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.