Shoot at Fairnilea1: dull day with tendency to drizzle: dark: mild: a little W. wind. Motored over to Whitmuirhall2 + was able to say it was not Diph.3 Met at the house. Other guns were Pat. Smith4, Ham. [?] Murray [?]5, Stewart Alexr6, Ovens7 + Ramsay of Bowland8. We hadn’t much sport. Did the big wood first where I got a pheasant + a fox: I never shot anymore. After lunch we did Young Neidpath9 + expected a lot of hares but only got one. I fired 11 shots. I came away before the end to attend a Red Cross meeting.
1 Fairnilee, Clovenfords
2 Whitmuirhall, Selkirk, where William ‘Willie’ Cochrane, gardener, and Janet Austin Cochrane née Mair were giving concern over possible Diphtheria, see diary entry for 13 December 1921
3 There was a nasty outbreak of Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever which had been running in Selkirk since the summer of 1921 and continued into 1922
4 Assume Patrick ‘Pat’ Smith (1858-1930), advocate and sheriff-substitute, sometime of The Firs, Selkirk
5 Ham., presumably Hamish, Murray is unidentified
6 Stewart Alexander is unidentified
7 Assume William Roberts Ovens who was landowner at Caddonfoot – including Proprietor Occupier at Caddonfoot Mansion House at The Peel, Caddonfoot [1921 Valuation Roll, VR011700009- xxx xxx]. ??? death of William Roberts Ovens aet 89 [deaths, 1936, 775/ 149, Galashiels]
8 Assume Douglas Munro Ramsay (about 1888-1951), of Bowland, Stow, Midlothian
9 The best reading of this text is Young Neidpath by which the Editor assumes Dr Muir means Neidpath Plantation, or a part of it, north of Fairnilea and below Neidpath Hill and centred on grid reference NGR NT457,341
[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 