A wintry day. Steady fall of snow all forenoon + up till about 2. Hard frost. No wind. Nancy + Helen1 left about midday for St Abbs. I motored to Bowhill + Lewinshope. Called for Jack [Roberts] between 1 + 2. Got the Oct + Nov Blackwoods [Magazine] + finished Storer Clouston’s story “Simon”2. Had some ledger work after lunch. Got Buenos Ayres, winter Dividend: £23 10 5 + banked it3. Walt. Hill4, Briarbank died.
1 Agnes ‘Nancy’ Roberts née Muir and Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), two of Dr Muir’s daughters
2 Joseph Storer ‘J Storer’ Clouston (1870-1944), Orcadian author and historian; his book ‘Simon’ was published in 1919, two years after perhaps his best known work ‘The Spy in Black’ (1917) which was made into a film (1939) by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
3 Assume the Buenos Ayres & Pacific Railway Company Ltd; the business’s archives 1883-1964 are amongst University College London’s Special Collections
4 Walter ‘Walt’ Hill, farmer, of Briarbank, Selkirk, died of “malignant disease of stomach several months”, death certified by J S Muir; he was the son of John Hill, farmer and Mary Hill née Riddell and unmarried
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/22, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1919]
