Extracts from conversations recorded at Dovecot Court, Peebles, April 2026. Jessie, Maureen, Sheila, Margaret, Elizabeth, Fiona, Sonia and Geoffrey. As part of the Tweed Stories project, oral historian, Harry Henderson, conducted interviews with residents, relatives and staff, capturing memories of the River Tweed and special moments by the water.
I used to go and watch the salmon going up to the cauld [weir] because I stayed down that way when we were at the school all week, stayed in Langstrath Street, down near the Tweed. I had to stay there all week at the school. Oh, goodness. Too many years ago now. Oh, I did. I liked seeing them. Coming up that bit, like a cauld, and they used to go right up. It was good going watching them. We used to do that sometimes.
When we got snow, we always used to get blocked in. There used to be curling on the river when it froze over, many years ago. Ma aunties used to talk about that, yeah, curling on the river. That would be at Tweed Green and Priorsford Bridge as it is now. I suppose there would be skating as well. There’s canoeing and kayaking now too.
When I was early twenties maybe, me and my boyfriend at the time. We used to drive through Drumelzier and instead of turning right to go over the New Merlindale Bridge, carry on along and then we used to go down this farm road and right to the Tweed. I think it would be a ford originally, and we used to go and have picnics there. We just had sandwiches and juice. It was lovely. I think you probably can get right up to Tweedsmuir Road, but I’m not sure.
