With May 2023 seeing the coronation of King Charles III it would be interesting to know what went on in Yetholm seventy years ago when Elizabeth II was crowned. Unfortunately our archives are rather thin when it comes to that event. One record that we do have is of the planting of a 'Coronation Tree' at the cricket ground, by Mr Roberton - see image above. Not exactly an exuberant event, by the look of it!
    Another, photograph (below) of the same event shows Peggy Wraith apparently planting the same tree - perhaps everyone in the village had a turn? Mr Roberton was the Farmer at Yetholm Mains. Peggy Wraith was the neice of the landlady of The Plough and very active in village life.
   It is unclear what has happened to the tree.

Note, in the background of these photographs, some of the huts which had been used as accommodation for German Prisoners of  War and which were still standing at this date.

Yetholm History Society has a number of photographs about which, frustratingly, nothing is known. Neither the donor, nor the identity of subjects, in the photograph shown above, has been recorded. It is clearly a wedding photograph, with a rather serious central couple, and their relatives and friends, dressed in the best clothes, gathered around. The donor must have believed it had a Yetholm connection and the harled building behind looks like it could be in Yetholm.
   We have few photographs taken before c.1880 and, judging by the clothes, the wedding probably took place between then and 1900. The figure on the right is clearly the minister who officiated at the wedding - if we could identify him, then dating would be more certain. In that period there were three churches, with three ministers, in the village. The Rev. Adam Davidson was minister of of the established church from 1862 to 1907 - 45 years. We have a photograph of him - with a full beard - and the man in the photograph doesn't look like him. That means it could be the minister of the Free Church on Dow Brae, or of the Border View UP church (now the Wauchope Hall). The Rev. Archibald Torrance was minister of the Border View church from 1883 to 1897 and the Rev. Norman MacPherson minister of the Free Church from 1878 to 1895. We do not have a photograph of either man. However ...
    .... a photograph of Norman MacPherson (and his wife) in his old age has been posted on the Ancestry family history website by a descendant. Material posted on this site always needs to be treated with a degree of scepticism, but it also does allow genuine material to be shared which would otherwise be lost in private family archives. Could the man shown in both photographs be the same?

The minister on the left has a fuller face and seems in the prime of life. MacPherson was born in 1848, so arrived in Yetholm when he was 30 and left in his late 40s. He died in 1920 and the photograph on the right was presumably taken in his retirement, shortly before his death, when he was in his 70s. Might this explain the thinner face? Both men have prominent eye-brows and cheek-bones and sport a similar mustache. Let the reader decide!
   The Rev. MacPherson seems to have been a very active minister. Soon after his arrival he oversaw the construction of a new church building on Dow Brae. In 1895 he was called to Trinity Free Church in Glasgow - a very large number of members signed the petition to request his services. Interestingly he was not a Borderer, but a Gaelic-speaker from the highlands, being born in Trumisgarry (Trumaisgearraidh), north Uist. One wonders what he made of the Borders when he arrived - and what Borderers made of him - ? After his arrival in Glasgow he occassionally took services in Gaelic and newspaper reports show him sometimes taking Gaelic services in highland churches too.

   Our photograph was obviously not taken in or near a church building, but at that date weddings took place either in the manse or in a family home. The married couple might put in a special appearance at church on the Sunday after the wedding, but the ceremony itself took place elsewhere. YHS also has another photograph of a wedding taken at around the same time, shown below. Again details of donor and subjects are missing. Any suggestions?