Less wind + more sun + consequently not quite as cold. Snow lying here + there in shade + hills very white. Motored to Cotfield + Hermiston1 + then to Riverside, Linglie Cottages, Peelburnfoot, Faldonside + Hospital where a case of Diph.2 had arrived from Raeburn Meadow + to my disgust another one came at night from Langhope3, + a pretty bad case too. I had to get a nurse as Matron is away. Went to performance of ‘Creation’ in Church4. Awfully good. The tenor (Brierly5) particularly good. Mrs Mack6 + Miss Campbell – the Viewfield night nurse7) came to high tea + went with us.
1 Cotfield, Lilliesleaf, grid reference NGR NT532,226, Andrew Stewart, proprietor and James Boyd, farmer, tenant of Cotfield farm and houses, with William Welsh, ploughman, inhabitant occupier not rated at one of the Cotfield houses, and Hermiston, Lilliesleaf, NT512,230, Andrew Stewart, proprietor and James Lambert Elliot, farmer, tenant of Hermiston farm and houses, with William Laidlaw, farm steward and William Jackson, ploughman, inhabitant occupiers not rated at two of the Hermiston houses [1922 Valuation Rolls VR011600033-/884, Roxburgh County, page 884 of 993]
2 The nasty and prolonged outbreak of Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever had been running since early 1921
3 Langhope, Kirkhope, above West Essenside, grid reference NGR NT422,201, where Thomas Scott, farmer, was tenant and living with his family [1921 Valuation Roll, VR011700009-/322, Selkirk County, page 322 of 611]
4 The Lawson Memorial Church Musical Association put on a performance of Haydn’s ‘The Creation’ [‘Die Schöpfung’) is an oratorio written between 1797 and 1798 by Joseph Haydn (Hob. XXI:2), and considered by many to be one of his …] at which 1,000 people heard W Norman Mellalieu F.R.C.O. conduct 50 singers and Miss Margaret F Stewart, Edinburgh, soprano, Henry Brearley, Leeds, “a tenor of the robust type”, Robert W Dickson, Selkirk, bass and Robert Barrow, Galashiels, organ [source: ‘Haydn’s Creation At Selkirk’, The Southern Reporter, 23 March 1922]
5 This is probably T Henry Brearley, tenor, Principal, Leeds Parish Church Choir, sometime of the Leeds Festival and a busy man with numerous references to his performances in newspapers across the northern part of England and evidently into Scotland too [sources include: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular Vol. 40, No. 672, Feb. 1, 1899 and ‘Haydn’s Creation At Selkirk’, The Southern Reporter, 23 March 1922]
6 Agnes Mackintosh née Watson, formerly Harper (1859-1946), of Elm Park, Selkirk
7 Miss Campbell has not been identified though it may be possible to do so when the 1921 Census is published later this year
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/25, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1922]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 