It was milder this morning + the frost appeared to be gone but towards night it became clearer + sharper again. I saw a town list of 12 + the Hospital where I met Eason1 & Beattie about the gas meter. I paid Lothian Coal Co. £233. 2. 6 for 10 tons of coal. Sent subscription of £1 to the Earl Haig’s Fund2 for ex-service men + to the Russian “Save the Children” fund3. Jean4 wrote that Kenneth’s5 sister Mrs Gallop6 is coming to help there. Made out some more accounts.
1 David Easson was the ‘gas manager’ of the Selkirk Gas Light Co. [1921 Valuation Roll, VR007900012-/211, Selkirk Burgh, page 211 of 644]
2 The Earl Haig Fund was established in 1921 when Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig agreed to adopt the poppy as the symbol of the Royal British Legion
3 The Editor can only quote with gratitude Rodney Breen, Archivist to The Save the Children Fund, in ‘Saving enemy children: Save the Children’s Russian relief operation, 1921-23’ where he notes that:
“When the Russian harvest failed in 1921, the economy had been devastated by years of disasters. Appeals were made to the outside world, and Save the Children was one of the main agencies to respond. Despite reservations about supporting the Soviets, a major advertising campaign was launched, raising large sums of money which were used to open feeding centres in the face of adverse climate and a devastated infrastructure. Facing some critical press coverage, the Fund used advanced media techniques to get its message across. By summer 1923, the famine was over and the Fund had succeeded in feeding up to 675,000 people.”
[Breen R. Saving enemy children: Save the Children’s Russian relief operation, 1921-23. Disasters. 1994 Sep;18(3):221-37. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7717.1994.tb00309.x. PMID: 7953492.]
4 Jane Henderson Logan ‘Jean’ Pike née Muir (1877-1941), Dr Muir’s eldest daughter
5 Frederick Charles Pike (1883-1921), had married Jane Henderson Logan ‘Jean’ Muir in 1920 at Newington, Edinburgh but by late 1921 he was gravely ill
6 Esther Annie Gallop née Pike (1880-1962), born Little Canford, Dorset, married 1908, Wimborne, Dorset, John Winston Gallop [marriage Wimborne 5a 611]
[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 