Arrived at St Pancras 8.31 + taxied to Waterloo where we had breakfast. It was a fine morning after some fog outside London. Left Waterloo 10:20 + had a slow journey from Guildford. Mary2 met us with her car – a very nice Standard.3 I walked up with the [illegible] which Baptie4 had carefully protected with the strong paper covers taken off [illegible]. After lunch at one.30 [?] I had a shave + change + cycled down to Haslemere sought a [illegible] via Shottermill5 to what I thought was the Portsmouth road but found it wasn’t [and] turned back + found it at Liphook + came home via Hindhead + Shottermill. Mary is wonderfully well + Amy6 also. Mrs Watson7 was at lunch. [word deleted] Helen8 + I called for Willie + Logie9 + then with Amy walked out on the Heath + saw a lovely sunset.10
1 Dr Muir had come down to London overnight.
2 Mary Jane Wallace née Muir (1836-1933), Dr Muir’s sister, widow of James Wallace (d.1922), and living at Scotstoune, Haslemere, Surrey.
3 The model is not known but was presumably one of the large saloons manufactured by the Standard Motor Co. (which took over the Triumph Motor Co. in 1945 and was thereafter known as Standard-Triumph until in due course it became part of Leyland Motors Ltd.)
4 Thomas Baptie (1860-1929), driver and handyman for Dr Muir.
5 Dr Muir got lost here because, running south to Haslemere, SU897,334, before running west to Shottermill, SU883,328, beyond which he should have found the main road but instead travelled farther south than he needed to reaching Liphook, SU821,285, and returning home in a loop north via Hindhead, SU882,358, and in doing so would have run fairly close to where he had been at Shottermill earlier.
6 Amy Kathleen Waldie (1889-1960), niece of James Wallace, Mary Jane Muir’s husband who had died in 1922.
7 Mrs Watson is as yet unidentified.
8 Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and sometime housekeeper, who had travelled south with him.
9 William Edward ‘Willie’ Muir (1872-1948), son of Francis ‘Frank’ Muir, in 1922 he is noted as of Rowallan, Haslemere and married to Logie Elizabeth Muir née Whiteway.
10 Look at a Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger map of the area and you will nee that in almost every direction there are indications of commons, many of which are rare lowland heath habitats, 80% of which have been lost since 1800. Amy and Dr Muir must have walked onto the Hindhead Commons (on which the two Muir family houses Scotstoun and Rowallan had been constructed, see Ordnance Survey six inch Surrey Sheet XLIV.NW & NE, published 1920) which are now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
[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 