Some years ago I rode across the new concrete Crownhead Bridge near Dawyck on my bike. It was sometime around midnight or one o’clock in the morning. The moonlight was dappling the ripples in the river as I cycled along – it was so beautiful and quiet. Then suddenly I heard a pitter-patter, pitter-patter…I looked […]

We crossed the pass in looping bends and followed the road as it twisted down through broad-shouldered, sheep-grazed hills into Tweeddale. Tweed’s Well, the source of the Tweed, was simply marked by a road sign pointing seemingly nowhere but honouring a drip-fed spring pushing its pile of coins to the surface, and not much more […]

An extract from the Edinburgh Evening Post, Wednesday 07 November 1832. Mr. WALTER THORNBURN was angling in the Tweed last week, and hooked a salmon at a place called the New Water, below Innerleithen. The fish proved remarkably camstairy from the beginning, refusing and despising all in manner of control. In short, he would neither […]

We decided to spend the first night of our honeymoon (heading for Orkney) at the historic Crook Inn. It turned out hilarious. The place was locked up for the night and a very disgruntled gentleman eventually opened the door. He then proceeded to treat us as if we were on a dirty night away! Which […]

In 1978 I was called by the Langhaugh shepherd to help drag 150 Blackface sheep down to shelter. They were not able to move because they were weighed down by huge ice balls on their fleeces. We cut the ice off with a Swiss Army knife and dragged them down to a stell to shelter […]

As part of Connecting Threads river-wide creative project Being a River, a series of five creative workshops will be held in the Upper Tweed exploring art, water, sensation and connection in and around the riverside at Drumelzier. Over five Thursday afternoons, explore how the river reflects our experiences through its flow, stillness, turbulence and depth. […]