Dun(s) Roamin; revistedIn the Old Manse of Blessed Memory we used to enjoy the 'Hutton Effect'. Pouring in Paxton, crashing down in Chirnside, bucketing in Berwick-bone dry in TD151TS. Often coming into the village, immersed in a deluge there would suddenly be a line on the road-puddles one side, desert like the other. Now we have the Dunsclimit. Dry in Allanton and Preston, balmy in Ellemford and hissing down here. Even up Dun Law where the Convenantors picnicked it can be glorious and the Market Square, below, covered in recently arrived Cats and Dogs. Dunsclimit as a rare example of the Micro Climate in action-if it was slightly warmer we would be hacking our way through Rain Forest en route to the newsagents every morning. For Hutton sunshades and dining al fresco, Duns machetes and...
Lest we ForgetOur first Remembrance Sunday in Duns. A much grander affair, I suspect, than the short simple service beside the War Memorial in Hutton or in Paxton. Here we have the extra laying of wreathes at the Polish memorial and not a drunken bear in sight. In Hutton the commemoration ended with everyone taking off their poppies and sticking them in he grass beside the memorial. They remained there for a few days and were then tidied away. I used to have the unworthy thought of a thrifty villager or two sneaking back to reclaim their poppy for use next year (and the year after) No evidence for this- although the poppies certainly disappeared quite soon and none actually warn during the service looked particularly tatty or recycled. But around here thriftiness is next to...
Grin and Bear it. Once more with FeelingHuttonian vowed not to blog(again) about Voytek the Drinking, Smoking, Fighting, ASBO-worthy Polish Bear but a letter in the Berwickshire strikes a chord: SIR, - May I disagree with the places to put the statues of Voytek the Bear.There was no Polish connections with Paxton House. They employed Italian prisoner of war labour.Visitors have to pay to go to Paxton House and it is closed from October to Easter. As Duns has a Polish war memorial and Duns is twinned with Zagen in Poland more people would be visiting Duns.Voytek ended his days at the zoo in Edinburgh. Many children saw him then and would remember him today. The statue would be more at home there than at the Parliament. How many politicians remember him?Hutton (not Paxton) was the centre...
Berwickshire News has an article about the local crime statistics herePretty humdrum stuff compared to Norn Iron although Duns with its Boy Racers and vandalism seems a crime ridden spot compared to Hutton. But 'not so' say my car insurers. By moving from The Old Manse to the Small House in Duns I am saving myself £30 a year (10% or so) on my car insurance. As we are TD15 in Hutton we get tarred with the Berwick brush-presumablyYet another reason for the creation of a TD 16 post code for rural & Scottish parts TD15Or, wait a minute, is it to do with the excessive and dangerous traffic on the Fishwick bypass driving up Hutton...
Its That Bear AgainHuttonian had rather hoped that we had heard the last of the Polish fighting Drinking Smoking Bear-Voytek by name- who has once again put Hutton on the map as the wretched animal was briefly 'posted' there with the Polish army in the latter stages of the war. It ended its years in retirement in the Embra Zoo. If you want an unexpurgated frank account of this rather unpleasant animal you can read about it here It made an appearance on the BBC TV One Show earlier this week with the energetic Mrs O, SNP candidate for Dumfries etc at the next general election, making her pitch for a memorial for the beast in the Hutton area. Recently a local writer has written a book about the bear-see here and a mention on the One Show will do its sales no harm. Given the number of...
Things to do in Hutton before you die (or move to Duns)If you have an idle thirty seconds, and who has these days I suggest you go here. Did you know there was so much to do within 15 miles of Hutton? Did you know of the town of Sunwick? (Famous, apparently, for 'Lasses for Sale' Fishwick is there, of course, but no mention of traffic problems. If I had found this website earlier we would have...
Chicken Licken GoodFootball playing Chickens have driven silly dogs off the front page of the Berwickshire News And just around the corner from the Old Manse to boot (No Pun intended)The story goes:There's fowl play on Hutton farm!Chickens encouraged to play football to keep them fit and healthyI believe my chicken's eggs are the best you can buy"Farmer James MacleanBy Kenny PatersonTURKEY may have been one of the shock troops of Euro 2008 but they are not a patch on a team of footballing Scots chickens.The birds like nothing better than a kick around with a football to keep them fit on a free range egg farm near Hutton.They have punctured at least a dozen red balls since the start of the season according to farmer James MacLean but have not been involved in too much fowling.He explained...
Huttonian said it would be in the Berwickshire and here it isMBE for Hutton woman in Queen's Birthday HonoursJoan rewarded for work in communityJoan Purves MBE"I was thrilled to bits"Joan PurvesBy Simon DukeA BERWICKSHIRE woman is celebrating after receiving an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.Joan Purves from Hutton received her award as recognition for her Voluntary Service to her local community and after living in the area for over 30 years she has most definitely put the work in.Joan actually found out she was receiving the MBE last month but was under strict instruction not to let the cat out of the bag until the official list was announced at the weekend."I found out in May but was told that I had to keep it quite hush hush, so the only other person I told was my husband...
My Bloody EffortsHuttonian missed it but is reliably informed that a fellow Huttonian-one with longer credentials you might say, has been 'recognised' by HM the Q in the Birthday Honours with a MBE for 'services to the community' Well done and heartiest congratulations. Under the new Honours system it is much more likely that the worker at the coal face-not that he exists anymore so the person on the 32 Bus (another endangered species)is rewarded and in my view the My Bloody Efforts as opposed to Other B******S Efforts is the cream of the awards.The blog rather got up the nose of the honorand in days gone by, that is water down the Whiteadder, but we are delighted that someone who has genuinely worked hard and actually achieved practical results for the common good is to make the trip to...
Its Not our fault-literally. And Have a Nice DayHuttonian volunteered to help our post mistress with getting a fault repaired on her BT ISDN line-it has been off and on for weeks meaning that on several occasions the pensioners have had to be turned away as the payment of their money is an on line procedure. So I went on to BT.Com to try and speed repairs up.Bt.Com 'report a fault' informed that this was not a BT number so can't help. I confirmed from the Post Mistress that it is.I then went on to the BT interactive chat help facility and after being first in the queue and therefore having to wait only 10 minutes had the following chat:Sean: Hi there, please give me a moment while I review your query. Huttonian: I have just reconfirmed that 01289 386*** is the correct number for the...
A House, not called Manse, pleaseThe area is swarming with Old Manse's, three of which are still on sale in Berwickshire-as far as I know, ours, in Hutton, is the only one actually sold; or technically 'under offer'. With the departure of an incumbent minister, there is a another ministerial pad on the market, also in Hutton. This is the Manse. Strictly speaking 'The Former Manse' So we have the Former Manse, down town, a snip at about £370,000, but yet to be snipped up, and the Old Manse, behind the Kirk, where Manses normally are. In Paxton, two miles away, is another Old Manse, once the residence of the Wee Free Minister. If you put Old Manse in the Royal Mail post code finder, TD15, out will come Paxton. Ours, having been called Antrim House for many years since it was demansified...
Question: what is a sign of Spring and happens in Hutton the 16th of March?No, all the daffodils do not come out-unlike southron parts Hutton's Daffs are timorous and reluctant to bloom and who is to blame them in such a piercing northerly wind.Bloggees with long memories will recall that on the day before St Patrick's Day, last year, Huttonian's pond became the scene of frenzied copulation. And dead on the button, 12 noon, 16th of March 2008 they are at it again.And this is Leap Year*. The images (click on them for full effect) tell some of the story-and one of them is from last March but who is to know? Unlike last year when they were going at it like the Jim Clarke Rally drivers at Bluestane Ford, a great spectator sport, this new generation of frenetic fathers are a modest lot and I...
Returning from golf at Duns (MPBUI) I was horrified to find our recycling at the bottom of Kirk Lane-where the denizens of this corner of our rural paradise had lovingly deposited their Friday offering to Planet Cooling. Bins emptied and returned but purple and transparent bags still there. Oh dear what had we done to flout the rules or offend the Environmental Hygenists?No, not our fault it transpired. The EH's Lorry had just not been able to get through a mass of mourners exiting Hutton Kirk after a well attended local funeral. Not able to hang around they had gone on the rest of their round. Wait until next Friday then? No, hope not. Highheidyins in the senior echelons of the Borders Council (Rubbish, Nuclear waste and land fill section) have instructed the Knights of the Road to...
In the latest Berwickshire News Under a huge front page banner headline: CHANGE IN CULTURE NEEDED TO TACKLE DRINK AND DRUGSthere is a rather unusual picture of HRH Prince Edward aka the Duke of Wessex receiving 'a Siamese greeting' from a smartly dressed lady. Surely Prince Ed is not part of the Berwickshire Drink and Drugs scene? No it is a rather unfortunate juxtaposition of an image and the main story. The Duke was in Duns to present the Operatic Society `with the Queen's award for Voluntary Service and was not under the influence of banned substances at the time; of course if he was it would lend a new dimension to local High Society about which the paper is obviously concerned.I could be wrong but I doubt if there is much of a drugs problem in Hutton. Drink would have to be imbibed...
'Have you flitted yet?' asked a villager in church referring to our move to Duns?'Flitted' ? Is there something surriptitious implied?The concise Oxford dictionary may cast some light:Flit: To migrate, depart; (esp. Scotland and North England) change one's abode' Right on. Give the man a coconut. But wait 'change of abode; esp. to avoid creditors!'** Or bloggees?...
Duns has Jim Clarke and Duns Scotus, Paxton its connections with 'Sweet Robin Adair' but Hutton is now thrust open the world stage by its association with the Fighting, Drinking Smoking Bear: Voytek; who has his own website at: http://www.voytekbear.com/The world medja from the Washington Post, Al Jazeera,Musings from the Merse, BBC, Daily Mail to our own Berwickshire News have been full of his exploits about to be further immortalised in a book by local (Eyemouth) school teacher Garry Paulin. The Hutton connection (claims this week is being pushed by the indefatigable Mrs Aileen Orr (SNP- as the Berwickshire labels her) who has been in touch with Holywood over a possible movie and also with Prince Charles and his two lads who are apparently Voytek buffs having seen the exhibit about...
Duns Roamin'One thing we will really miss about the move to the-small-house-in-Duns is the view north from the back of the Old Manse. Especially on a crisp clear sunny February day, with the pond still frozen and a Merse horizon which stretches for ever. The horizon in Duns is confined to the backs of other peoples houses over quite a pretty garden but not as stunning as these broad...
The words 'Hutton, Berwickshire' leaped up at me from the pages (well, Page 3 actually) of the Scotsman yesterday. A whole page heasded Tribute to Voytek, the smoking drinking fighting soldier bearThe Story begins :HE ENJOYED a cigarette and a bottle of cold beer and could carry more mortar rounds than any other soldier. But Voytek wasn't one of the ordinary dogs of war – he was a battling bear.Adopted by the Polish army, the European brown bear "fought" at the bloody Battle of Monte Cassino before dying, not of a bullet wound, but of old age, in Edinburgh Zoo. Now a campaign has been started to build a monument to him.Voytek was adopted as a cub in the Middle East in 1943, before growing into much more than a mascot. He eventually stood 6ft on his hind legs and weighed 35 stone, and he...
A bloggee has sent me the above image. You will need to click on it to enlarge it sufficiently to appreciate the clever topiary work at the bottom of the greenhouse. The bloggee gives no provenance but there is a suggestion that it could be part of a gardening enterprise near Hutton. Assuming it is not PJ's market garden Huttonian is not able to pin it down. Is 'Sex and Death' a clue? Sex first followed by Death one assumes, but not necessarily immediately. 'The Grave is a fine and private place but none do there I think embrace' wrote Andrew Marvell to his Coy Mistress. But there is no evidence that he was referring to Hutton.Freddie Burns, the 'Berwickshire Herd', no relation to the Rabbi, once said apropos of an unspecified Merse settlement. 'Yon place has sex and death in equal...
The Year of the ?Dreich, damp, murk,breathless (wind wise, my lungs are fine thankyou very much) and grisly grey. Welcome 2008. Careful inspection of garden has not revealed any spent rockets so I suspect the Glasga' lot at the bottom of Kirk Lane were not indulging in pyrotechnics early this morning. Deathly quiet in Hutton, but then it always is dqiHI was not quite in bed by 10pm so saw the Sydney New Year in. So I have no personal images of the New Year arriving in the UK. So I am very indebted to someone who took the trouble to stay up until 7 seconds after midnight to photograph, courtesy of the TV, Big Ben and get the picture onto Flikr before anyone else could. And all from the comfort of her Christmas Sales' armchair. An inspiring shot and next year I might well go out and...
Counting the EmptiesHutton approaches another Hogmanay. It won't be like the massive celebrations in Embra as captured in the image above. We have had fireworks in the past-our neighbours had some squibs (dampish) and a Catherine Wheel which fell off the Trampoline in mid fizz. Further down Kirk Lane a few rockets were fired in our general direction by roistering Nordics. This year the Nordics have rented out the house to a party (no pun intended) of Glaswegians obviously hoping to see Old Year out in a civilised manner-Iron Bru rather than cheap Scotch -warm towels and not vomit buckets. No street parties here but there may be gentle first footing when the New Year creeps in. On Scotland a bit of excess is acceptable, expected and catered for. Our English neighbours take a days holiday...
Hutton Power Trip HorrorSince the great blackout of 01 -the longest Hutton has been without power since it got the electricity Scottish Power has kept the home (electric) fires burning; no mains Gas in rural Berwickshire, thankyou very much. So it was a bit of a shock (no pun intended) when the Old Manse went dark at 0805. Scottish Power Emergency number (not in the Borders phone book but on a card sent to us 24 hours after power was restored in 2001) was at first unwilling to accept we had a problem. No faults recorded in TD151TS. I said we had one. Checked your trip switches? Yes. OK a van is on its way. By wandering around I discovered that some of our neighbours had indeed got power, but one hadn't and apparently half of Mr Rutherford's yard was off. This I reported to the emergency...
Happy is the country that has no historywrote someone, sometime about somewhere. It might have been about Hutton as our local wannabee Historian has apparently not yet put pen to paper despite amassing a box file or two of material about this ancient village. Our new home-to-be, Duns is better documented and even has its own website( http://www.duns.bordernet.co.uk/) -and the following brief history is taken from it:The first written mention of Duns is when a 'Hugo de Duns' signed as a witness to a charter before 1214. Thereafter, Duns appears throughout the history of the Borders. Sited on the slopes of Duns Law, and close to the original Duns Castle, which was built in 1320, by the Earl of Moray, nephew of Robert the Bruce, the town was frequently attacked by the English as they headed...
The Whiteadder is normally the gentlest of rivers but there are times in dark early Winter afternoons, after about two inches of rain upstream, when it appears menacing as it rushes towards the Tweed. It was certainly, yesterday, much too wet for visiting fishermen to venture near the bank, never mind stand in the river and the self catering establishment aka Hutton Mill was deserted -no 4x4s nor Barbour jackets in evidence. And it seems that the new house beside the Mill, billed as a Gillie's or Baillie's abode is also deserted and with little evidence of human life-such as furniture within it. Perhaps the gloom of the Whiteadder gorge, sunless on the south bank from November until March, has driven the inhabitants to hibernate elsewhere. And out of the gorge it was all bright and sunny...
Hutton ExpectsBut probably not very much. It is hardly true to say that tout Hutton is agog with anticipation of a Croatia victory at Wembley tonight. But the general feeling is (which Huttonian shares) that Poor Old Scotland go out having played so well and England could go through having played so badly. There is no justice in this United Kingdom-vote SNP etc etc. Not that anyone in Hutton apart from Mrs O is likely to vote for the Nats. The Croatian manager is highly critical of the Wembley pitch. Never been the same since they played American Footie on it a few weeks back. It is probably too late to switch the match to Farmer H's field in front of the Kirk. Its a bit damp but not churned up and any cows could be put into the West Stand for the duration. I am sure the answer is a...
Is it Cricket?Living as we are 'entre deux Merse' as a local wine might well be called-Manse in Hutton (sort of sold but very occupied) and a small-house-in-Duns (bought but rather unoccupied) there is an almost daily trek between these two hots spots of the Borders-sometimes, indeed, twice a day. I enliven my solitary excursions by playing B Road Cricket-a Huttonian invention: Hutton versus Duns: It works like this; Hutton bats on the way to Duns: Cars count one run, cyclists and ridden horses two, a bus 4, a very full bus with people standing, a glorious six (yet to happen) Pedestrians one each, a jogger two (but must be running) Duns takes wickets with commercial vehicles: a van up to small lorry One wicket, large lorry two out and a tractor is a hattrick. To be 'commercial' a van must...
What an undervalued lot they must be in Coldstream-and how has the local Community Council got up the nose of the writer of this letter to the Berwickshire?There appears to be some idea locally that, on occasions, the Coldstream provost’s robes and chain of office, could be used by the chairman of the local community council.I need not remind readers that, prior to the dissolution of many Scottish burghs with local government reorganisation in 1975, local affairs were managed by a burgh council with a good deal of autonomy, duly elected as was the provost.The office was highly regarded here in Coldstream and had authority and dignity with it.I would certainly hope that the notion of a chairperson of a body that has no authority or fiscal power being entitled to wear the provost’s...
Concrete DeferredA small item caught Huttonian's eye in the Berwickshire 'House Plans deferred' Amongst them are the four houses at Hutton Castle Barns, strongly opposed by neighbours and indeed not surprisingly, given the lack of any consultation (Farmer C is just across the road from his neighbours)-see previous posts. According to the Planning Website the application had been withdrawn by Farmer M-so it is slightly puzzling that the Berwickshire Area committee considered it at all-never mind deciding to 'continue' it at a future meeting pending more information. The Berwickshire report mentions that the local planning people had recommended the application for refusal because of difficult access to the site and road safety :' conflict between farm and domestic traffic being considered...
Last Orders PleaseJust when you think you have tidied up the house for the last time you have another set of viewers-as we did on Sunday. After a bit you get to recognise the time wasters-roar around, don't ask any questions, either about the house or the locals, but admire your rugs, sniff when you mention that some of the furniture Will be left behind and usually have hyperactive children running riot too near the flimsy Broadband connection. And this category go around the garden with the greatest reluctance as their Gucci loafers soak up the heavy dew from the meadow (aka back lawn). The Sunday bunch were of 'it's 1130 it must be Hutton' variety' They had, like the others, run the gamut of Old and Auld Manses and were on their way to admire a Mc Mansion not too far from Fishwick (I...
Planning: Power to the People?Rarely there are cases of concerted community action frustrating inappropriate development in the Borders. One was the successful campaign a few years back to stop, in its tracks, a somewhat devious scheme to concrete over a large field adjoining Paxton village. Not only to prevent the development in question but to keep it out of the newly drafted and approved Local Plan. Full marks to the Community Council, especially its ad hoc planning sub committee and a number of public spirited Paxtonians.More recently, like the other day, an unpopular planning proposal near Hutton Castle was suddenly withdrawn. Much smaller in scale than the Paxton one-four houses only-it did cause a lot of local resentment. Much of it due to its arrival on the scene with no prior...
