Heavy hoar frost this morning which soon disappeared under brilliant sunshine. Wind S.W. delightfully warm but in afternoon N.W. Message to Dundas Cottage1 + Amos2, Crosslee. Went off on bike but found the gears wouldn’t work, only the low: so came back + took motor. Got back about 4 to find message to an accident at Tushielaw which Norah3 ‘Phoned but Graham4 came back before I started + he went with Mrs Mack5 in a car a picnic up Ettrick6. Some of the Wellwooders7 were there. Dav. brought the accident case to Viewfield + late at night under Chlor[oform] he stitched the scalp wounds. The man named Knox was motor cycling from Peebles to Langholm when he came a cropper above Crossleeburn8.
1 Christina and Elizabeth Brydon were joint Tenant Occupiers of a house and garden ‘Dundas Cottage’, Thirlestane, Ettrick [1921 Valuation Roll, VR011700009-/312, Selkirk County, page 312 of 611]
2 Walter Amos (about 1853-1922), shepherd, born Yarrow, widow of Janet Amos née Armstrong (about 1836-1916); they were at Crosslee, Ettrick, from at least the 1880s and he died there in 1922
3 Norah Campion Graham née West (1887-1971), wife of Dr David Charteris Graham (1889-1963), medical practitioner
4 David Charteris ‘Dav.’ Graham (1889-1963), M.B., medical practitioner and Dr Muir’s business partner
5 Agnes Mackintosh née Watson, formerly Harper (1859-1946), formerly of Elm Park, Selkirk
6 The passage about the motor cycle accident is garbled but its implications are clear enough so the Editor has left it ‘as is’
7 The Wellwooders were John ‘Jack’ Roberts junior (1876-1966), Agnes Amelia ‘Nancy’ Roberts née Muir (1878-1948) and their children Andrina Barbara Henderson ‘Barbara’ Roberts, later Thwigg (1902-1996), John Stewart ‘Jock’ Roberts (1904-1950), Louisa Jane Roberts, later Rutherford (1906-1982), Stewart Muir ‘Little Stewart’ Roberts (1908-2003) and George Edward ‘Tim’ Roberts (1911-2005)
8 It is not clear how the motor cyclist would have been “above” the Crosslee Burn unless he had taken the old road east of Birkbrae and Turnercleuch Law which is indicated BR [Bridle Road – Richard Oliver, 1993, ‘Ordnance Survey maps: a concise guide for historians’, London, Charles Close Society] on the Ordnance Survey Six Inch Selkirkshire Sheet XIV.SW published 1900
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/24, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1921]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 