Another posting in the occasional series of 1913 diary entries
Still dull, cold, calm, N.E. [wind]. Was not out of town. Sent Baptie1 cycling to Bluecairn as I had ordered Robt Johnstone2 20 m of Dygitalis instead of 10. Saw town cases walking. Worked up “Edin. after Flodden” + recited it at the Guild meeting3. Also in “The …”4 Ross5 gave a short address on “Witches and Witchery”5. Sent 1/2 dozen applications to Stalker6. I must have very near 950 now.
1 Thomas Baptie (1860-1929), driver and handyman for Dr Muir
2 Robert Johnstone, carpenter, occupier of a house at Bluecairn, Selkirk, 1913 Valuation Roll [Valuation Rolls, VR011700008-/532, Selkirk County, page 532 of 617], see also diary entries for 4th, 5th, 7th, 15th, 18th and 21st February 1913
3 ‘Edinburgh after Flodden’ from ‘Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers’ by William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813–1865), FRSE, Scottish lawyer, poet, Blackwood’s Magazine contributor and Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh; it starts “NEWS of battle! – news of battle! | Hark! ’tis ringing down the street: | And the archways and the pavement | Bear the clang of hurrying feet. | News of battle? Who hath brought it?” [Boos, Florence S “‘Spasm’ and Class: W. E. Aytoun, George Gilfillan, Sydney Dobell, and Alexander Smith.” Victorian Poetry, vol. 42, no. 4, 2004, pp. 553–584. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40002752. Accessed 24 Jan. 2021.]
4 Assume the Reverend Andrew Ross (1871-1942), Church of Scotland minister
5 It has not been possible to identify the reference to Witches and Witchery with any precision
6 Dr Muir is sending applications for Health benefits under the National Insurance Act 1911 to Donald Gordon Stalker (1867-1948), banker and law agent, Clerk to the National Health Insurance Committee, based at the British Linen Bank Buildings, Galashiels
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/16, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1913]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 