How the pandemic has made rural life more appealing than ever

A man of the night

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:22:10 GMT

A man of the night

Andy was three pages into a short title by Orwell when there was a loud knock at the door. Peering over his tortoiseshell glasses, perched on the end of his nose, he looked towards the front door. Well, in the general direction of the front door – it was down the stairs, through the floor from where he was lying in bed, so it was a more of a muscle reaction than an attempt to actually see anything. Was there a knock, or did he imagine it? Looking over to the alarm clock on his chest of drawers, he saw that it was 22.43. Catching the eye of his cat, Hunter, he began to say “it’s a bit late for visitors, is it not?” when another knock came, causing the sleepy feline to spin his head towards the bedroom doorway leading out onto the stairs. “Who could that be at this time, eh?” Andy asked, putting his book page down on his duvet, splayed open on the page, and stepping onto the IKEA rug at his bedside. He slung on his fleece dressing gown and walked downstairs to the front door, Hunter following in his shadow.

Andy switched on the external security light and opened the front door. What he saw made his jaw drop and his stomach churn. A moment of light headedness gave way to clarity. It was the prince. An actual member of the royal family. The prince who’d been in the media recently following an explosive interview about his personal behaviour and association with criminals. And there he was, standing in Andy’s porch, not three feet from the threshold, looking him directly in the eye.

Andy didn’t know what to say. He was trying to think of something useful to say when the prince took the initiative. “Terribly sorry, but I’m in a spot of bother and wondered if I could come in.”

Andy stared for a second. The prince was wearing a grey woollen raincoat, and raindrops sparkled on his shoulders as they began to soak in. A pin held his tightly knotted tie to his starched collar. His grey hair was slightly awry at the crown. His eyes were dark and anxious. His silhouette flashed brightly from the orange of a car’s hazard lights outside. “Would that be alright?” he probed.

Pausing for a second further, Andy then spoke. “Come with me,” he said. Closing the door behind him, Andy squeezed past the prince, slipped on his Crocs, and walked out of the porch onto the driveway. The prince followed, several steps behind. Rounding the corner of the brick building which once served as the coal sheds for the terrace, Andy proceeded to the middle door in the block. Taking the brass combination padlock in his left hand, he carefully moved the wheels to undo the lock, slipped the padlock off the handle, and opened the door of the coal shed. The prince cleared his throat proudly behind Andy, but said nothing. Andy stepped inside the coal shed and switched on a small electric lantern, which cast its yellow light over the logs stacked against the wall.

“Wait in here”, Andy said clearly, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

“In here? In this log store?” asked the prince, his eyebrows raised.

“Yes”, replied Andy firmly.

The prince stepped inside the cramped space, peering around himself, and said nothing. Andy walked out, crossing the driveway, entered the porch and opened the front door. As he stepped inside the hallway, Hunter sat staring at him from the stairs and gave a big yawn. “What the fuck ”, mouthed Andy quietly. “What the actual fuck!”, this time louder. Hunter’s eyes narrowed and he turned back upstairs.

Andy walked quickly down the hallway to the kitchen, where his phone was charging. Unplugging it, he unlocked the screen using his thumbprint and brought up the home screen. Swiping away a Whatsapp notification from his brother, he tapped the phone icon and saw the keypad numbers. “What exactly am I doing here?” he asked himself, once again out loud. His right thumb hovered over the keypad for a second, before slowly tapping out the numbers 9-9-9. He paused another few seconds, staring at the numbers on the screen before tapping “backspace” three times. Andy looked at the clock ticking loudly on the kitchen wall. Ten to eleven. Looking down again to his phone, he tapped the Google icon and then hovered over the search bar, cursor flashing. He stopped, then squeezed the lock button on the side of the phone. Listening to the rhythmic ticking of the clock, he began to zone out – his mind devoid of any thoughts whatsoever, noticing only his heart beating firmly in his chest. After a few moments he shook his head. “Focus on the task, Andy. What are you going to do?” he prompted himself, this time silently.

At this moment Andy’s other cat, Edison, slank into the kitchen and brushed himself slowly around Andy’s ankles, taking a figure of eight route between his legs. Looking up at Andy, and blinking sleepily, Edison let out a lethargic, elongated “miaow” and stretched out a big yawn.

“Do you want a Dreamie?” Andy asked, reaching for the pink packet sitting beside the coffee machine. It was a nonsensical thing to prioritise in the circumstances but it was the only action he could take in this moment that was immediately obvious and possible. Taking the packet in his left hand, the crinkling of the plastic was heard by Hunter, who at that moment came barrelling down the stairs. Andy led the two greedy cats into the living room where they sat side by side, expectantly, waiting for their cheese-scented crunchy snack. Andy gave one to each cat, and as they crunched contentedly, looked over to the stove, where the remaining embers glowed pink behind the glass door. Staring at the embers in the cosy ingle, Andy felt concerned. “He’s in there with my kiln dried logs. They were expensive”, he mused.

Returning to the kitchen, Andy laid his phone and the packet on the worktop and walked purposefully along the hallway. Opening the door, he exited the house. Feet crunching on wet gravel, he rounded the corner of the coal shed and opened the half-closed door, revealing the prince. “On second thoughts, can’t help you”, Andy said to the prince. The prince said nothing. “Out you come”, added Andy, placing a hand on the shoulder of the prince, gently pulling him back outside. Andy shut the shed door, replaced the padlock, and went back inside the house. He locked the door, removed his Crocs and dressing gown, and trudged back upstairs.

When he woke in the morning, it was to his radio alarm clock and the sound of Taylor Swift’s Opalite on the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. For a few seconds, Andy thought of nothing but the beat of the music. “Sleepless in the onyx night – but now the sky is opalite” . Then he sat up abruptly, remembering what had happened only hours before. “Was that real?” he wondered. The cats stirred as Andy trudged slowly downstairs to fire up the coffee machine. As it rumbled into life and warmed up, Andy picked up his phone to check his messages. Battery dead.

Cough to 5k: on being ill and wanting to run again

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 21:36:14 GMT

Cough to 5k: on being ill and wanting to run again

I've been sniffling the whole of January. On New Year's Day, what I thought I was a mild hangover turned out to be a sore throat, which was quickly supplemented with a fever and a blocked nose. That lingered for a couple of weeks, tiring me out, then in mid January I went sharply downhill and was literally bed-bound with the flu. A week later I felt slightly better and was able to travel to London for work. But that sense of wellness barely lasted a day, because I then came down with... Drumroll... another cold.

Everyone gets bugs in winter. That wasn't my first sickly January and it won't be my last. What's different though this year is the impact it's had on other parts of life. I'll get to the point: I haven't been able to run. And it's doing my head in.

I love running. It feels weird to write that. I mean, I'm not a running fanatic by any measure. I haven't run a marathon or even a half marathon, like many of my apparently superhuman friends and acquaintances I see on Instagram amassing medals like they're going out of fashion. I've done some 10k events, but I'm more of a small time runner. I mainly just enjoy short 5-6k runs once or twice a week.

It wasn't always thus. I'm a relatively recent convert to putting one foot in front of the other quickly as a hobby. Sure, I'd run before at various points in life, and even did a couple of 10k events years ago, but usually that's because I'd been peer-pressured into going by running enthusiasts around me who somehow seemed to enjoy it, and had just meekly acceded to their prompting with an attitude of "fine, if you insist, it can't do me any harm." No - this new era of running began last summer, and for the first time ever, it was my idea.

You might wonder, what was it that suddenly gave me the running bug at 36 years of age? Could it be a midlife crisis? I think I'm a bit young for that, but I've certainly been targeted by algorithmically curated social media memes rudely suggesting I'm at an age where I either buy an sports car (guilty), find myself divorced (hmm), buy a mountain bike (nah) or start running. Maybe Meta knows me better than I know myself. But I actually think the truth is much simpler: at around 6pm on the 9th of July 2024, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass door of a bar in Toulouse called Le Pétit Voisin and thought (or possibly mouthed quietly) "I need to lose that paunch."

I'm very stubborn. It's both a weakness and a strength. So I knew I was going to do something . I always found gyms horrid places, and that was before the age of phone cameras and social media, so I summarily ruled out joining a gym. And I've never played team sports - my shy nature and scrawny demeanour as a child meant I was always picked last by the popular kids nominated by 90s PE teachers to choose their own teams for rugby and football. It just wasn't my forte, and they knew it was well as I did. So team sports were out too. "My" exercise was always going to be a more solitary activity. What more obvious choice than running?

By the end of November, I'd lost more than 10kg in weight from running. That's over a stone in old money. I felt physically great, despite all my clothes being a bit baggier and having to drill new holes in my belts. And it wasn't remotely difficult to achieve that. When you run, you feel good. When you feel good, you make good choices and eat well. When you eat well, you have energy to run. It's a positive loop that so many people are lacking in this rainy, silly country, and you can't blame them. But you can get into it if you are determined.

As I said earlier, I love running now. I never thought I'd say this, but I have missed it terribly this winter on account of being unwell. I've been boring the ears off family and friends telling them how much I want to go for a run. The things that running brings me are exactly what I need in the misery of a dark, wet midwinter: fresh air, time away from screens, and an escapist trance where I can either mull over the big things troubling me, or - better still - just concentrate on my breathing with an empty mind. And the secret that all runners share - that the fabled runner's high is actually real - is reason enough to get your trainers on and get out there. To say running improves your mental health is just obvious, like saying water is wet. I'm not saying it "cures" depression or the like. But I am saying it makes life lighter, in more ways than one.

I like running down the back road near where I live. I like running through the fields too, when the cows aren't occupying them (I've made that mistake and been chased - I'm sure I set a new PB in the 100m on that occasion). I like seeing my pointlessly detailed stats on Strava. And I even get a kick out of signing up for events. If you'd told me a year ago I'd willingly travel somewhere far away to run, and pay for the privilege, I'd laugh at you. But that's what I do now.

Anyway, I have made my point. I've been too ill to run for ages; have lost my rhythm, feel down in the dumps, and can't wait to get back to it. I was ill in December too, and then in a flash was that prolonged feast of gluttony we call Christmas, so it's actually been two months since I last ran. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll remember how to do it. If the algorithm is right and my newfound passion does indeed mark the onset of an existential crisis (by the way, I sincerely hope 36 is not the midpoint of my life), then I can think of worse ways to mark such an occasion. But if it's nothing more complicated than a desire to get healthier and feel better, I would like to join the running evangelists in telling you to give it a try.

Making peace with the past

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 11:25:43 GMT

Making peace with the past

On Saturday 22 October 2022, at 11am, a short ceremony will take place on Tweed Green in Peebles. It marks the culmination of a year-long campaign by myself and my co-campaigner, Elisa Smith, to commemorate the people of Peeblesshire who were accused of, and executed for, witchcraft in the 16th-18th centuries.

In this entry we'll explore two things: firstly, the history of the witch trials in Peeblesshire, and secondly, our successful campaign for a memorial.

A variation of this entry first appeared in the Peeblesshire News on Friday 14 October 2022.

A history of the witchcraft trials in Peeblesshire

Our research suggests that well over 100 people – mostly women, but many men as well – were accused of witchcraft across Peeblesshire in the 1600s. It is important to understand why this happened.

The 16th and 17th centuries were times of major strife in Scotland. Plague, famine, and war stalked the country, and times were very hard for ordinary people. In the Borders, stuck between John Knox’s Presbyterian Edinburgh and Catholic Northumberland over the Border to the south, a distinct identity sprang up in this threatened, wary Borders region. People believed and practised a blend of the "new religion" (Protestantism), the “old religion” (Catholicism), and folklore – a form of pre-Christian Celtic polytheism. Fairies, witches, and the devil himself were all believed by many to inhabit the hills and glens of the Tweed Valley. People were suspicious of outsiders and of one another.

King James VI of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, reigned from 1567 until 1625. Following journeys undertaken by him and his new wife, Anne of Denmark, across the North Sea, where their ships were battered by storms, he became convinced that witches had conjured the storms in an attempt to kill him. This interest in witches grew into an obsession for James, an otherwise intellectual and articulate man, and he laid the groundwork for decades of intense witch hunts and brutal executions. As I mentioned in an earlier entry , he personally wrote Daemonologie in 1597: a pamphlet on witches, warlocks and the devil, which he seems to have intended to be used as a guidebook by the authorities to help them identify, try, and punish so-called witches wherever they were found in Scotland.

Peebles in 1629 would have been very different to the Peebles of today, though in some respects familiar. The High Street, running along an elevated peninsula of land between the Tweed and the Cuddy, was still the main thoroughfare and the Burgh Wall, still evident in the East Gate car park, would have marked the boundaries of the Royal Burgh. Somewhere to the East of the town, outside the town boundaries, was to be the site of brutal executions. The location of the burnings, back then called Calf Knowe, is now perhaps lost to time, and we have not yet been able to identify it with any certainty. There is some evidence to suggest a handful of possible locations including a part of Venlaw Hill around the Hydro Hotel, or the small knowe that now backs onto Witchwood Crescent (a name given much later) and Gallowhill. Others believe it could have been closer to Venlaw Castle, and some say it might have been closer to today's Eastgate car park. The truth is, we don't know where the burnings happened.

In one year in 1629, twenty seven people from Peebles, West Linton, Blyth Bridge, Romannobridge, Manor Valley, Stobo, Innerleithen, Traquair, and Kailzie were rounded up and thrown in the tolbooth jail in Peebles, now the site of the Bridgegate flats down by the Cuddy. I wrote about the events of 1629 in more detail in an earlier entry . In short, the victims were kept locked up for days, weeks, and months in awful conditions before their executions. They may have been healers, herbalists, or midwives in an age before conventional medicine existed; some healers may have described themselves as "witches" in this sense, before it became a bad word. Others may have been a little different in the way they dressed or looked. Or, all too often, they may have been perfectly ordinary in every way, but had fallen foul of their influential neighbours, who had made scurrilous accusations about them. All we can say with certainty is that they were not "witches" of the kind they were accused of being. They didn't meet the devil. They didn't cause crop failure. And they didn't make their neighbours ill. Therefore the basis of the prosecutions to come was unfounded, going by any intelligent analysis. The victims had no funeral or grave and their human remains would have been dumped into the River Tweed to ensure their evil was washed away.

The 1629 brutality was neither the first nor the last execution of innocent people accused of witchcraft in Peeblesshire. Another major local trial in 1649 saw more rounded up and killed, and plenty more were accused and executed throughout the century. But by the end of the 17th century, the existence of witches – something that was treated as a fact, and an existential threat, just a few years earlier – was now doubted by many, and the trials and executions rapidly declined. The last execution for witchcraft in the Borders happened in 1700. The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 was repealed in 1736, and although many in authority still believed in witchcraft, the burden of “proof” required at trial was elevated so high as to end the widespread executions for good. By that point, 352 witchcraft trials had taken place in the Borders, resulting in 221 executions.

The campaign to commemorate the victims

In the 21st century, we know that witches – as the prosecuting authorities understood the word in the 16th century – do not exist. We also know, whether we are atheists, agnostics or believers, that the devil is not a man wandering around the local hills and streets. Therefore, it is clear to us now that the local people executed for witchcraft were killed unjustly. Whatever their flaws, if indeed they had any, we can say with certainty that they simply did not commit the crimes they were accused of. We must therefore assume they were just guid Borders folk – not witches , which is a motif that will appear on the memorial stone. The 1629 trials in Peeblesshire were an extremely dark time in our town’s history, yet not many people know the story of the witch trials here.

Elisa and I wanted to change that. Having read Mary W. Craig’s book Borders Witch Hunt (2020), which I received as a lockdown birthday present, I began researching and blogging about the Peebles trials. Simultaneously, Elisa began undertaking her own extensive research, charting as far as possible the names of the victims and as many details as possible about their lives. We joined forces in early 2022 and agreed to channel our efforts into a tangible goal – securing a memorial for the local victims.

We wanted a memorial for two main reasons – firstly, to commemorate the witchcraft trial victims in Peeblesshire who never had a funeral or a grave marker. Secondly, as a reminder to people now and in the future of what can happen in hard times when people get jealous, petty, or spiteful with one another. The victims, the executioners, and the baying mob watching the victims burn were not strangers or people from far away. They are our own ancestors – you only need to read the surnames of the victims to see it. They lived here, walked many of the same roads and lanes as us, and recognised the hills that we know today. They farmed the same land as us. All that separates us from them is time. It is important we remember that as humans, and members of a community, we are capable of so much bad as well as so much good.

The stone will commemorate “all those in Peeblesshire persecuted under the 1563 Witchcraft Act”, including the twenty-seven executed in 1629 who will be named individually.

We were always conscious that it’s not just what we want that counts, but what the community wants. So, to find out if there was public support and what people thought, we undertook a public survey and engaged extensively with the public via the media, Peebles Community Council, our elected representatives at SBC and at Holyrood, and with other campaigners from around Scotland. We also consulted Mary Craig, the Borders-based historian and author of Borders Witch Hunt . Once we knew we had lots of local support, we went public with our plans, and that’s when Leslie and Emma from local William Purves Funeral Directors came forward with the generous offer of an engraved stone, which their business will maintain for the long term. We decided to site the memorial on Tweed Green because it is central, visible, and accessible, and because, as we have established, we cannot be sure where the execution site was, but we do know the remains of the victims probably ended up in the Tweed.

The six Tweeddale Councillors, who manage the Peebles Common Good Fund of which Tweed Green is an asset, unanimously backed our plans, as did Community Councillors. We have been delighted with the overwhelmingly positive support for this project. We’re especially grateful to the Peeblesshire News, which has reported on our project diligently since it began. Indeed, we've had lots of very welcome support from the media in covering the campaign - we've appeared in newspapers as well as in broadcast media.

We have never sought nor accepted public money for this project. We have always felt that would be wrong when so many in our community are struggling. Of the very few objections we received to the proposal for a memorial, most cited the misguided belief that this was a "waste of public money". Well, we can categorically allay that concern. The entire project has been voluntary, including our time and that of our supporters, and the memorial stone itself. At the unveiling ceremony, the speakers and musicians will be there voluntarily. For this, and to so many others, we are profoundly grateful.

The memorial stone will be positioned at the foot of a copper beech tree on Tweed Green, which stands alone on the grass between the cherry tree-lined path and the River Tweed. It will be visible, yet discreet and in keeping with its surroundings and hopefully there for a very long time as a visitor attraction and part of the town trail. In time we hope to “frame” it and the tree with a wall, or an encircling bench, but there will be a cost to that which we cannot yet afford, so it can be added at a later date.

The granite stone will be engraved with the following words:

In memory of all those in Peeblesshire persecuted under the 1563 Witchcraft Act, including these 27 executed in 1629

Janet Achesoun

Katherine Alexander

Helen Beatie

Marion Boyd

Katherine Broun

Agnes Chalmers

Marion Crosier

Margaret Dicksoun

Sussanna Elphinstoun

John Graham

Margaret Gowanlock

Issobel Haddock

Janet Hendersoun

Gilbert Hog

Margaret Johnestoun

Marie Johnestoun

Patrick Linton

Katherine Mairschell

William Mathesoun

Agnes Robesoun

Thomas Stoddart

Agnes Thomesoun

William Thomesoun

Bessie Ur

Jean Watsoun

Katherine Wode

Margaret Yerkine

guid Borders folk - not witches

When is a moment not a moment?

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 14:42:24 GMT

When is a moment not a moment?

Brushing my teeth this morning by the open bathroom window, I caught sight of something moving in the garden. Clinging to the handle of my garden fork in the vegetable patch was a specht – a Great Spotted Woodpecker. These are shy birds you don’t often see, so it was moment of excitement to spot the distinctive black and white body and bobbing red head so close. For a whole minute, I watched the woodpecker crawling adeptly around the wooden shaft of the fork, assessing its surroundings, before it suddenly took flight towards the copse behind the house. I smiled to myself quietly, having borne witness to nature’s beauty in such a peaceful moment.

Reader, that is not actually what happened. Here’s what actually happened.

Within seconds of spotting the woodpecker, my twenty-first century instincts took over. “Take a picture!” my mind silently screamed. I quickly finished brushing my teeth, then bolted through to the living room to get my phone. In the rush back to the bathroom, my big toe met the half-open living room door with the force of a hammer on a nail. A split second later, the pain started radiating and I let out a loud four-letter expletive. My mind turned back to the woodpecker outside, and I limped through to the bathroom to see if it was still there outside the window. As luck would have it, it was, but as I lifted my phone in an effort to capture the scene, I dropped my phone out the window. The bird was spooked and vanished in the blink of an eye. “For God’s sake”, or words to that effect, I uttered. So there I was, standing in the bathroom, big toe throbbing with red hot pain, phone lying on the gravel outside. I was feeling a new emotion – anger.

Let’s just recap what happened here: I saw a cool bird in the garden. Within seconds I stopped looking at the bird and went to look for my phone instead. Hurrying, rushing back to get a photo, and ended up smashing my toe in, dropping my phone, and scaring the woodpecker off in my calamitous rage. Looking at it logically, that’s all a bit crazy, isn’t it?

I’ve seen stories in recent years about artists banning mobile phone photography from their music concerts. Images of a sea of people standing metres away from their idol, with their eyes fixated not on the performance, but on the screen of their phone, are easy to laugh at for their absurdity. And yet here I am, ruining moments at home in a desperate dash to bottle up a moment in time that’s unfolding right before my very eyes, if only I would look at it.

Why did I do it? I don’t know. I think I was acting subconsciously – a momentary collapse of self-awareness. I think I recognised a special moment and wanted to capture it for posterity, and possibly to send the picture to family and friends and share it on social media. I thought the woodpecker in my garden would look good on Instagram, and might even get a few likes. Who doesn’t like that sort of validation from their friends? On the face of it, totally harmless. But was it? I stubbed my toe. The bird flew away. The phone could have been damaged. And I got angry and disappointed. I think the last bit there is most jarring, as I reflect. How did a special moment make me angry instead of happy?

When faced with a new situation, especially when we recognise an urgency attached to it, we sometimes act irrationally. Professor Steve Peters in his book The Chimp Paradox calls it the “chimp brain” – it’s an evolutionary feature of the human brain which is meant to protect us from threats. The “chimp brain” in Peters’ model is driven by emotion and impulsivity rather than logic, which he calls the “human”. You cannot get rid of your chimp and instead must learn to manage it. I bought The Chimp Paradox as an audiobook, and I thoroughly recommend it. I think the woodpecker incident is an example of what can happen when your “chimp brain” is in charge of a situation that it shouldn’t have been in charge of. Or maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know.

Whatever it was, this wee incident caused me to reflect enough to want to write down my thoughts. Whatever you want to call these thought processes, I think it comes down to being self-aware, and that is often undoubtedly easier said than done. Reflection is a form of self-awareness, and is certainly important, but in-the-moment self-awareness is a harder state to master.

So what now? Probably nothing. That’s it. Story over.

Or perhaps next time I see something cool, I’ll try and stop myself. I’ll think twice before reaching for my phone. Maybe I’ll take a photo, and maybe I won’t – sometimes a moment is meant to be a moment, and nothing more.

I just wish the pain of a stubbed toe only lasted a moment.

A Christmas Eve Nightmare: Peebles, 1629

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 22:48:47 GMT

A Christmas Eve Nightmare: Peebles, 1629

The Tolbooth of the Royal Burgh of Peebles, which served as the town jail in the 17 ^th century, was an “imposing stone structure” located at the foot of the Bridgegate beside the Eddleston Water, known as the Cuddy. Comprising basement rooms and an attic, the front of the building measured twelve metres long and stood on the site of the modern-day Bridgegate flats. It was in the Tolbooth in the mild spring of 1629 that twenty-seven local women, men and children were gathered and locked up, awaiting trial. Their charges? “Meeting at night for nefarious purposes”, “making a pact with the devil and denying their baptisms”, “frolicking with Auld Nick”, and “laying sickness on their neighbours”. In other words, these twenty-seven local people were accused of witchcraft, and some of them would pay a heavy price for their alleged misdemeanours. The final executions took place on Christmas Eve, 1629.

What happened in Peebles in 1629 was a tragedy – yet most people know almost nothing about it. One interpretation of what happened is set out in Borders Witch Hunt (Mary W. Craig, 2020) . Using Craig’s insightful text, local knowledge, and a variety of other historical sources, we can piece together a grim tale of fear, panic and injustice which culminated in the brutal execution of innocent people right here in our sleepy Tweed Valley. What happened here was part of a wider pattern of misogynistic, superstitious alarm that gripped Scotland and northern Europe for almost a century. Across Scotland, nearly 4,000 people were tried under the provisions of the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 – most of them women – and two thirds were executed.

Peebles in 1629 would, on the surface, seem loosely familiar to many who know the town now. The High Street would be there, running east to west, as would the Bridgegate, the Northgate, and the old town. The old burgh wall, a section of which still stands in the East Station car park, would stand complete, limiting access to the royal burgh – a town affected like many others by the plague, and deeply suspicious of outsiders. And the land around us – Hamilton Hill, Venlaw Hill, Cademuir, Gypsy Glen and the Drove Road and the Tor Hill – would all be much the same, with their familiar contours and their place in our imaginations. And yet, culturally and politically, it is hard to imagine the environment seventeenth century Peebleans were living in. Charles I had occupied the throne for only four years after the fifty-seven year reign of his father, King James VI. James – an otherwise intellectual monarch in his time – had suddenly become obsessed with witchcraft when the vessel carrying him and his new wife, Anne of Denmark, to Scotland was damaged in violent storms at sea. James became convinced that the storms were an attempt on his and his wife’s lives, and that the waves had been conjured by those who wished him ill. Thus began a national crusade against “witches” in Scotland, with the monarch harbouring a paranoia so intense, he even wrote a book about witches and black magic called Daemonologie , published in 1597 and reprinted again in 1603 when he took the English throne. Daemonologie, and its anxious ravings about everything from witches to vampires, became national doctrine. Against this background, in a pre-enlightenment Scotland, it is easy to imagine how terrified people could become by the perceived threat of sorcery.

And so it was that in 1629, Peebles was gripped by gossip. It was the talk of the steamie that a handful of locals had been acting suspiciously. The paranoia about witchcraft had already touched the town – two years earlier, according to Clement Gunn’s volumes, the Book of the Cross Kirk AD 1560-1690 , a Peebles woman called Margaret Dalgleish had been accused of witchcraft, but had got off with only an admonition on the condition she sought pardon from God. But the anxiety returned in 1629 with a renewed vigour. Craig captures the zeitgeist of the local murmurs when she speculates on the locals’ musings: “Why did Katherine Wode and Marion Boyd always hurry down to Tor Hill, ignoring their neighbours’ greetings?” Other causes for concern were Patrick Lintoun, who “yawned all morning” when he had no reason to be tired had he been in bed all night as he should, and three others including Gilbert Hogg and Janet Hendersoune who missed the Sunday church service two Sabbaths in a row – imagine! Rumours grew arms and legs and all sorts of anecdotal evidence compounding the suspicions sprang up. Accusations by the court of public opinion were like an avalanche; one claim that someone had been absent from church due to illness led to another person “remembering” they’d seen the culprit out and about, looking well, which led to another person saying they’d seen them out after nightfall. It’s not hard to see, in such a febrile, paranoid community, how things got out of control. Craig explains that the presbytery of Peebles was called to discuss the happenings, meeting late into the night to discuss what to do about the rumours, and form a list of all the suspects. After agreeing to secure leave from Edinburgh to conduct a trial, which came within the week, twenty-seven local people “vehementlie suspect of wytchcraft” were rounded up and thrown in the Tolbooth. Their names were, according to Craig:

Agnes Chalmers, Sussanna Elphinstoun, Margaret Yerkine, William Thomesoun, William Mathesoun, Thomas Stoddart, Agnes Robesoun, Katherine Broun, Marie Johnestoun, Janet Hendersoun, Agnes Thomesoun, Katherine Wode, Marion Crosier, Issobel Haddock, Gilbert Hogg, Jean Watsoun, Margaret Dicksoun, Margaret Johnestoun, Janet Achesoun, Bessie Ur, Katherine Alexander, Helen Beatie, Margaret Gowanlock, Marion Boyd, Katherine Mairschell, Patrick Lintoun, and John “Joke” Graham.

The accused were from Peebles itself, Stobo, Lyne, Blyth Bridge, Romanno Bridge, and West Linton. Some of the accused had previous charges against them. According to Clement Gunn, Janet Hendersoun had three years earlier been accused of sinning and “was ordered to stand for six Sabbath days at the kirk door and place of public repentance at the kirk of Linton, clothed in sackcloth, and with bare feet.” Every one of the twenty-seven accused in 1629 maintained their innocence. Some of the suspects had known what was coming and had attempted to flee towards Innerleithen or Biggar, but all were caught and rounded up. When the Tolbooth was full, the remainder of the group was locked in the kirk. All were to be questioned and tried by local commissioners and the minister of the presbytery of Peebles, Archibald Syd.

After many days and nights of intense questioning and accusation, the first to crack was Issobel Haddock from West Linton, described, according to Craig’s sources, as a young girl. Under the intense pressure of the minister and his officials, this young, very likely sleep-deprived woman, held in the mouldering basement of the Bridgegate tolbooth, finally caved and gave a false confession to say that she and others had met the devil on Tor Hill (on the right as you travel from Peebles to Kailzie), and she was prepared to name names, most likely in the desperate hope of leniency for assisting in the unrelenting inquisition. And soon after, writes Craig, “all the others broke down and also confessed” to the absurd accusations, going into extraordinary detail about “what the devil looked like, what his voice was like, and what he had promised them”. The town descended into uproar when word got out about the confessions. Half the town wanted blood, having “always known” of the guilt of the accused, while the other half staunchly defended the accused in the safest way they could with the threat of death hanging in the air: they dismissed the allegations as gossip and spoke of their good characters.

Finally, on 11 June, Reverend Syd was satisfied that there was enough evidence to commence a formal trial. The accused were brought before the court of the presbytery, and the male jury drawn from the burgh, in the Tolbooth and had their charges read against them. Exhausted after weeks of uncomfortable imprisonment, with no defence to speak of, many had to sit on the stone floor of the court room, dishevelled and unkempt – conveniently for their accusers, looking more like “witches” and nefarious undesirables than ever before. Twenty-four of the group were found guilty. Ten days later, they were marched barefoot up the Calf Knowe (part of Venlaw Hill), strangled by rope, one by one, and then burned in tar barrels. The sight and smell of the burning corpses must have been gruesome beyond imagination.

Three of the accused – Sussanna Elphinstoun, Margaret Johnestoun, and John “Joke” Graham were spared execution because the jury had found the charges against them “not proven” – a verdict unique in Scots Law which is under review today. They continued to be detained in the tolbooth until the end of the year due to the legal system being preoccupied with witch trials elsewhere. Finally, a new trial was held on 22 December 1629, and the now-wretched accused, ragged and malnourished after months of rudimentary imprisonment, were once again brought before the presbytery and the jury, whom Craig writes were “under pressure no doubt to correct their previous mistaken verdict”. This time, Reverend Syd got the verdict he wanted. The remaining three were to be executed. On Christmas Eve, 1629, the public of Peebles gathered once again and watched Sussanna Elphinstoun, Margaret Johnestoun and John Graham burn in tar barrels. According to Craig, the spectators then turned, led by Reverend Syd and no doubt stinking of smoke and burning flesh, and headed back down the path to the church to celebrate the birth of Christ.

What is striking about the 1629 executions in Peebles is this: the crime twenty-seven local people were executed for – witchcraft – is something that doesn’t exist. We know this now. In 2021, we can say with absolute certainty that whatever those twenty-seven people may have said or done, they were not witches. They did not “frolick with Auld Nick”. They did not speak to the devil. Those are facts. At worst, the twenty-seven victims of the Peebles witch trials of 1629 were guilty of petty grievances with one another – a natural occurrence in times of strife and pestilence when food and resources are in short supply. And yet, those twenty-seven people were executed. Trial records would support this; too often, the occupations of the accused are listed as “vagabond” and their social status “landless”. The records paint a picture of social injustice, disenfranchisement, and a deep-seated misogyny which was state-sanctioned, with preacher John Knox’s 1588 pamphlet The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women illustrating the basis for a widespread suspicion and hatred of women that ultimately caused death and suffering to thousands.

Throughout those dark years of the Scottish witch trials, Craig’s research suggests there were forty-one executions in Peebles alone. Nine accused suffered other punishments, and one was acquitted. Three were executed down the road in Innerleithen, and the fate of dozens more across Peeblesshire is lost in the fog of time. Edinburgh University have published an online interactive m a p which shows the names, residences and other known details about each victim. Looking at the map highlights the terrifying scale of the witch trials in Scotland and it does beg the question – why do we not yet have a national memorial to the memory of those murdered by a paranoid, superstitious state? Perhaps the Borders would be the best place to locate such a memorial, being as we are the region outside of Edinburgh with the most witch-related executions in Scotland. It is not a superlative we Borderers can ever be proud of, but it is perhaps worthy of consideration now that the Scottish Parliament is set to consider pardoning victims of the witchcraft trials.

However we may or may not choose to remember the victims of the Scottish witch trials, the story of Peebles in 1629 is a deeply moving one for all who live in this town. The names of the accused are the names of local families in our communities. We all know of Thomsons, Hendersons, Johnstons, Boyds and Grahams. These are not faraway “others”; they are our own flesh and blood. So this Christmas Eve, when people in Peebles are making merry, I’ll be raising a glass to the “Christmas Eve three” – to Sussanna, Margaret, and John.

Why the end of summer fills me with dread

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 21:26:26 GMT

Why the end of summer fills me with dread

The first thing you notice about the end of summer where I live is the turning of the heather. The hills explode in a covering of pinks, magentas, bubblegums, violets and purples in August, then slowly lose their vibrancy like an old t-shirt after too many washes as September marches on towards October. Uni terms start just as the first leaves are turning yellow, and the woodlands look more jaundiced than lush. Then one day, you’re walking down the street and step onto a brown, crispy leaf and you realise: summer is over.

Loads of people love autumn. Positively rejoice in it. Look at your Instagram stories – some people can’t wait to take their jumpers out of the drawer, and drink pumpkin-spiced drinks, and bake cinnamon buns and Halloween stuff and get cosy and watch films and light candles. The whole hygge concept, which crept briefly from Scandinavia into our own consciousness about five years back, is still a massive deal in marketing. And then when people get bored of autumn, no worries: nature rolls out the frost. The snow. The ice. Out with the pumpkin drinks, in with the gingerbread, insta posts of dogs playing in snow and sledging and Christmas nights out. Loads of people love winter too.

But the end of summer is truly a difficult time for many of us. I don’t mean to put a downer on other people’s enjoyment. After all, we all must hold onto what joy we can in a world where so much in our lives feels increasingly outwith our control. I am genuinely pleased for people who like winter. Objectively, I do see the attraction of the cosy, warming, tasty stuff that comes with the changing of the season, and the beauty of nature. I even appreciate the need for winter as a form of renewal – out with the old, so we can once again bring in the new in spring. At one level, I understand it. But in truth I envy those people, because try as I do every single year, I just can’t convince myself the coming of winter is a good thing.

To me, the end of the warm, bright months we’re blessed with in Scotland marks the falling of a dark curtain that won’t lift for many, many months. Quite literally, this silly little island, along with the rest of the continent and indeed the northern hemisphere, is being tilted away from the sun, shortening our days and heralding long, cold, damp, dark nights. Losing the warmth and, most importantly, the abundance of light feels like real grief to me. If summer represents life and light, winter is the harbinger of darkness and death. Driving through the landscape, the trees are bare and the green shoots of spring seem like a distant dream. No matter how many cinnamon candles I sniff, or seasonal lattes I try, I can’t shake the feeling that I am sliding into darkness.

Just as some people love winter, and some don’t mind it, not everyone hates it as much as I do. Part of the explanation for how I feel is that I live with a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) . It’s a form of depression – not just ordinary sadness – that generally aligns with the winter months. It is a proper illness, diagnosed by a GP. SAD means I feel tired more. I sleep for far longer than I do in summer. I lose interest in the things I enjoy most. I feel grumpy a lot of the time. I struggle to concentrate. I get upset more easily. On some days, I feel hopeless, like the winter will last forever – even though I know rationally, of course, that it won’t.

There is still a great deal science needs to learn about SAD. We don’t know exactly what causes it, and we therefore struggle to find effective relief from it. As someone who’s been through the rollers with this many times on a personal level, I’ve been thinking about what I do to cope with winter. Please remember – I am not a scientist, nor a doctor. If you think you are suffering from SAD, you should speak to your doctor, not mess about. I’m just a guy writing a blog post. But beyond getting professional medical advice, here are some practical things that have definitely helped me, and that you might like to consider yourself to make your winter that little bit easier:

1. Get a SAD lamp . These are lamps which simulate the light we see from the sun. I can’t comment on the science of them, but I can tell you that when you shut your eyes lightly and stare into one of these little beauties as you have your breakfast on a wet December morning, you can easily imagine yourself looking up into the summer sky on a July morning. It’s glorious, even just for 10 minutes every morning. It can set your mood for the whole day. By the way, this is not a sponsored post. There are loads of these things for sale out there. Mine was about £30 – there’re no need to spend much more than that in my opinion. Have a look online and look for one with good reviews.

2. Escape. If you are fortunate enough to be able to afford a winter break, like a long weekend in Barcelona or Nice in January, do it. It breaks up the winter months into two more manageable chunks, and it feels like you are escaping the darkness, albeit briefly. Note – I realise flying isn’t good for the environment, it’s sometimes expensive, and at the moment presents extra challenges with testing and traffic light malarkey. I know a short holiday is a very privileged thing to suggest. But sometimes, if you can afford it, you gotta take the joy you can get.

3. Make plans. The winter is long and dark. Thinking about the months as a block – November, December, January, February – can feel overwhelming. So fill them with plans. Try and see your friends and family as much as possible. Not just in a loose, see-what-happens kind of way. Be active and deliberate in your planning. Tell your brother you’d like to watch a film with him next Friday. Tell your pal you want to meet for a coffee two weeks on Thursday. Join a club that meets on Monday nights at 7pm. Meet your sister for a dog walk this afternoon. Schedule a Zoom call weekly or fortnightly with a friend who lives far away. Get into a habit of phoning your dad or your grandparents once a week at a set time. Fill your diary with activities you look forward to that punctuate your weeks and keep you distracted. Make sure you always have something to look forward to, even when things are hard. Especially when things are hard.

4. Go outside. Yes, I know – it’s a cliché of lazy mental health advice. But seriously, all the research shows that fresh air and sunlight are good for you. It’s undeniable. Even if you don’t feel motivated, try and schedule a moment every day – whether it’s part of your lunchbreak, or even just 10 mins in the morning and in the afternoon if you work or study indoors, to go out and stretch the ol’ legs. If nothing else you might see something cool on your walk. There’s a lot to see outside.

5. Books. Admittedly, this only works if you enjoy reading for fun. I do – that’s why I’m recommending it. If you don’t like reading, you definitely shouldn’t do this one. It’s another great form of escapism to immerse yourself in other worlds – some real, some fantasy – and transport yourself away from the situation if you’re not feeling great. You don’t need a lot of money to get books. Charity shops are bursting full of second- and third-hand copies of everything from “what to cook in a slow cooker” to “the Hobbit”. You never know what you’ll find in those places. Browsing can be an exciting activity in itself.

6. Cut corners. Cut as many corners as you can. I don’t mean do your job or studying less well – that’s a terrible idea. I mean when it comes to breakfast time, make sure your coffee cup is already out the night before, next to the kettle. When it comes to going shopping, keep a supply of carrier bags in your car or in your coat pocket. When it’s time for dinner, have leftovers – cook less often, and cook more when you do. These are tiny, sometimes obvious things. But when you’re feeling low, you might not see the benefit in being prepared. Try and remind yourself to do these things when you’re already on your feet. Every time you save a little time or energy on those dark winter days, future you will feel like you and past-you have conspired to cheat the universe. You might give yourself a wee high-five.

7. Go easy on yourself. Winter is miserable if you’re living with SAD. If you can’t get out of bed, or drop a cup, or forget to post a letter, or forget your carrier bags when you go into the supermarket – forgive yourself. If you catch yourself getting angry or annoyed at yourself, and I do often catch myself calling myself things like “idiot”, “hopeless” under my breath when I’m not having a good day, nip that right in the bud. You wouldn’t say that to your partner, or your mum, or your friend. That would be considered cruel and abusive if you did. Instead, tell yourself “no, that’s a horrible thing to say about someone who is trying really hard to get through the day. You’re not hopeless; you’re not an idiot. You’re doing really well, in fact, all things considered.” In other words, be fair and kind to yourself, and be active and deliberate about it, even if you don’t feel you deserve it in the moment. You’ll notice you feel better overall if you take this attitude.

I’m stopping there because seven is as good a place to stop as any. Why do all lists these days have to be lists of either three or ten? That’s not how the world works and it makes me inordinately annoyed when people feel they can’t stop at nine. Or seven. Do what you want, within reason.

None of these suggestions will stop you suffering from SAD, which is a very real and common mental health disorder. As I said before, and I’d like to reiterate now – please make an appointment to go and see your doctor for professional medical advice if the winter really fills you with dread. Don’t delay seeking help. But once you’ve done that, if anything amongst any of these ideas helps even one other person to have a slightly better winter, I’ll consider my time writing this well-spent.

Here's to the NHS

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 15:59:24 GMT

Here's to the NHS

When I got my blue envelope inviting me for my first dose of the Covid vaccine last week, it came with a wee turquoise leaflet entitled “What to expect after the Covid-19 vaccine”. It listed a whole range of common and less common symptoms, from a sore arm to fatigue. But what it didn’t mention – and what I didn’t foresee – was how going for vaccination would make me feel. In the hours after my jag, I felt tearful.

It wasn’t that the jag was sore – my mum was the nurse who administered mine and her years of experience ensured it was quick and painless! – nor was it that I had any negative side effects. It wasn’t for any negative reason at all. I soon realised that the reason I felt tearful was because of how bloody wonderful the National Health Service is, and how extraordinarily fortunate we are to have it.

When the NHS was founded in 1948, British people were struggling with all manner of ills after a crippling world war. Millions couldn’t afford to see a doctor; infant mortality was high, malnutrition was endemic thanks in part to strict rationing, and men couldn’t expect to see their 67 ^th birthday. The plan was to create a truly national service to improve and sustain the health of the population, “from the cradle to the grave”. Crucially, it was to be free at the point of need, paid for through taxation.

In the seven decades since the NHS was founded, it has had its problems. Long waiting lists for mental health treatment are a crisis. I know firsthand – I waited 9 months to see a specialist in 2019, and then the service was pulled half way through my treatment due to budget cuts. There is a postcode lottery of ageing hospitals and health centres, delayed or cancelled operations, and it’s not always the most efficient.

But here’s the thing. Virtually none of those problems is the fault of the NHS staff. Where there are failings in our NHS, they are usually due to policy or funding decisions made by politicians. I don’t want to get too much into party politics here, but if I say there’s one party who opposed the NHS’ creation and have tried to quietly dismantle it at every chance they get in order to let their private sector profiteering pals in, you know which party I’m talking about. Other parties aren’t blameless, but some have a pretty good record.

But I don’t want to talk about politicians here. I have started writing a gushing tribute to the NHS – the greatest institution in the world. A bold claim? Perhaps, but that’s my honest opinion. In every measure the NHS is itself responsible for, it is succeeding.

When I had serious mental health struggles, the NHS was there for me. When I was in agony with a grumbling appendix problems in the middle of the night in my teens, the NHS was there for me. When I had a chest infection last year, the NHS was there for me. When beloved family members have had babies, or health problems, or scares, or needed support, or reached their final days, the NHS has been there for us.

The NHS is glorious. It’s not perfect, but it’s everything you could ever need and more. And it’s all free, paid for in advance for a rainy day. I love everything about it. Yes, even the dog-eared posters and magazines in the doctors’ surgery waiting room. Even the smell of cleaning products and soup that meet you when you pass the RVS café in the hospital. Even the dated paint jobs in the corridors. All of it.

Sometimes it seems like it’s falling apart at the seams. “A victim of its own success” as some have explained it. The more people the NHS treats, improving their health and prolonging their lives, the greater the pressure on it in the long term to provide more specialised services for a more scrupulous and demanding public. If the NHS is overstretched – and I think we all agree it is – the answer is more funding, not less. The NHS never "fails" us; inadequate NHS funding fails us.

If ever you have to wait for hours at A&E, or you have to wait months for an operation, just remember that it’s not the fault of the doctors, nurses, cleaners or receptionists. Don’t be tempted to take our your stress on them. They are being asked to do too much with not nearly enough funding. Save your anger for the politicians who put these dedicated people in that position. Remember it when you vote.

Imperfect, but dependably always there when the unexpected happens. That’s the NHS. This pandemic is something we all knew could happen in theory, but in reality, none of us really knew just how much our lives would change, or that it would strike when it did. But it did happen. We weren't ready, but the NHS was, and one year later, we’re advancing through the vaccination programme at a rate of knots.

My first vaccination appointment was in my local sports centre – the Gytes in Peebles. When I entered the hall, where I’d once played basketball at school and attended roller skating birthday parties as a kid, I was met with an unrecognisable sight.

Rows of well-spaced chairs with people waiting after their jags.

A queue of about ten people reading the information booklets they’d been handed at the door intently.

A small army of nurses and other NHS staff dressed in blue, disinfecting seats and tables between patients.

And above all, a quiet, comforting, drama-free peace. The public and the NHS staff alike were going through the motions calmly and efficiently. I say “going through the motions” as if this is something routine. It isn’t. None of this is normal. But that quiet efficiency and display of duty suggested a well-honed operation. The place had been transformed from sport centre to an efficient, life-saving temple.

Seeing the basketball hoops positioned on the walls above the heads of nurses busy at work was the moment that brought tears to my eyes. The way these professionals have adapted and succeeded in the past year is mindblowing and really quite moving.

It’s a cliché to say we take our NHS for granted, but it’s painfully true. This wonderful institution has saved most of our lives at least once, and its staff are models of virtue. But what makes it feel special – what makes it feel almost magical – is that it doesn’t cost us a penny. No bills, no invoices, no questions about insurance. In Scotland, no prescription charges either. Not one of the NHS professionals we encounter is driven by profit. They get paid their salary (not enough in many cases) but they go above and beyond out of passion for their work. On the whole, it strikes me time and time again that they seem to just really, really care about people. That’s duty. When you think of it, “clapping for the NHS”, however well intentioned, was such an inadequate response to everything they do for us. We owe the NHS and its staff so much more.

So here’s to the NHS and its imperfect perfection. It’s all we could ever truly need and more. The greatest institution on Earth, and this country should never lose sight of that. It protects and sustains us all, adapts to change, goes above and beyond, and is always there, no matter what. Now that's something special and very, very precious.

Withdrawing from Erasmus is a travesty for poorer kids

183:759738508 (Simon Ritchie) — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 20:02:45 GMT

Withdrawing from Erasmus is a travesty for poorer kids

I stood in the staff room, sipping a vending machine espresso, giddy with caffeine and nerves. It was autumn 2008, and my first day of teaching in a French lycée in the rural, southwestern town of Rodez. “ They’re going to be so excited to meet you ”, Danielle, my mentor, assured me, as we strode along the corridor to the classroom after morning breaktime. As we moved, crowds of noisy teenagers parted amid whispers of “ qui est-ce? ” and my self-consciousness soared. Arriving in the classroom, students filed in and took their seats, before Danielle introduced me. “ This is Simon, our new English language assistant. ” Thirty pairs of eyes studied me furiously.

I had no idea what my year abroad would be like. I’d received advice from veterans of the Erasmus+ scheme, led by the British Council, before departure, but frankly, as the first ever in my family to attend university out of school – my mum studied nursing as a mature student while I was at school – the whole higher education experience was so alien to me that it might as well have been advice for moving to Mars.

I grew up in Innerleithen and Peebles in the Scottish Borders. My family were never rich. We weren’t destitute either, but my parents’ separation and divorce in 1996-7 saw us all much worse off financially. My brother, sister and I ended up in homeless accommodation with our mum, where we lived for eighteen months before we could get a proper council house. While money might have been tight for my childhood, one thing my parents were never, ever short of was encouragement for their children to “stick in” at school – they knew that a decent education was how we would get ahead in life in a post-industrial Scotland. Had I been born twenty years earlier, it would probably have been a job in machine knitting at the mill for me, following in my dad and grandad’s footsteps. But that industry was on its way out. So with the support and fierce encouragement of my parents and grandparents, I did as I was told and stuck in at school. When I got to high school, I began to excel in languages – French, German and Spanish – and it was my wonderful French teacher, Mrs Robertson, who first lit the fire in my mind that I could apply to study languages at university.

When I got an unconditional offer in 2006 from St Andrews to study French and German with an integrated year abroad, I was torn. Thrilled, yes. Elated, yes. But terrified. Nobody I knew could tell me anything about university, and certainly not about working or studying abroad. Spotting my interest in politics and my passion for languages, my school guidance teacher convinced me that with a language degree, I could “ go and work in Brussels one day – that’s where the future is ”, and – despite how that has worked out for the UK now – that hazy possibility was what drove me. Truth be told, I didn’t honestly know what I was doing. After all, who does at sixteen, seventeen? But I was academic rather than practical and, as I didn’t want to stay in Peebles forever, uni felt like the right choice.

When I got to university, I didn’t have much money. My family were not in a strong position to support me in the way that many folk around me were supported. The post-exam January break, known in the middle class St Andrews bubble as “ski week”, was something I could never live out. That's when I realised I was relatively poor - when it was thrust in my face and I had to turn down offers of holidays. Accommodation was expensive, even in the cheapest and most basic halls, and after paying that out of my student loan and SAAS grant, there wasn’t much left each semester. During freshers’ week I found out I was invited to attend a scholarship awards ceremony. Me being me, I had no idea what a scholarship was. Some other weird part of matriculation, I assumed, and went along. I was presented with a certificate, and a letter, and (I later realised) a cheque for £1000, which I promptly filed away for thirteen years. Yes – I missed out on a scholarship for low income students because I didn’t know what a scholarship was. Nobody explained it to me, a kid from a family with no knowledge of university whatsoever, and I didn’t see the cheque buried in all the heaps of bewildering paperwork that go with matriculation.

When it came to my third year, the impending prospect of going abroad for a year was petrifying. I barely managed to cover the expense of living in St Andrews, seventy-five miles from home. How would I afford the flights, the accommodation, living costs and all the rest of it? There were so many unknowns. Suddenly it was looking like a very risky idea. The day before I was due to fly out, I had a bit of a breakdown, concerned about money and leaving my friends. But fly out it I did, and a week later I was standing at the front of that classroom as an assistant d’anglais .

Erasmus has long been taken advantage of by more affluent students. That makes it no different from the entirety of higher education in the UK. Young people from richer backgrounds know about these things because their parents went to uni, or their cousin did Erasmus. They know about university; they know about Erasmus; they know about scholarships. They know about jobs and openings and internships and opportunities that their poorer peers do not. Put simply, they know because they are well-connected in a way that many of them take for granted. The language of the higher education system is their language. It wasn’t mine when I started out.

Once I got settled in France, I realised that in addition to my loan payment and SAAS grant, I’d be paid approximately €800 per month for my work in the schools. This would more than cover my flights home at Christmas and Easter, I thought. Then, to my delight while flat-hunting, I realised that, since I was under twenty-five, the French government would subsidise seventy per cent of my monthly rent costs, meaning I paid just €170 a month for my cosy attic flat with a skylight window looking up onto the mediaeval cathedral bell tower in the heart of the town.

For a year I lived like a king. My confidence grew in the classroom and I developed a strong relationship of trust and respect with my students. My French improved immeasurably through total immersion in the language and culture. I was even able to do a bit of travelling, heading down to the Pyrenees to ski in January with new colleagues and friends. I recall spending rainy Saturday afternoons in autumn, wandering through forests collecting chestnuts to roast, or tutoring the kids of some of my colleagues in English for a bit of extra pocket money. Every weekend I feasted on local cheese and wine from the farmers’ market in the square outside my flat. That year was the most enriching experience of my life, and it very nearly didn’t happen.

I didn’t think any of my Erasmus year was possible. I couldn’t ever even have imagined it until I had lived it. At so many points in my life, I could have taken another, more comfortable path. What if I hadn’t had an encouraging French teacher? What if my parents hadn’t convinced me to stick in at school? What if I’d decided, on the spur of the moment on the eve of my departure for France, that I was just going to sit the year abroad out because I was worried about cash?

That’s what happens to so many young people from less well-off backgrounds. It is not that they are less capable, or even in many cases, less able to afford the opportunities offered by Erasmus (because as I discovered, these schemes are well-funded). Neither is the Erasmus scheme itself a failure; it's a glorious thing, and a triumph of European cooperation. The problem is that society’s safety net is full of holes. We do not give all young people the information and knowledge that they need, in a language they understand, to be able to make life-changing choices like Erasmus.

The UK’s withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme is a travesty. The Prime Minister has said that our participation in Erasmus is “extremely expensive” and has announced the so-called Turing Scheme, which is to be “bigger and better” yet somehow also cheaper. Maybe he'll claim it's "world-beating", like the English track and trace system. No prizes for guessing where the axe is going to fall, or who it will most affect. Well-off students will always be able to study abroad.

As the UK leaves behind Erasmus and charts a more insular course in the world, opportunities are closing off for poorer students. Their world is becoming smaller, and hollow claims of a “global Britain” will turn out to be as much of a betrayal of poorer people as every other aspect of Brexit. I feel sick to my stomach at the inevitability of this future for young people in England. But it is not inevitable for all parts of the UK.

At the time of writing, the Scottish Government is seeking a special arrangement with the UK Government that will allow students at Scots institutions to continue to participate in Erasmus. Northern Irish institutions will be supported in this way by the Irish Republic. If the answer for Scotland – as I suspect it will be – is no, then for the sake of the majority of younger Scots, an internationalist, independent, European Scotland cannot come soon enough.

How the pandemic has made rural life more appealing than ever

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:35:53 GMT

How the pandemic has made rural life more appealing than ever

People pay a premium to live in cities to be closer to work, entertainment, and amenities. But with more people working from home than ever before, is city life still worth the cost?

I live on a rural hill farm just north of Peebles in the Scottish Borders. It's been observed, with teasing mirth by friends and colleagues in the city, that my life looks a little eccentric from their perspective: chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, cats, vegetable patches, onion garlands, taking the bus an hour to get anywhere, no Uber, no Just Eat, no 24-hour shops... and a painfully slow broadband connection. The way I live is something of a novelty for many of them — quaint, yet odd — and not something they'd ever seriously consider for themselves.

Lately, however, the advantages of city life are not quite so obvious. The lockdown saw friends of mine trapped in one-bedroom flats in Edinburgh and Glasgow, trying their best to work in cramped quarters with their partners, setting up "desk space" on ironing boards between their beds, their laundry horses, and their bikes. They have no garden and very little privacy. They may have every modern convenience on their doorstep, and be able to order Thai or Japanese food at the touch of a button, but long for something else their lifestyle cannot bring them: Peace. Fresh air. Space. Quiet.

There are loads of advantages to living in a city when you're in your 20s and 30s. They are nearly all about advancing your career and having an enriching social life. But with the average rent for a two-bed property in Edinburgh now approaching £1000 a month , the cost of buying but a pipe dream for many, and now a pandemic that's made working from home the norm for thousands of people, it's understandable that urban-dwellers are asking themselves: is city life still worth the cost?

Scottish Government statistics show that the average rent for a two-bedroom property in the Borders is £490 a month . Your money literally goes twice as far here. It makes sense to consider the cost of commuting to Edinburgh (£200-250 a month) alongside Borders rent, but what if commuting costs are significantly reduced thanks to home working, or taken out of the equation altogether? It's a game changer.

It's not all plain sailing out here in the hills. The biggest barrier to effective home-working for me has been a slow internet connection. With a typical download speed of 2Mb/s and upload speed of 0.8Mb/s, it's just about enough to manage a work meeting on Microsoft Teams, or a Zoom quiz with my family, but if you try and do anything as wild as streaming music or checking your emails at the same time, it all comes to a shuddering halt. Watching Netflix is hit-or-miss, and a smooth connection seems to depend on whether the neighbours are checking their emails or not. Thankfully that's now being addressed by the Scottish Government, though. Superfast is already available to most people in the area, just not the farm dwellers like me, but the R100 Programme commits to bringing "every home and business" "superfast broadband of 30 Megabits per second" by the end of 2021 in the South of Scotland. That's more than enough for a buffer-free Netflix binge and certainly enough for those work calls. But what about the other stuff?

Public transport is, and always has been, an issue in rural Scotland. Infrequency of services has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, with some operators drastically cutting their timetables back, and relatively high per-mile fares compared to urban public transport routes have led many to conclude that you need a car to live here. From my rural home on a hill farm, I do use my car a lot - but it's perfectly possible to adapt to the bus timetable with a bit of planning. Why would you need a bus going past your front door every seven minutes when with careful planning, a choice of eight buses a day will get you where you need to go? It's true there's been something of a short-term issue locally with the early cessation of evening services between Edinburgh and Peebles, but that's something I've successfully campaigned on and it will improve in the weeks and months ahead.

When it comes to getting the messages, we have two decent-sized supermarkets in Peebles, plus a very popular butcher, baker, fishmonger, greengrocers, a bottle shop and lots more. Boutiques, homeware and gift shops there are aplenty. Then there's the street markets on Thursdays and Saturdays. And if you absolutely must buy something in the middle of the night, there's a 24 hour giant supermarket only 25 minutes away in the car. If the two local Indian restaurants, the award-winning Italian, two Chinese takeaways, chip shops, multiple Scottish restaurants, cafés and bars don't whet your appetite, you can get your gastronomic fix by just hopping on in to our capital city, which is only 45 minutes away in the car, or an hour's scenic bus journey.

I know what you're thinking. "That's great, Simon, but isn't it all just a bit... boring?" In a word: No. The sense of community in small towns is something that's often overlooked by those from elsewhere, and taken for granted by those who live here. Do you like cycling? We have roads. Mountain-biking? The world-renowned Glentress Forest and Innerleithen, part of the 7Stanes Moutain Biking Centres in the Tweed Valley. Walking? Well, do I really need to convince you? Let's just say there a lot of places to walk. Swimming? Pool, or Gladhouse Reservoir, or St Mary's Loch. Gym? Check. Cinema? Eastgate Theatre — a community-run facility that's become a real hub of activity over the years. Singing? Several choirs. Languages? Local classes exist for French, German, Spanish, Italian and more... and let's not forget the popular Peebles French Conversation Group , which meets every Wednesday (okay, Covid's been a bummer) in the Bridge Inn. If anything, there is too much choice of things to do. And that's before you even consider the proximity of Edinburgh, and other Borders towns.

On Friday last week, I closed my laptop after work, pulled on my walking boots, and headed up Cademuir Hill. It's one of the many beautiful, remote summits than encircle Peebles and illuminate like a crown at sunset. Within 10 minutes of finishing work, I was on my way through thick heather, geese soaring high overheard. Half an hour later and I was at the top of the hill, sitting on a rock and watching the October afternoon turn to evening. To the south, the haunting beauty of the silent Hundleshope Heights. To the west, Manor Valley and the silver, sleepy River Tweed. To the north, the distant Pentland Hills shrouded in mist and nearer, the Meldons, and to the east, Peebles and my home. There's a sense of serenity and pride that comes with living in this historic part of Scotland. I can't say it's unique, but Peeblesshire is certainly special.

So we've now established that living in the Borders is much cheaper than living in Edinburgh; it's well connected to Edinburgh by public transport, and by car; there's loads of choice in terms of entertainment, shopping and eating out; and you're living in the heart of nature. I was going to continue, but you get the picture.

I come now to my point: why would anyone want to pay the eyewatering rent of a city flat when they can live in this nearby rural paradise instead? Or, as our Borders son Sir Walter Scott said to the visiting American author Washington Irving in 1817, upon hearing Irving describe our local scenery as "grey and monotonous" —

"It may be partiality, but to my eye, these grey hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!”