Flitting

This year's YHS exhibition would have featured material from the Storie diaries - a run of diaries produced by the Storie family who farmed at Cocklawfoot in the 19th- and early 20th centuries. We are privileged to have been given access to these diaries by Karen Maroney of Town Yetholm, a descendent of the family. The entries are often brief, but they give a fascinating glimpse of continuity/change in the rural community of the remote Cheviot Hills in that period. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has put paid to this year's exhibition, but hopefully we'll be up and running again by this time next year!
   May was traditionally the month when families flitted from farm to farm. Hiring fairs took place in March, deals were struck with those who either wanted to move or had not been re-hired by their current employer, and then on the 26th May or thereabouts the lanes were crammed with carts carrying furniture and people to their new place of work for the next year (see extract below from the Kelso Chronicle, Friday May 31st 1872).
    The diary entry shown above was written by George Storie on the 27th May 1913. 'Good day' is a frequent phrase, reminding us of how closely farming life is/was tied to the fluctuations in the weather. The next sentence shows us that flitting was still taking place on the 26th, but the reference to an 'engine' - presumably some sort of early petrol lorry? - suggests that the family's furniture was no longer being shifted by horse and cart. Times were changing - and within a year the country would be plunged into a war that had unimagined social and economic consequences. Perhaps we are living through a similar period now - ???