I was staying in the town of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders which is so far south in Scotland that it is even nearer the equator than the town of Berwick-on-Tweed, the furthest town north in England, but what a wonderfully scenic and historic part of the country.
I was on a week long golfing holiday and had hoped to combine sport with sightseeing but this proved difficult (the golf days were long) so I was restricted to a vert short speed sightseeing tour of the town on the very last day of the week.
First of all and very importantly I came across a very fine door…
Then a decorative fountain…
In the Market Place a granite statue of a man with a sheep. As I understand it, it is meant to represent the importance of sheep farming in the Scottish Borders. Sounds like a reasonable explanation…
A bust of Robert Burns of course….
There are about sixty statues, busts, and various memorials to Robert Burns across the World, thirty or so in Scotland and the rest are mostly in the USA and in the countries of the old British Empire wherever Scottish settlers made their new homes.
One of the best is in Ballarat in Victoria, Australia…
In May 1787 a 28-year-old Robert Burns (1759-1796) took a tour of the Borders and passed through Galashiels but apparently declined to stay overnight there.
The inevitable bust of Walter Scott of course…
Not quite as grand as the Scott memorial in nearby Edinburgh, the biggest memorial to a writer anywhere in the World and a rather appropriate memorial to a man who regularly features in a top ten list of most important Scots
I first visited and climbed to the top in 1984…
And then thirty years later with Kim…
One of my favourite Scott stories is how he saved the Scottish bank note. In 1826 there was a proposal to abandon Scottish notes and adopt the English notes instead. Under the pseudonym Malachi Malagrowther Scott campaigned hard against the proposal and was eventually successful. In recognition of this a picture of Scott even today appears on every Bank of Scotland note.
At the opposite end of the Market place there is a statue of Robert Coltart who penned the ditty Coltard’s Candy in the 19th Century to help sell his home-made confectionery as he travelled across the region.
Robert Coltart was well known in Galashiels and across he Borders in the late nineteenth century for selling his boiled sweets at fairs and festivals, dressing in a variety of colourful clothes, and singing his much loved lullaby song to help advertise his wares.
Ally bally, ally bally bee,
Sittin’ on yer mammy’s knee,
Greetin’ for a wee bawbee,
Tae buy mair Coulter’s candy
As time passed by, much more quickly than I had allowed for, I made my way back from the town to my accommodation about a mile or so away and remaining observant I spotted a memorial called “The Raid Stane” the site of an incident in 1337 when a raiding party of English soldiers were picking wild plums close to the town and and were caught by angry Scots who came across them by chance and slaughtered them all. It seems that they were picking and eating sour fruit and they were so unwell that they were unable to fight back.
Today the town’s coat of arms shows two foxes reaching up to eat plums from a tree, and the motto is Sour Plums pronounced in Scots as soor plooms. Every year in June there is an event in the town called the Galashiels Braw Lads Gathering which celebrates the event and by all accounts if you are English and foolish enough to reveal yourself you really don’t want to be in town that particular night.
Thirty minutes isn’t long enough to pay anywhere a proper visit, maybe next year I will get to see a little more.
Have Bag, Will Travel 