A dull sunless day but quite pleasant. Only saw half a dozen town cases including Mrs Dunn1 + Robert Currie.2 Got things arranged for going away at 5.15. message to Boylan.3 Cycled there. Dined at Glenmayne.4 Jack5 motored us there. Delightful music from Mrs Murray + Harry.6 They played “Invitation a la Valse” as a duet on the piano.7 John Roberts8, Jim + Emma9 + Rutherford10 there.
1 Assume this refers to Agnes Ralph Dunn née Waldie (1858-1926), of 1 Marion Crescent, Selkirk.
2 Assume Robert Currie junior (about 1847-1923), woollen hosiery manufacturer, died 6 September 1923, death certified by D Charteris Graham M.B., Ch.B. The son of Robert Currie, hosiery manufacturer, and Mary Little and married to Mary Murray, Robert lived at Rockville, Selkirk. Though he was known as ‘junior’ he was actually the fourth of five generations of the Currie family at Selkirk with the given name Robert.
3 Dr Muir had been attending Shawpark, Selkirk from time to time to see John Dun Boylan (1850-1924), a civil engineer, who had a heart attack on 11 March 1923.
4 Glenmayne, Galashiels, grid reference NGR NT497,337, is the house sitting dramatically above the A7 and overlooking the River Tweed more or less opposite Faldonside. It is visible on Ordnance Survey 25 inch Selkirkshire Sheet VIII.10, published 1899.
5 John ‘Jack’ Roberts junior (1876-1966), Dr Muir’s son-in-law.
6 There is little doubt that Dr Muir’s handwriting is getting worse. The Editor assumes that this reads Mrs Murray and Harry in other words Thomasina Maude Murray née Shearer (1867-1943) and Henry Smith ‘Harry’ Murray (1858-1924), mining company director and sometime soldier, of Glenmayne, Galashiels (see also Dr Muir’s diary entry for 10 June 1923).
7 Invitation à la valse, Op. 65 by Carl Maria Von Weber.
8 Assume Sir John Roberts (1845-1934), C.M.G., born Selkirk, settled in New Zealand and back in Scotland in summer 1923. The year after the death of his wife Louisa Jane Kettle (1848-1922) Sir John travelled ‘home’ to Selkirk (where his sons John ‘Jack’ and Charlie were permanently settled) with his daughter-in-law Eulalie Violet Roberts née Farquhar (1873-1931), widow of George Roberts (1872-1903), and Mary Eulalie Roberts (1899-1995), her daughter, at roughly the same time as another of his sons James Alexander ‘Jim’ Roberts (1879-1948) and his family (see footnote 9 below).
9 Assume James Alexander ‘Jim’ Roberts (1879-1948), his wife Catherine Emily ‘Emma’ Downes (1884-1949) and their children John Edward Downes Roberts (1906-1985) and Dorothy Violet Roberts, later MacMillan (1909-), who appear to have been over from New Zealand in the same year as Jim’s father Sir John Roberts (see footnote 8 above). This party had arrived at Southampton, England on 15 May 1923 and was reported at the Selkirk Common Riding on 11 June 1923.
10 Rutherford is unidentified.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 