A HURRIED, hunch-shouldered walk through the dark countryside and over the Ettrick Water is an odd thing to be doing at half-three on Friday morning, but the day is going to get odder. I'm on my way into Selkirk for the Common Riding.
Selkirk's is thought to be the most ancient of the many Borders Common Riding ceremonies. Some believe it dates back to 1113 when King David I created the Royal Burgh and granted land. Since then, the people of Selkirk, known as 'Souters', have ridd
en out on horseback to check the boundaries are intact.
The Common Riding takes place on the second Friday after the first Monday in June. It also commemorates the Battle of Flodden, 1514, in which all but one of Selkirk's men were killed by English forces. Very Scottish that, turning a disaster into a key plank of your civic identity. According to legend, a weaver called Fletcher stumbled, wounded, into the Market Square, raised a flag captured from a Macclesfield regiment and threw it to the ground before dying on the spot. This is now immortalised in the Casting Of The Colours, the dramatic and emotional high-point of the Common Riding.
Macclesfield once asked for the flag back but was told no way. Souters do not give up what's theirs. That goes for heritage too. Selkirk is bonded to its own history like an infant coorying into its mother. The past nurtures the town's present.
I arrived on the evening before the Common Riding, or in local terms: The Nicht Afore The Morn. The town, tricked out in blue and scarlet bunting, was quiet at five, but the Market Square soon filled with a flute band, a brass band, a pipe band and hundreds of people wearing colourful rosettes. The atmosphere combined VE Day with The Wicker Man and a by-election in a key marginal. I was interested to see that this isn't just for middle-aged traditionalists; the streets were packed with teenagers with rosettes on their hoodies.
An old lady came up and asked: "What time are they cryin' the Burley?" Half-past six, I said. The cryin' o' the Burley, or Burgh Law, is the big moment of the Nicht Afore. A man in a top hat and white britches, known as the Burgh Officer, and known in his less ceremonial moments as James Heatlie, postman, announced the names of the men who would lead the riding the following day. Each was cheered but the biggest cheer was for Guy Blair, a 29-year-old painter and decorator who had been elected this year's Royal Burgh Standard Bearer.
The most prestigious position of the Riding, the Standard Bearer leads the horses out, carrying with him the town flag which bears an image of the Virgin and Child. He rides high into the hills for three hours, checks the boundaries, and then returns to Cast the Colours in the Market Square.
Guy Blair's photo is all round Selkirk, in most shop windows, even on a poster for ladies' night at the rugby club. Actually, that's not so surprising; with his dark hair, strong jaw, tight breeks and shiny, shiny riding boots, Blair would make a decent Mr D'Arcy. He even suits the bowler hat he puts on to ride his chestnut stallion, Winston.
Becoming Standard Bearer isn't easy. You have to apply, serve at least two years as an Attendant, one of the men who rides beside the Standard Bearer, and you have to get elected. The Common Riding Trust is looking for unmarried men of good character, Selkirk born and bred. The unmarried bit is sometimes tricky.
"That can cause problems," says Peter Scott, who led the Riding in 1971. "Some of these men have waited a long time to get elected, 10 years even, and are getting worried. Their girlfriends say: 'You've either got to marry me or be Standard Bearer.' Being Standard Bearer usually wins out."
At four o'clock on the morning of the Common Riding, I join the flute band as they walk the streets for the Rouse Parade, going first to the Provost's home and then on to wake the Standard Bearer. The martial rattle of the drums echoes off the hills; startled rooks caw a guttural appreciation.
Blair is already awake and standing outside his home. He invites the band in for a drink before they play him into the Square. The band, a mix of kids, teens and veterans, are emblematic of the Common Riding's unbroken tradition. Dougie Squance, 57, has played drums for 34 years. Angus Wilson, 43, joined on flute when he was 10 and has led the band since he was 18. "It's where my home is, really," he says.
Back in town at 6am, the three bands meet up and the whole town processes, singing 'Hail Smilin' Morn', towards the Victoria Hall, where the Provost, a vision in ermine, hands the flag to the Standard Bearer and calls upon him to return it "unsullied and untarnished". It's all stage-managed and scripted, but never stiff. In fact it's moving for the Souters to know they are performing exactly the same ritual as their predecessors did for centuries. As we walk past the old kirkyard, I can't help but think of the men and women lying beneath the grass who walked these same streets, sang these same songs, and whose eyes watered with the same waft of horse dung.
There are around 330 horses out today. They come from the hills at a fair gallop, Blair at their head. At around 11.30am, he mounts the rostrum in Market Square and, to a solemn brass tune, swings the flag around his head and body, sometimes high, sometimes low, as the crowd quietly weep. This Casting Of The Colours is a genuinely odd moment, a glimpse of the old, weird Scotland. When someone asks, "Did you see The Apprentice?" it's an unwelcome jolt back to a humdrum present.
I manage to speak to Blair not long after this. He looks overcome, tears in his eyes, a beer in each hand. "I've ridden since I was eight years old," he says. "I was brought up with the Selkirk traditions so I've always wanted to do it. The Standard Bearer is a pinnacle you look up to when you are a kid. It was very emotional and worth the wait."
The full article contains 1084 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
