The Borders could handle a wee bit more love: while no one wants the place to be like the Lake District, a-bustle with elderly couples in brightly coloured clothing, a slight increase in appreciation would be acceptable. Flown over, passed through, not much visited, the Borders (by which is meant the cross-border region comprising Berwickshire, Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, and north Northumberland) is scarcely known for what it is, a land not only hooching with history and presently strong — keeping its young — but also astonishingly, ever-changingly, easy on the eye. Thanks to Mother Nature’s intricate palette (the soft colours given focus by the zinging tone of the coo-hides) and geology — that fine secrecy of rivers — and careful land management, and the sudden birds, the land looks sensational. When the interplay of mist and sun is providing theatrical effects and frost adds definition, it can stop traffic. ‘Aye,’ we say, gazing, understatement being compulsory, ‘quite nice the day.’
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More paths would help. The four greatest boasts of my corner, central Berwickshire, are Duns Scotus, David Hume, Jim Clark and Louise Aitken-Walker, two deep thinkers and two fast drivers, world champions all, and all, presumably, bearing witness in their prowess to the excellence of the roads, for zooming along, and for walking along with a head full of deep thoughts. You can still zoom but a stroll up the A6105 is hairy work. Earlston, with its expanding network of paths around the town, shows the way. As the one place in Britain apart from the Highlands where stars are properly visible, the Borders, whose vastness can only be fathomed on foot (there are 457 square miles of Berwickshire alone), should encourage the slow movers, whatever their apparel.
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While central heating has changed life in the Borders more than politicians could ever hope to, there will always be weather. ‘Aye, there will always be weather,’ a retired gamekeeper informed me this week. We were remembering the two Big Freezes of 2010; snow fell for weeks, schools were closed, barn roofs caved in under the soft white weight. The year will go down in history, alongside 1947 and 1963. We thought it might prove the start of a new normality — ‘The planet’s in turmoil,’ says the gamekeeper unexpectedly — but this winter has been notable for high winds only. It’s not over yet, mind, and you can never be too sure. The only guaranteed frost-free month is July — so watch out, and keep your larder stocked, just in case. The talk is of little else; but that’s normal.
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Having been born here and having lived back here for the past eight years, I nevertheless heard myself saying, ‘I am not really a Borderer because my family only moved here in 1912.’ This was not thought a joke. Real Borderers — Laidlaws, Armstrongs, Redpaths (clans bristling with scrum-halfs), Pottses, Charltons, Percys — have names which figure in the ballads, and are still found in every school roll. Some families — the Swintons — still live nearby the place from where their name derives. Still, 100 years does lend a sense of community and belonging, which is the best thing, apart from seeing the barn-owl hunt at twilight, about staying here.
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But what one misses out on, as an RP speaker, schooled outwith the region, is the full richness of the various Borders dialects of the Scots language. Scots began to lose its official status during the Reformation and then lost it entirely when James VI conquered England, but it remains a separate entity from its closest relative, vigorous and unsuppressed, if mainly oral, and the language in which many (most?) Scottish folk think and speak. The independence debate might take note of this. In the Borders, most permanent residents use two tongues, adjusting from their real, ancient, multi-textured, fiercely local leid to something much blander when wanting to be comprehended by the likes of me. Some people refuse to compromise and then you get an idea of a language never heard on breakfast TV, quite distinct from that spoken two towns away. Sometimes, especially if you are in Hawick, where the accent is a thing of wonder, it’s hard to catch a word; it’s worth it, mind, for the music.
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‘What’s wrong with Berwick?’ I am asked. ‘Nothing whatever!’ I expostulate, defensively, ‘Berwick is perfect!’ And, sitting at the mouth of the Tweed, with its Elizabethan ramparts, thrilling bridges and fine buildings throughout, Berwick does look well. But perhaps there is a slight hangdog air about it, a slight sense that this jewel, which should be as famous as Bath, is not rising to the challenge. Well, if there is something wrong with Berwick, it takes the merest glance at a map to work out what it is. While the English and Scottish Borders enjoy a collective identity, we all know where the actual border is, and national identities matter too and determine aspects of life. (Wooler could not possibly be in Scotland, nor Duns in England.) And the unceremonious hoiking of the border out of its natural course along the Tweed, as happened in 1482 near Paxton, in order to loop English territory round Berwick, remains a wrong waiting to be righted. There are many arguments for the return of Berwick to Scotland (the undeniable Scottishness of Berwickshire being one) but none is so convincing as the unseemliness of that sudden veer north by the dotted line on the map. England would benefit by losing what is in effect an outpost, Berwick’s confusion would lift, and south-east Scotland would rejoice to have her capital back. It’s never too late to correct a misunderstanding between old friends; och, there’s plenty time in the Borders.