The dust was quite laid + the ground looked wet but it was a warm day with a drought E wind: very pleasant. Gave Chlor[oform] to Mrs Taylor1, Manorhill (the gardener’s wife) [word deleted] from whom Dav.2 removed a cystic ovary + her appendix. Alice Smith3 helped him. Then I motored to Sundhopeburn + Scaurneuk4 taking Miss Campbell5. It was a pleasure to travel without dust clouds + I had no overcoat. Minnie Brown6 came down at 3.30 + we made out the V.A.D. Medal list. Went to evening service where Mr [left blank], Aberdeen preached on laying of sound foundations7.
1 Alison Young Taylor née Collier, who had married 1912, at Selkirk, Albert Taylor, gardener; in 1921 Albert was “Inhabitant Occupier not rated” at Manorhill, Selkirk [marriage 1912, 778/ 32, Selkirk and 1921 Valuation Roll, VR011700009-/329, Selkirk County, page 329 of 611]
2 David Charteris ‘Dav.’ Graham (1889-1963), M.B., medical practitioner and Dr Muir’s business partner
3 Alice Barbara Stewart Smith (1892-1970), of the Firs, Selkirk, daughter of Patrick Smith, advocate, and Alice Smith née Paterson; a medical practitioner, M.B., Ch.B. (Edin. 1920), M.D. (Edin. 1929), Diploma in Public Health, Dublin, 1922, Diploma in Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, 1931, Alice worked in a number of medical instructions but spent most of her adult life in India and died 31 January 1970 at Amherst Cottage, Kodaikanal, South India
4 Sundhopeburn, Yarrow, grid reference NGR NT329,245 and Scaurneuk, Yarrow, NT345,261
5 Miss Sarah Campbell is unidentified
6 See also diary entry for 14 July 1921; Minnie Mackay Brown (1874-1966), teacher and V.A.D. nurse who served in Egypt and France 1916-1919; curiously the Editor’s list of the people who appear in Dr Muir’s diaries does not record her as one of those young women who received acknowledgment, in contrast to Elizabeth Charlotte ‘Carlota’ Rodger, Marion Vassie ‘May’ Lindsay, Margaret Isabel Dunlop or Gertrude Isabella ‘Gerty’ Craig Brown for example [‘Selkirkshire V.A.D.s.’, the Southern Reporter, 6 April 1922]
7 The parable of building strong foundations is not unique, see for example Matthew 7:24-27 and Luke 6:48
[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 