This the earliest newspaper reference we have In the YHS archive to the Fastern's E'en games in Yetholm. The games nearly always took place in February - not the most auspicious month for an outdoor event - though in those days dreary weather wasn't enough, apparently, to stop Yetholm's 'strapping chiels' from displaying their athletic prowess:

'Notwithstanding the boisterous and changeable weather which has been so long prevalent, and which was likely to detain a number of competitors from being present, there was a good turn out of "stalwart strapping chiels" to contest the various prizes, and also around the ring, arrayed in all their finery, many "winsome lasses" who, without a doubt, would stimulate to more exertion than the mere prize'

It is interesting to read that the weather was as miserable 175 years ago as it is today. The photograph below shows the haugh where the games once took place - 175 years later. A rather dark and dismal scene - and the area much reduced in size due to erosion by the Bowmont. The dreary weather may have been one of the reasons why the games were later moved to October - not that October is all that clement! Hard to imagine, now, the crowds, including a 'Brass Instrumental Band', which would have thronged here 175 years ago today.

For more on why the games may have moved, click HERE.

"And now", as they say at the end of In Our Time on Radio 4, "we have some bonus material ..."

The last couple of blogs have concerned the Young family of Kirk Yetholm, who played a prominent part in the village in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To round off the series this blog looks at a couple more tantalising images. First, the image above, which appears on page 5 of A.V.Tokely's The Kirk Yetholm Gypsies labelled, as above, "The Young Family of Kirk Yetholm early 1900s". It is a fine group portrait - each character seems to have a life of their own (even the rather scrawny horse) - taken near the packhorse bridge near Blunty's Mill, Kirk Yetholm. But who are they?

Brian Young, grandson of Robert Young, has provided the following comments:
  The lady in the centre I believe to be Margaret Young. Immediately to her left, in the cart, the child  looks like Will Young (born 1906) and the baby being held looks like George (Doddie b. 1910) therefore the other two children on the cart could be Annie (1908) and Robert (1904), but I would not have recognised either directly. The girl holding Margaret's hand is not familiar and may have been a friend or cousin. If I am correct with Doddie as the baby, then this is 1910 and the only other direct siblings would be Rachel 11, Bella 12/13 and Mary Jane 20. The taller lady could potentially be Mary Jane and she has a slight resemblance to the mystery horse lady [see previous blogs] albeit she is much younger here and has her hair styled differently. The other lady, on the left is less familiar, but does appears on another photo [to be discussed below]. She appears at the back of that particular photo alongside what appears to be the same person holding the horse in the Blunty's Mill one. 

The lady in the middle of the photo, with her tightly drawn hair and central parting, certainly does look like Margaret Young (1868-1942), whose sons went on to found R&W Young, hauliers:

The younger man and woman, at either end of the photograph, may, as Brian suggests, be the young couple standing at the rear of this photograph:

This photograph also appears in A.V. Tokely's book, page 38, and is labelled "The Young Family of Kirk Yetholm near the old schoolhouse (now the hostel), c. 1906." Brian Young had been told this was a wedding photograph of the Stenhouse family, but it doesn't look like a wedding photograph - would the children be barefoot in a wedding photograph?- and the Tokely identification seems more probable. Perhaps it may include some members of the Stenhouse family as well as Youngs? Interesting to note that the woman on the left seems to be draped in a Blunty's Mill style blanket.

A comparison of the faces of the young couple shown in both photographs, above, suggests that Brian is right in feeling that they are the same pair. However, this still doesn't help us give them a name, sadly, as both images give a vivid impression of ordinary life over a century ago.

The Gispy Palace has been photographed many times, but this postcard image is most interesting for the three chaps posed in front of it. Croxy and Skaffy Douglas have been noticed elsewhere, but this blog will focus on the gentleman on the left - Robert Christie. Togged up in plus-fours and tie he obviously belongs to a different social class, though he was just as much a village character as the other two.

,The book in question in The Buried Barony, 1949, by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor. Now largely forgotten, Alasdair MacGregor has a wikipedia page - see HERE, for more information. The Wikipedia page gives him credit for overy twenty books, including one, The Western Isles, also published in 1949, whish caused outrage in the Hebrides, as it 'accused modern islanders of being drunkards, greedy, lazy and immoral'. His visit to Yetholm seems to have left pleasanter memories - indeed, the volume is dedicated to Robert Christie and Elizabeth Taylor.

The Buried Barony has pen-portraits of several Scottish places - the buried barony of the title is the Culbin Sands of Moray. Chapter 4 - 'Gypsies of the Borderland' - contains his pen-portrait of Yetholm (and, in fact, several of his own photographs of the place). He cover's the usual ground regarding the gipsies, but the most interesting part describes his arrival in the village and his meeting with various inhabitants, including 'an intelligent-looking resident seated outside the most substantial house facing the Green o'Kirk-Yetholm' - who turns out to be Robert Christie:
   'I came to learn that my informant was a man of some prominence and property. His name as he now told me, was Robert Christie. Seldom have I met anyone quite so like a character lifted straight out of the pages of Sir Walter Scott, and dropped down , quite appropriately, in the heart of the Border-land. His marriage to the owner of a good deal of property, both in Kirk Yetholm and Town Yetholm, had earned for him the popular title of the Laird. His wife, a neat and couthie creature, hearing at the open window her 'man' in long and earnest conversation with a stranger, came to her threshold to invite me to come in and have a cup of tea. ...'
    This first meeting is further described in the long Dedication to Robert and 'Leesbeth' - it was obviously the beginning of an affectionate friendhip. The two men kept in touch by letter and Alasdair returned to Yetholm with his wife several times and they all took jaunts to to see local sights. A pdf of the Dedication + the section of his Kirk Yetholm chapter, which describes his initial meeting with Robert can be found by clicking HERE.

As Alasdair MacGregor indicates, 'Leesbeth' Taylor, Robert's wife, 'was the owner of a good deal of property' in Yetholm. The story of how this came to be can be told by beginning with the gravestones shown above. The left-hand one of the pair is to Andrew Kerr of Blunties Mill who died in 1815. The one on the right is for Henry Kerr (the grandson of Andrew) 'manufacturer [of] Blunties Mill', who died in 1855 aged 61 and his wife Isabella Govanlock who died almost 50 years later in 1901, aged 70. Owners of Yetholm's one-and-only mill, the Kerrs were obviously wealthy men.
   Henry, 59-years old, died within a couple of years, of marrying the 24-year-old Isabella Govanlock - the couple had no children*. In 1856, Isabella passed ownership of the mill to her brother Peter Govanlock. In the 1861 census Peter is described as 'Woolllen Manufacturer, employing 7 men, 3 boys and 5 girls' - Isabella is described as his housekeeper!  It was Peter who expanded the property empire, after initially acquiring the mill - in 1871 he was the proprietor of 2 houses in Town Yetholm and 7 in Kirk Yetholm, including the Cross Keys Inn in Kirk Yetholm. By 1884 he had at least 16 houses and two pieces of land. It was Peter who built the 'Youth Hall' in Town Yetholm:

Was this a benefaction to the community - or a business oportunity? It is hard not to feel that Peter was a rather grasping individual, but maybe this shows a moment of public spirited generosity.
   He never married, but he had a mistress, Alice/Alison Taylor, and at least one son. His son was called William Taylor and was born in 1869 - William's sister, Elizabeth, born in 1863, was later to marry Robert Christie. In the 1871 census Alice Taylor is living with her parents (father John = argicultural labourer) in Kirk Yetholm and has in all five children. No father's name is given in any of their birth registration records. That William was Peter's son is explicit in 1891 census when he is living with Peter and is  described as such, even though his name is given as 'William Taylor'.
    Peter obviously intended William to be his heir and when he died in 1897 he left all his property to 'Peter Govanlock, junior, residing with me, son of myself and Alice Taylor'. Who is Peter junior? It would seem Peter snr had decided to puclicly acknowldge his son when he took him into his house - and at the same to time require that he changed his name to mirror his own.
    William/Peter Govanlock never married. At the time of Peter snr.'s death the Govanlocks no longer owned Bluntys Mill and William/Peter obviously aspired to be a farmer, purchasing Morebattle Mains in 1898. He possibly retired from active farming in 1921, when he held a displenishing sale, though he retained ownership of the farm itself. He died the house called 'The Green' in Kirk Yetholm in December 1924, without having any children. In his will he beqeuathed £2,000 to his 'housekeeper' (mistress?) Miss Margaret Crozier, along with The Green; Yetholm Mains to his half brother George Taylor; and all his other property, apart from the house called The Green in Kirk Yetholm, to his half sister Elizabeth Taylor. At this date, still unmarried, Elizabeth was in her early 60s.
    This was to change in May 1930 when Elizabeth, aged 67, married, in Edinburgh, Robert Christie, 62, a widower and retired teacher. The marriage is witnessed by a Margaret Christie, resident in The Green, Kirk Yetholm, who is probably Robert's daughter from his first marriage, b. c. 1899. Five  years later Alasdair MacGregor was to motor into Kirk Yetholm and bump into this clearly happily married couple.

Elizabeth was to die in 1945 and Robert in 1946, so they had 15 years of married life. They seem to have at some point moved back into the house called The Green in Kirk Yetholm. The photograph above shows their grave memorial - not the Celtic Cross! - but buried somewhere under the ivy.
   Elspeth Ewan's 1997 catalogue of all the grave memorials in Yetholm's kirkyard records the existence of a wall-mounted plaque which reads: 'Elizabeth Taylor who died 31.12.1945 aged 82 years, Robert Christie died 27.8.1946 aged 77 years'. Alongside it there are said to be four other plaques - for Peter Govanlock snr., Peter Govanlock jnr., Elizabeth Govanlock and Catherine Govanlock (both sisters of Peter snr.). The growth of ivy is now so rampant that it is hard to find any of them. The photograph below shows the plaque for Peter Govanlock snr., the man who spent so much effort accumulating property. It took a lot of perseverence to uncover it. The plaque for Robert and Elizabeth, which must be similar, probably lies further to the right, but it was impossible to locate.

Alasdair MacGregor was not there at the very end, although in an obituary letter he published in the Berwick Advertiser he says 'I saw her 'but a month or two ago'. At the close of the Dedication to the couple in The Buried Barony he envisages a beautiful ending to their story: 'To think that one might lie in the kirkyard of so sweet a place might almost make one happy in contemplating Death's irrevocable decree. Your Cheviot sward is comforting: it enshrines the evergreen of remembrance.' He would no doubt be appalled if he could see what has become of their memorial.

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*The sexual relationships of the Govanlocks are quite complicated! Fourteen years after the death of her husband Isabella gave birth to an illegitimate child - also called Isabella. Here follows some notes given to YHS by David Kennedy, who is the grandson of Isabella jnr.:
   Isabella was born illegitimate in 1869 to Isabella Kerr (nee Govanlock) (1831 – 1901) and the father was not named on the birth certificate. At the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, I consulted the Private Book of Church Affairs for the Free Church in Town Yetholm. She was admonished under the Session Cases of Discipline and the record shows “1869 June 4th, Mrs Kerr – Blunties Mill – a child to Adam Russell – labourer”.  Recently, I have been researching Adam Russell (1808 – 1888) through Scotland’s People and the only person in the Yetholm area of that name appears in the 1871 census at Main Road, Town Yetholm, as a Hostler aged 63 and a widower born at Green Knowe, near Gordon. It will be difficult to confirm conclusively that he is the father, but I am working on it.
 
My great grandmother, Isabella Govanlock, married Henry Kerr, Woollen Manufacturer, Blunty’s Mill, in 1855 when she was 24 years and he was 59 years. Henry died 2 years later and, when born, she gave her illegitimate daughter her maiden name and her own first name.

Many thanks to David who has provided YHS with much fascinating information about his family - and many photographs. Shown below is Thomas Kennedy (1854 – 1918) and Isabella (nee Govanlock) (1869 – 1915), with their children. Thomas was an engineer and millwright, the family living at Shirrafield at the time this photograph was taken.