portraits of the characters who thronged to the games on the haugh. As discussed in one of the earlier blogs, the games seem to have ended in the late-1920s so, although written in 1943, the poem must be describing events in the 1920s. In fact one of the character's is the author's own father, the piper 'Jeems' Gray: In retirement James Gray and his wife moved to Cheviot Villa, in the Crescent, Town Yetholm. He died there in 1953 aged 69. John Gray worked in university departments in both the UK and abroad, but continued to visit Yetholm throughout his life. In 1943, when he appears to have written this poem, he was recently married and a minister at Kilmory on Arran, having returned from Palestine via South Africa on a Norwegian freighter (on which vessel he learned to speak Norwegian - one of many languages, both ancient and modern, in which he was fluent). His brother Derek was less fortunate, being a prisoner of the Japanese in Sumatra.
While ministering on Arran, John Gray worked on his PhD thesis, the subject of which was the recently discovered texts written on clay tablets in the extinct language of Ugartic from around 1,500 BC. Writing a poem in Border's dialect - and dreaming of his childhood days in Kirk Yetholm - may have been a way of turning his mind from the knotty problems of translation and the anxieties, both personal and communal, of a world at war. John Gray's final academic work was a commentary on the Book of Job, one of the most difficult books in the Old Testament to translate. His son Ian has recently extracted and published his father's translation of the basic text from the dense web of scholarship that supports it. Alongside the biblical text, Ian has included Job in a Cheviot Plaid, a lively poetic paraphrase of the Book of Job written in Borders dialect. Clearly the spirit which inspired 'Gangrel Body' when he was writing in 1943 was still active at the end of his life while working on his scholarly commentary. A copy of this book has been generously donated to the YHS archive, should anyone fancy having a dip into it. 2024 has begun quietly in Yetholm (yet again!), but we live in very troubled times. Might World War Three have already begun without anyone noticing? The picture above can be found in the YHS archives. We know little about it, apart from the fact that it shows, from left to right, 'Dora Young; Mrs Turnbull; Mary Wilson (d of Mr McAllister); Mrs India Russell'. The date is unknown, but one suspects it was taken in the early 1960s. It could be a festive occasion, but the posters pinned to the wooden rail tell a different story. Here is a clearer example: Clearly what we are looking at is a Civil Defence excercise. The slogan 'Civil Defence is Common Sense' seems to have been coined in the late '50s and continued in use into the early 1960s, as can be seen on this post-mark from 1962: There was a nationwide campaign at this date to create a volunteer 'Fourth Arm', in addition to the traditional Navy, Army and Airforce - specifically in order to deal with the chaos of a nuclear war. This Fourth Arm had five sections: 'What about the millions of survivors?' asks the poster. Presumambly the ladies on Town Yetholm green were members of the Welfare section, whose job was to bring care and comfort 'to some millions of evacuees'. A basket of bread rolls can be seen, along with hot-water urns, to provide the bedraggled survivors from Newcastle or Edinburgh with a welcome cup of tea. The full (fascinating) poster from which the above extract is taken can bee seen by clicking HERE.
Although we don't know the exact date of our photograph, we know of other similar training events in the village. The cutting below is from the Berwick Advertiser of 15th May 1958. The ladies of the village, under the leadership of Mrs Hogarth, seem to have worked very hard - 'The meal was most enjoyable and very well cooked and all present voted the meal excellent'. It is not known when the Yetholm section of the Civil Defence Corps was stood down - or perhaps faded away. Perhaps it may need to be revived in the not-too-distant future? We have recently been given a copy of Seymour Haugh's book Sixty Years Strong; A History of the Borders Search and Rescue Unit 1963-2003. As the book makes clear this search and rescue unit has its origins in Yetholm, - in particular in the work of the Yetholm Scouts and their leader Jack Robb of Blunty's Mill. There are records of Scouts in Yetholm in the 1930s, but the group seems to have disbanded at some point. However in the late 1950s Scouts - and then Cubs - reappeared again: Jack Robb was behind the plan to use the Rover Scouts as the nucleus of a Mountain Rescue Unit. The germ of the idea appears to have been locally famous death in a snowstorm in north Northumberland of two shepherds in a snowstorm in November 1962 - see HERE. One of the shepherds was buried in the new graveyard in Town Yetholm - in fact, the first interment there. Seymour Haugh's book transcribes an entry by Jack in the log book of the First Yetholm (Cheviot) Rover Scout Crew, dated 22nd November 1963: For the last few weeks, for lack of permanent Den, we have been holding our meetings in Gibson's bungalow, but now, through the generosity of W.T.Mackinnon, Esq., we have been granted the use of the Stable Cottage at the Hall. This has given us a terrific boost and we feel that at last we are forging ahead in the right direction. In a remarkably short time we have furnished the Den and Meetings are held regularly every Tuesday evening. A Hill Rescue Squad has been formed and already two cross country hikes have been undertaken with the idea of familiarising outselves with the local hill country ... At present the Crew numbers seven (and two terriers), but what we lack in size we make up for in keeness, and I feel that we have the nucleus of a first class Crew - Second to none in the Borders. Jack Robb R.S.L This initial enthusiasm didn't wane. Jack and the lads from Yetholm developed into a very active and experienced rescue group, which is still going today, although no longer based in Yetholm (and increasingly women were involved too!). The subsequent story is well told in Mr Haugh's book, which contains many photographs of the group in action. Here are a couple of news items item from 1967 and 1973: Jill Mooney, Jack's daughter, has given us a collection of images of the group to digitise and add to our collection. Many of the faces in these pictures will be familiar to people from Yetholm: Unfortunately, although the Mountain Rescue Team remained active for many years, the Yetholm Scout group itself ceased to function in about 1966. Jack Robb contributed an article to the first edition of The Yett in 1970 regretting its demise: Note: If you would like to look at a book in the YHS library details can be found HERE.
Yetholm History Society recently acquired the glass slide image shown above. It is inscribed in one corner 'Yetholm' - and the cottage is certainly similar to many that were once found in the village and all across the Borders and Northumberland. But, if it is from Yetholm, which cottage is it? So far, the best guess, is that it shows an earlier incarnation of Wynstae Cottage, which stands on its own, opposite the gates of the kirk. Today this building is whitewashed, with a porch, modern windows and a slate roof - see the images below. Clearly the cottage has changed a lot - if this guess is correct - but the same could be said for most of the buildings in Yetholm. Probably the image on the slide was taken in the first decade of the 20th-century. Several postcard photographs of this area in Kirk Yetholm were taken at this date, but most were shot from outside the cottage's front door, looking towards the Border Hotel, with the photographers back to the cottage in question. The photographers were keen to capture the row of picturesque (but increasingly dilapidated) thatched cottages on the other side of the road - see image below, which appeared in an album of collotype photographs published by Gibson of Coldstream. This much photographed row of cottages looked out onto a plot of allotment land, the retaining wall of which can be seen on the right. Today the shells of these cottages are still standing, as is the area of allotment land. The earth behind this wall stands a couple of feet above the level of the roadway and Wynstae Cottage is built into it. The cottage shown in the glass slide is similarly wedged into the banked earth and it seems likely that the retaining wall shown in the slide is the same as that shown in Gibson's collotype.
The cottage shown in the glass slide looks as if it may once have been longer - the edge of the thatch has perhaps been torn away at some point. Also note that it has two chimneys - one centrally placed and the other at the far end. Wynstae cottage today has a chimney at either end. However, the chimney at the far end of the glass slide image looks very similar to the chimney that can be found in the same position today. It is interesting, too, that today's cottage has retained what looks like one of its original windows, to the right of the door - this may be a survival from the earlier version of the cottage. The first detailed Ordnance Survey map of Kirk Yetholm (1859) shows that a building was standing was on the site at that date. Has anyone got a better identification for the mysterious glass slide...? Or has anyone got other early images of Wynstae Cottage that would help to firm up this hypothesis? As already mentioned, most photographs of this area were taken looking in the opposite direction. One of the few we have in which Wynstae Cottage can be glimpsed, albeit distantly, is shown below. Judging by the clothes of the men in the foreground it was taken in the 1930s and it looks as if, by this date, the cottage has been modernised to something approaching its appearance today - the pitch of the roof is shallower than in the glass slide image, appropriate for a building that has been tiled. Several of the cottages on the other side of the street have been similarly renovated, with tile roofs, in an attempt to drag them into the twentieth century. Sadly, that plan failed and today the ruined buildings are an eyesore. Only Wynstae Cottage is still lived in. The weather was foul, but YHS had a relatively dry pitch for our stall at the Yetholm Shepherds Show on Saturday 7th October. As well as selling books and advertising our events, we had a 'What's that Thing?' competition in which visitors had to identify varoius moderately enigmatic objects in our collection. Prize winners to be contacted shortly. One of the posters which we used is shown below.
St Ethelreda, c. 636 – 23 June 679 AD, (also sometimes Etheldreda or Æthelthryth or Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe – or, more usually, just plain Audrey) was an East Anglian princess, whose main claim to sanctity was that, although married twice, she was determined to remain a virgin and to live as a nun. Her second marriage was to Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria. Ecgfrith initially agreed Ethelreda should continue to remain a virgin, but about 672 he appealed to Bishop Wilfrid for the enforcement of his marital rights as against Ethelreda's religious vocation. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading the king to consent that Etheldreda should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by his aunt, Æbbe of Coldingham. Eventually, in light of the danger of being forcibly carried off by the king, Ethelreda fled back to the Isle of Ely with two nuns as companions. There she founded a monastery and lived the usual austere life (rough clothes, infrequent bathing etc). She died of a neck tumour, said to a punishment for her former love of fancy clothes and jewels while a young princess. After death her body remained uncorrupted and many people visited her shrine for healing, particularly if they suffered from illnesses of the neck. There are few churches dedicated to St Ethelreda and those that are located in the south of England. Most famously Ely Cathedral is devoted to her and it was there that her shrine was located until the reformation. The drawing above shows a capital in Ely Cathedral which Illustrates a miraculous incident which took place when Ethelreda fled from Northumbria. Worn out and weary she lay down to rest. She stuck her staff in the ground and when she awoke the staff had turned in a great tree, providing her with shelter while she rested. Despite the paucity of dedications to her in the north there are tantalising references to a chapel dedicated to her in the Halterburn valley, near Yetholm. It is generally assumed that this chapel was associated with the monastic grange of Kelso Abbey which was located along the Halterburn, in what was then generally recognised as England. No remains are now visible, but the first Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1859) indicated that is stood close to where a sike flowed into the main burn - see arrow on map below. Several years ago Tom Broad of YHS organised a field survey to try and locate this mysterious chapel – but with no success. More recently Tillvas (the Till Valley Archaeological Society), having found medieval pottery in a test trench close to the site indicated on the 1859 map, have organised a dig to try and find out what was going on there – see photograph below, the excavations are to the right of white tent - the location is also marked on the map above with a star. The dig took place in mid September and the project included a visit to the site by children from Yetholm Primary School and an open day for general visitors on the final Saturday; there was also a display of finds in the YHS Heritage Centre in Town Yetholm. A substantial amount of medieval pottery was found, also a (shroud?) pin, a metal arrowhead and a 14th c. silver coin. See photograph below. Apart from these portable, scattered medieval objects there was clear evidence of substantial building work in the area. See photographs below. Was this the chapel? Nothing as fine and as obviously ecclesiastical as the carved to stone capital at the head of this blog post was found! May it have been a mill? The finds are tantalisingly enigmatic. More work is clearly (hopefully?) needed.
On Saturday 23rd September a group from YHS were given a private guided tour of Mellerstain House by Leslie Abernethy. Much of the house was built through the energy and supervision of Lady Grisell Baillie, who will be the subject of Leslie's talk to the society on October 3rd - our first talk of the season. Leslie has written the definitive biography of this fascinating and formidable woman. Grisell left voluminous memoranda and correspondence which has enabled Leslie to paint a detailed picture of her life and times. The photograph below shows her instructions to the nurse of her daughter (also called Grisell - or 'Grisie') - she clearly expected her daughter to work had, as she herself did.
What's going on in the photo above? It was clearly taken in Yetholm, outside the White Swan Hotel in Town Yetholm. By the look of the men, it was probably taken in the first decade of the twentieth century. Six miscellanious horses are lined up, as if about to start a race. The image is one given to the society by the family of Tom Tokely. Unfortunately, as with many in the collection, the photo is fairly battered - and there is nothing to indicate exactly what was happening. However, as mentioned in last month's blog, it may be that what we are looking at is the line-up at the start of a horse race, which was once a feature of Yetholm 'Border Shepherds' Show, which took place every October. Quite a few post-card images have survived from this period showing beautifully manicured horses which are competing in the 'Best Groomed Horse and Harness' catagory. A typical such image, also from Tom's collection, can be seen at the foot of the page. It is dated 1910. The image shown above, featuring a race of some kind, is - so far - unique. In the last few years Yetholm Show has featured a few sporting activities, mainly the Brae House running race and a fun tug-of-war. But, as discussed in August's blog, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the show included a wide variety of athletic events - running races, jumping, throwing, wrestling etc - and, as today, some fun ones, such as a sack race and a pillow fight. It is also clear that there were often horse races of differing kinds. Here is an advert for the show from the Newcastle Journal, 11th October 1902 - horse competitions feature quite prominently: There is no consistency from year to year of the kind of horse races that were presented. Sometimes, as in this advert, horse jumping seems the main category. In the years immediately before the First World War such serious eventing seems to have faded and 'Scampers' for boys and girls are listed instead. As mentioned, we have no idea when the photograph at the top of the page was taken, or what race was about to begin. Might it have been in 1903? Here are the 'Sports' results for that year: As can be seen, a prominent race that year is the 'Tradesman's Horse Race'. The horses in the image are certainly a mongrel bunch of working horses, with the white ponies the kind of animal used to pull a tradesman's dog-cart. It seems likely the bigger animals closer to the camera would have taken the prize. Might the sedate mustached gentleman be R.T. Russell - and the keener jockey, leaning forward in his saddle, be George Tice ... or might it be the other way round ...??? The same race took place in 1902 - and the same two gentlemen took the top prizes. George Tice was a baker in Yetholm. He had a son also called George, who was killed in the First World War, in October 1917 aged 29. A person named George Tice is listed as coming both second and third in 1902 - so perhaps both father and son participated in that year. R.C. Russell (not 'R.T.', which is a misprint) was the landlord of the Plough Inn. He clearly had the better horse and won in both years. A postcard image of The Plough (posted 1904) when he was landlord can be found in the YHS archive - see below. Intriguingly it shows a gent on a horse standing proudly in front of the building - can the same man be identified in the photograph at the head of the page ...? We also have a photograph of George Tice taken in 1927 - below right. Could the man sitting calmly in the horse race photograph be the same man? Unfortunately the mists of time have obscured the what exactly took place on that festive occasion over a century ago.
The last YHS blog discussed two photographs in our archives showing preparations in Kirk Yetholm for the annual Fasterns E'en ba' game. We have no images of a game in progress - the painting above is by Alexander Carse, dated 1818, and shows the famous and still active game played in Jedburgh. Yetholm's game would have been much the same. By all accounts, such events were inevitably very rough and rowdy. Both images discussed in the June blog were taken in 1912. But when did the tradition end? The question was put to the Society by John Messner, who is currently writing a book on the game as it is/was played all across the British Isles. Our photographs show that it was still very much alive in 1912. Newspaper records show that the Bowmontside Games took place as usual a couple of years later in March 1914. However, in the summer of that year Britain declared war on Germany - the First World War had begun - and the games were abandoned for the next five years. The games were revived in 1920, as the following newspaper cutting, from the Southern Reporter (19th February 1920) , shows: Although the ba' game itself may have been a chaotic affair, the 'Bowmontside Games', to which it acted as a grand finale, was a carefully organised event. Nineteenth century newspaper accounts show that there was a properly constituted committee which put in a lot of work to make sure the event went smoothly. The Kelso Chronicle of the 18th March 1921 records a meal at the White Swan in which Mr John Hogg was presented with a walking stick for his 25 years service as committee secretary. The presentation was made by James Turnbull, shoemaker, the oldest member of the committee, Mr Hogg is praised for his 'supreme effort' in snatching 'this "relic from the past" ... from the verge of bankruptcy'. James Turnbull, who apparently had made the Town Yetholm ball for about 50 years died in February 1923, aged 76. The names of the committee are given in a very full and enthusiastic report of the games (shown more fully at the end of the last blog) in the Kelso Chronicle of 3rd March 1922: However, the games don't seem to have survived very much longer. So far, the last reporting sighting of the Yetholm Fastern E'en ba' game dates from 1925. In that year the Southern Reporter (5th March) tells us that 'the weather was fine, but a cold wind prevailed, and this no doubt accounted for the moderate attendance, which however witnessed some keen and interesting events'. The winners of the various racing, jumping and wrestling events are then listed. The report ends: There is at least one further reference, two years later, to the Bowmontside Games. The Edinburgh Evening News of 3rd March 1927 records prizewinners from the Bowmontside Games of that year - however it doesn't mention the ba' game. It may well have taken place at that date, but the report is relatively brief. The ba' game of 1925 marks, then, the last reported sighting of the traditional rough and rowdy Yetholm game - unless further rummaging in the archives turns up a later explicit reference. In the early 1960s an attempt was made to revive the game. The Edinburgh Evening News (20th March 1961) announced these plans, noting that 'it is over 30 years' since the game was played - it would seem there was a vague local memory of it last occurring in the late 1920s: Why did this 'relic from the past' fade into oblivion?
Newspaper evidence suggests that the activities which characterised the Bowmontside Games were absorbed into the Yetholm 'Shepherds Show', which took place in October every year. It is noticable that nineteenth century newpaper reports of the October 'Shepherds Show' Show very much emphasize the various competitions for sheep (and sheep dogs). Gradually there are references to an 'Industrial Section' (with an initial focus on butter making). In the period before the First World War there are occassional references to sports, but nothing comparable to the athletic events which characterised the Bowmontside Games. The Southern Reporter (29th October 1903), for example, lists the following 'Sports' at the Shepherds Show - Best Groomed Horse, Horse Jumping, Pony Race, Tradesmans Horse Race, One Mile Walking Race, One & Half Mile Cycle Race*. By the late 1920s, however, there are increasing references to running races, wrestling, quoits, jumping (and a regular pillow fight!) taking place at the Shepherds Show. It is noticable that lists of members of the Sports Committee at Yetholm Shepherds Show in the 1920s refers to several of the same individuals who were also on the Bowmontside Games committee. The Berwickshire News & General Advertiser of 10th October 1922, for example, includes the names of Alex Lillie, John Hogg, James Reid and William Stenhouse as being involved in organising sports at the October show - all of whom are also listed as on the organising committee for the Bowmontside Games of that year (see cutting above). It would seem, then, that at some point in the late 1920s the Bowmontside Games committee decided to amalgamate with the Shepherds Show in October. Athletic activities continued, but at that point the venerable ba' game - which was traditionally associated with Fasterns E'en (Shrove Tuesday) in February/March - was inevitably dropped. * More on these horse races in the next blog-post. |
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