Auld Selkirk: She’s Ancient But She’s Braw

How do you measure a place? A community? A spirit? It is a media-driven cliche that all communities, especially when struck by disaster, must be deemed “close-knit”. Politicians, meanwhile, give speeches suggesting that chaos is running amok and destroying these supposedly confident communities, leaving us with nothing better than an atomised society in which the ties that bind have been loosed with depressing consequences. This seems something Ed Miliband believes.

He should be in Selkirk today. This is the first Friday after the second Monday in June and that means it is Selkirk Common Riding day. This is the most important, grandest day in the town’s calendar and one reason why there’ll be no more blogging here before Monday. The origins of the ceremonies are lost to history but able-bodied men have been charged with riding the boundaries of the town’s common lands for at least five centuries. This has become a ceremonial procession but in times past it was a matter of some necessity, checking that neighbouring lairds had not encroached upon the town’s land.