Scottish Borders by Vitali Vitaliev

“There was no such thing as a ‘Union of the Crowns’. The king of Scots merely inherited an additional office that paid better than his old one. The two kingdoms were in no sense united, and Scotland was left in the hands of managers while her king went off to better himself.”

/James Halliday, Scotland. A Concise History, 1990/



“What shall we do if Scotland becomes independent? Well, I don’t anticipate a new Cold War, except perhaps for the weather. In actual fact, it would be good for us: we could cash on it!” Councillor Breckons, the Mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, told me with a mischievous smile. “Yes, we’ll charge a toll – what a good idea!”

“Don’t get too excited: the Scots will charge you more on their side of the border,” I said sullenly.

During our short official encounter, I came close to getting smitten by the young and facetious Councillor – the most charismatic of all Mayors, Provosts, Sheriffs and Bailiffs I had ever met. Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you that the Mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whose formal title was “The Worshipful Mr Mayor”, was actually an attractive and extremely outgoing lady, although – in accordance with some ancient (and ridiculous) English protocols – official letters to her were supposed to be addressed to “Dear Mr Mayor”.

Yes, there was little doubt about it: I was in England, even if only several miles away from the unmarked Scottish border. At least, I thought it was unmarked prior to this visit, during which I discovered the last and only remaining marking, separating two formerly hostile nations – a truly historical finding. This landmark in the shape of an old stone hedge, stretching along the border and between two farms – English and Scottish, was built in the days of yore with a purely practical purpose: to stop the cows from either side from trespassing onto the neighbour’s land. It was still there 400 years after 1603: the Union of the Crowns had obviously had little effect on the continuing Disunion of the Cows.

Nigel Dudgeon, who ran Conundrum Farm outside Berwick with his wife Lynn, kept referring to the hedge as “the Border Wall”.

“We have warm bilateral relationships with my Scottish neighbour. When cattle strays onto each other’s territory and ruins the Border Wall, we pay fifty-fifty for the repairs, although he as a Scot always tries to pay less,” he said with a kindly chuckle.

One thing I liked about Berwickers – a unique human breed, routinely taken for Geordies in Edinburgh and for Jocks in Newcastle (as asserted by Lynn Dudgeon) – was their irrepressible sense of humour. It must have been the recipe for survival for one of Europe’s most fought-for towns, which had changed hands 13 times between 1296 and 1482 and was still living amidst its own never-ending dichotomy.

Just imagine: being formally part of England, Berwick got its electricity from Scottish Power, albeit its gas – from Northumberland; its football team, Berwick Rangers, competed in the Scottish Football League’s Second Division; it housed the HQ of the Scottish Borderers Regiment as well as those of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Like many a Scottish border town, Berwick had its annual Common Riding Festival, only the riders here, instead of “marking the borders”, checked out for possible “Scottish intruders”; in local shops one could buy both Scottish and London editions of newspapers and of “Radio Times”, with programmes for Scottish or English TV, either of which could be received in Berwick, depending on the direction of one’s aerial – and so on and so forth.

“I used to be British before coming to live in Berwick from Newcastle 17 years ago. Here I became English,” the landlady of my B&B told me at breakfast and added: “In Berwick, you have to be either English or Scottish.”

True, despite (or, maybe, because of) its all-permeating ambivalence, borderland tends to sharpen national identities. It also defines the architecture. Driving along the English side, I ticked off numerous fortified farmhouses – these window-less mini-fortresses, where tenants could barricade themselves against invaders. In the village of Anncroft, I saw a unique 11th century fortified church of St. Anne, with unusually thick walls and a special hiding tower attached to it. And everywhere I heard stories (legends?) of “ruthless Scottish invaders”, burning down a village here or ravaging a town there. They echoed similar tales of the “auld enemy” – “English marauders”, frequently told on the other side of the border.

I was amazed by similarities between Scottish and English versions of oral wartime folklore. In Hawick a couple of months ago, I was exposed to a gruesome theory that local rugby had originated from kicking around a severed head of a captured English soldier. In Anwick, on the other hand (head?), a traditional annual football match between two local parishes, allegedly, used to start with the Duke of Northumberland tossing a Scotsman’s head onto the field from behind the walls of the famous Castle, built, incidentally, “to keep the Scots away”.



Whatever its long-term implications, the Union of the Crowns had put a stop to hundreds years of fighting – enough reason to celebrate it, one would think. Yet, surprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be the will to do so either in England or in Scotland. Berwick – the town that had borne the brunt of the hostilities – is the only place in the whole of Britain to mark the occasion.

In the Mayor’s office, I was shown a computer-generated document with the heading “Programme For The Visit of King James VI/I”, beginning with: “10.00 am – King James Returns to Berwick”. Yes, on 6 April, 2003 – 400 years to the day of his historic stop-over on the way from Edinburgh to London – King James, a poet, a scholar, an anti-smoking campaigner and a Scottish anglophile, his clothes “ludicrously padded against dagger-thrusts” (as described by a contemporary) did return to Berwick as part of a colourful pageant, staged by historian Derek Sharman.

Unlike in most American re-enactments, which necessarily involve question-answer sessions and other hands-on “interactions” with historic figures (in Williamsburg, VA, I attended a lively talk by George Washington in the basement of a restored 18th century lunatic asylum a couple of years ago), King James, played by a London-based Scottish actor Simon Kirk, did not go on a walkabout. Nor did he receive £2,000 in gold from Berwick’s “grateful townsfolk”, willing to ingratiate themselves with the brand-new monarch, as he did in 1603. Yet, just like 400 years ago and in full accordance with the “Programme”, the revitalised King, often referred to as “the wisest fool in Christendom” (I am still trying to decide whether it is a praise or as a curse), did “review” the garrison and duly “knighted” a couple of locals.

Throughout the year, a number of other events will be happening in Berwick. Among them – a festival of the 17th century music, “King James’ Sports and Games” and even “King James’ Counterblast to Tobacco Day” in March 2004. And although the latter sounds like a bit of a joke (at least to me, a smoker, it does), why not? “Laughing, mankind bids farewell to its past,” said a Polish satirist. It will take a lot of laughter to forget the horrors of Anglo-Scottish wars.



There is a view in Scotland that the Union of the Crowns was the beginning of the ongoing crisis of Scottish identity. I think there might be a grain of truth there, for it is still not unusual for some Scots to define themselves first as “un-English” (or anti-English) and only then – as Scottish. Derek Sharman, who often conducted guided tours of Berwick for groups of school kids both from England and from Scotland, told me that if English children would normally be more than willing to assume the identity of “Scots” in the war games he encouraged them to play near the town’s Walls, their Scottish counterparts would rather die than become “English”. It is a well-known fact that, whereas the English always support Scotland’s football team at international matches (apart from those versus England of course), it is not unusual for the Scots to back any of England’s opponents.

At times, this “identity crisis” works both ways. Some English people feel jealous of Scotland’s better roads, free higher education and a more efficient welfare system. “The Scots don’t like us, but they like our money,” a London neighbour of mine used to say. In Scotland, on the other hand, I heard more than once that it was the English who destroyed Scottish industries and the fishing fleet. The wars of salvos and stabbings might have ended; the wars of stereotypes go on.

The Mayor of Berwick was right: independence or not, Scottish-English differences and misunderstandings will never grow into a Cold War-style divide. But as long as mutual blaming and pigeonholing continues, the two nations will stay separated in their minds by the invisible Berwick – not Berlin – Wall.



On my way back, I stopped at the border point, next to a large “Welcome to Scotland” road sign. The sign on the opposite side of the road simply said “England”. There was no denying the fact: Scotland welcomed you, whereas England stayed mum. “This is probably where the stiff upper lip begins,” I muttered to myself before realising that I must have succumbed to a stereotype again.

H.V. Morton described Border Country as a “queer compromise between fairyland and battlefield”. The view from where I stood was idyllic and serene, with no reminders of the battles: fluffy hills, green-and-yellow fields, and white-capped ripples of the open sea.

It felt as if nature itself had chosen this spot for its own peaceful protest against all wars – past and present.