Status Anxiety | 1 October 2011

I wouldn’t normally take my wife and children to Dumfries and Galloway for the weekend, given the distance and the expense, but the organisers of the Wigtown Literary Festival offered to pay all our rail fares and put us up for the weekend. Wigtown was designated Scotland’s national book town by the Scottish Parliament in 1999 in an effort to breathe new life into it. At the time, it had one of the highest unemployment levels in Scotland following the closure of its two main employers, the creamery and the distillery. The literary festival has taken place ever since.

Almost the moment we crossed the border, a drunk buttonholed my wife. ‘You’re boo-ti-full,’ he said, as we sat on the train from Carlisle to Dumfries. Then, taking in our four children, he said, ‘Did all’a that lot come out’a youse?’ He seemed genuinely amazed, possibly because Caroline is about half the size of the average Scotswoman.