Great Tapestry of Scotland by Moffat Alistair

Author:Moffat, Alistair [Mansfield, Susan and Moffat, Alistair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857906151
Publisher: Birlinn

The Smailholm Group and details of Panel 45.

Reivers typically farmed in the summer and, on dark winter nights, went on lengthy expeditions to steal one another’s sheep and cattle, occasionally progressing to arson and murder (the words ‘bereaved’ and ‘blackmail’ come from reiver times). They escaped the law by fleeing into the ‘debatable lands’ between Scotland and England, riding great distances on their sturdy Welsh ponies. Their reign of terror in the borderlands extended for over 300 years, and they are the subject of a splendid curse written by Gavin Dunbar, the Archbishop of Glasgow, which was read from every pulpit in Scotland in 1525.

Kinmont Willie was a notorious reiver who was captured in 1596 on an agreed Day of Truce, and made a daring and successful escape from Carlisle Castle. Willie was an Armstrong, the line from which astronaut Neil Armstrong is descended. As he died while the panel was being stitched, the group wanted to include a memento, and settled on adding the moon – ‘but a winter moon, because that’s when they went reiving’.

Veronica Ross is ultimately pleased that the Reivers will have their place in the stitched history of Scotland. ‘It’s an amazing story, they were very resilient people; they had to survive in difficult times. It’s important that their story is told. I wonder why we don’t know more about them. It has changed the way I see the Borders landscape. I can begin to see how they got away with it for so long; it could only happen in a geography like this.’

It is remarkable how often, by accident or by design, the interests of the stitchers have married up with material in their panel. The panel commemorating the first Edinburgh Festival was stitched by a group based in and around Eskbank, many of whom are musicians. Stitchers included clarsach player Patsy Seddon, viola player and singer Mairi Campbell – perhaps best known for singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on the Sex and the City movie with her band The Cast – and various talented amateur musicians. Mairi’s sister, Ann, who organised the group, is a keen cellist. They each stitched their own instruments into the design, including Patsy’s clarsach, rather than the orchestral harp, which might be more typical for the Edinburgh Festival. Patsy says: ‘It seems appropriate that one of the panels that’s musically linked ended up with a big group of musicians. The Festival is known for its orchestral, classical, more high-brow music, but the panel does mention other things – the Fringe, folk music. The people in the group have all done orchestral playing and we’re all involved in traditional music as well.’

Jan Young, part of a group of six stitchers in Penicuik, was delighted to find herself stitching the story of the Scotsman newspaper, having worked for the organisation for years, eventually as head of the Evening News special features department. She got stuck into research, exploring the paper’s origins in 1817, when it was a radical independent rag no respectable Edinburgh gent would be seen with.

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