Lovely to read the swap with Yasmin (and to be reminded that I've never visited the Cheviot - I'm now working out how I might organise myself to do so).
Kate, I hope you get the chance to visit. I'm fortunate to 'watch' The Cheviots daily. But I also must organise myself to get along up there and see things from Ronald's perspective!
well, I enjoyed that, thanks, and having just finished Rory Stewart's excellent book 'The Marches', with it's tales of the Border Rievers, there I was again, with you in the borderlands "For nearly 300 years, from Bannockburn in 1314 to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the hill country between England and Scotland was a war zone: a place where neither monarch ruled and it suited both of them to keep it that way. Instead, your security depended on your family warlord in your own local valley, and lasted only until a stronger warlord from across the Border, or just from the neighbouring glen, came over the hill on a moonlit night to burn down your cornfields and steal away your cattle".
I was educated down south, in Surrey, and the curriculum hardly touched on Scotland's history or geography. This area, the Scottish Borders, has much of both! I'm learning something new every day!
I was at school in England and my sister in Scotland. Her history lessons were so much more exciting! Eg look up the Douglas Larder, or the deaths of the five Stewart kings. No. 2 was blown up by one of his own cannons.
Pleased to say that at school in Hexham we did do a bit of border reivers stuff now and again -- the key families, what life was like in a bastle, how to survive a raid on one and the like! I hope they still do it.
One reason that I keep going on about these border reivers is that I think it's really valuable for understanding the world today. Specifically, what it's like to live in a failed state, and how fragile our liberal democratic institutions actually are.
My sister was at secondary school in Scotland while I was going through the Tudors and Stewarts for the third time... Her history lessons were a lot more interesting than my ones!
Interesting how you write about the sexy curves of the Borders hills as viewed from the Carter Bar - a view I never tire of. It reminded me that painter William Johnstone saw them as a succession of female shapes and wrote “You cannot paint these subtly contoured hills without attempting to understand their anatomy: their sensuous feminine curves cover sharp elemental bones. There is always, for me, a sexual metaphor in these barren hills.” He was a Borders farmer who went on to become head of the Camberwell School of Art and a leading expressionist painter.
I always think of the Cheviots as being like a group of bulky animals lying down together - elephants? My misspent youth featured Windy Gyle, but the outdoor centre in Belford rather than the hill. I think your sheep are Cheviots; Texels are bigger with ugly faces.
Lovely to read the swap with Yasmin (and to be reminded that I've never visited the Cheviot - I'm now working out how I might organise myself to do so).
Kate, I hope you get the chance to visit. I'm fortunate to 'watch' The Cheviots daily. But I also must organise myself to get along up there and see things from Ronald's perspective!
Nice 'post-swap'—and I'd only just realised you and Yasmin know each other.
We've become acquainted through Substack, Jon. Glad you like the post-swap!
well, I enjoyed that, thanks, and having just finished Rory Stewart's excellent book 'The Marches', with it's tales of the Border Rievers, there I was again, with you in the borderlands "For nearly 300 years, from Bannockburn in 1314 to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the hill country between England and Scotland was a war zone: a place where neither monarch ruled and it suited both of them to keep it that way. Instead, your security depended on your family warlord in your own local valley, and lasted only until a stronger warlord from across the Border, or just from the neighbouring glen, came over the hill on a moonlit night to burn down your cornfields and steal away your cattle".
I'm with you on Rory Stewart and need to get into his Afghanistan walk book. My Border Reivers book is called 'Battle Valleys'.
Me too, though I read one of his books on that part of the world. Good as always. Must look out for Battle Valleys too.
I was educated down south, in Surrey, and the curriculum hardly touched on Scotland's history or geography. This area, the Scottish Borders, has much of both! I'm learning something new every day!
I was at school in England and my sister in Scotland. Her history lessons were so much more exciting! Eg look up the Douglas Larder, or the deaths of the five Stewart kings. No. 2 was blown up by one of his own cannons.
Pleased to say that at school in Hexham we did do a bit of border reivers stuff now and again -- the key families, what life was like in a bastle, how to survive a raid on one and the like! I hope they still do it.
One reason that I keep going on about these border reivers is that I think it's really valuable for understanding the world today. Specifically, what it's like to live in a failed state, and how fragile our liberal democratic institutions actually are.
I also was educated in Surrey. My history stopped with the second Jacobite rebellion, so we weren't completely devoid of Scotland's history.
A-hah! Another thing we have in common Felicity!
My sister was at secondary school in Scotland while I was going through the Tudors and Stewarts for the third time... Her history lessons were a lot more interesting than my ones!
Interesting how you write about the sexy curves of the Borders hills as viewed from the Carter Bar - a view I never tire of. It reminded me that painter William Johnstone saw them as a succession of female shapes and wrote “You cannot paint these subtly contoured hills without attempting to understand their anatomy: their sensuous feminine curves cover sharp elemental bones. There is always, for me, a sexual metaphor in these barren hills.” He was a Borders farmer who went on to become head of the Camberwell School of Art and a leading expressionist painter.
This is such an interesting observation, Laura. thanks for sharing your Johnstone quote.
I always think of the Cheviots as being like a group of bulky animals lying down together - elephants? My misspent youth featured Windy Gyle, but the outdoor centre in Belford rather than the hill. I think your sheep are Cheviots; Texels are bigger with ugly faces.
Really enjoyed reading this, thanks. Always find it wild to think of the lonely Cheviots as once 'a busy, well peopled place'!