From Punk Rock to Moon Buggies

Earlston's contribution to world history (or let's take a light-hearted, time travelling culture tour)

In 2015, there was a TV show called 'Six Degrees of Separation'. The show centred on finding a connection between six unlikely objects.

So, for a change this month, we'll look at the connections between six unlikely topics - punk rock, Caribbean sugar plantations, BAFTA TV Awards, New York book publishing, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Moon buggies - which are all linked to Earlston.

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Tom Davidson (https://tomdavidson.co.uk), the Earlston-based artist, has his gallery on Earlston High Street. The gallery is where his grandfather, Willie Alchin, had the village baker's shop.

The shop now doubles as Tom's studio and gallery, where he creates stunning lino-cut prints of local landscapes. His ability to capture light reflecting off the Leader river or sunshine piercing through the trees of Cowdenknowes Woods is a joy to behold.

But Tom also gained fame in another of the arts - music.

Tom studied at Carlisle University and joined The Limps, a punk rock band. The band released several singles and appeared on the John Peel Show in 1979.

The Limps⁽¹⁾

The band eventually broke up, and members drifted off to do their own thing.

Their music lives on, though. They appear on a recently released compilation album with bands like The Jam, The Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Gary Crowleys Punk and New Wave⁽²⁾

There's a whole new audience that appreciates their music.

A film studio recently contacted the band asking to feature their track 'Someone I Can Talk To' on the closing credits of a new movie still in production. Its release date has not been announced, but look out for its title - 'The Snack Shack'.

Sugary snacks, like music, can hit the right note or, as they call it in the food industry, the bliss point. This is where the snack has just the right amount of sweetness. Any sweeter and it would be too sickly; any less, it wouldn't be sweet enough.

The bliss point makes you come back for more, which is great news for dentists and sugar producers alike.

John Redpath was an Earlston man who made his fortune through sugar refining in Canada.

John was the son of farm servants working on farms in the Earlston area. His father had the foresight to see the changes in store for farm workers due to the 'improvements' between 1760 and 1830.

The 'improvements' centred around better fertilisers, drainage, and more selective crops. As a result, farms became more productive and larger. The downside was that the farms needed a smaller workforce. Thousands of families left farming during this period in what became known as the lowland clearances.

John was fortunate in that he managed to get an apprenticeship with his uncle, a stone mason in Edinburgh. However, by the time John became a master mason, the Napoleonic Wars had just finished releasing thousands of soldiers, including stone masons from the engineering regiments, into the job market. Consequently, John decided to emigrate to Canada.

Within a few years, John had established a successful construction business. Seeing an opportunity and with enough spare capital, he constructed a sugar refinery in Montreal importing raw sugar from Caribbean sugar plantations.

John made his fortune from sugar. He returned to Scotland just once, but he took the time to visit Earlston when the Corn Exchange was being built. He presented the villagers with the clock in the Corn Exchange tower that chimes the hours as his lasting legacy.

In Canada, you can buy Redpath sugar in almost any grocery store or supermarket to satisfy your bliss point. Of course, not just humans enjoy sugar; horses also have a notoriously sweet tooth.

Redpath Sugar⁽³⁾

Satisfying your sugar tooth and eating too much sugar will likely result in putting on weight, which in turn will slow you down. Presumably, the same is true for horses as well as humans.

Slow Horses was the name of a TV series starring Earlston High School former pupil Jack Lowden. Jack graduated from the prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2011. He was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award (2023) for Best Supporting Actor in his role of River Cartwright. The series follows a team of intelligence agents who serve as a dumping ground department of MI5 due to their career-ending mistakes.

Jack Lowden⁽⁴⁾

The series is based on the book 'Slow Horses' by Mike Heron and published by Baskerville.

Slow Horses⁽⁵⁾

And talking of publishers, Robert Carter was an Earlstonian who established a publishing company in New York.

Robert was born in Earlston in 1807 with an apparent unquenchable thirst for knowledge. At an early age, Robert showed his love for books when he watched an auctioneer dispose of the household effects of a neighbour.

Robert Carter⁽⁶⁾

Included in the sale was a copy of Josephu's works, complete in one thick volume. When the auctioneer asked, 'How much am I offered for this?' Robert replied in a faint voice, 'Fourpence'. The auctioneer immediately handed the book to Robert, saying, "You shall have it, for you are the smallest customer I have had today'.

By age fifteen, Robert was holding night classes for local boys. Robert went on to attend university.

Years later, he gave up his teaching job in New York and opened a bookstore on the corner of Canal and Laurens Street in 1834. From selling books, he began to publish books at his New York book publishing company, Robert Carter and Brothers.

That first book no doubt changed Robert's life just as some of the books he published and sold would change the lives of others.

No wonder they say that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Of course, the most famous type of Scottish sword is the claymore, the weapon of choice for hundreds of years.

In 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie led his Jacobite army south towards London, the army camped at Fans, a few miles from Earlston. When the army marched southward again, it was discovered that a soldier had left his claymore behind.

Bonnie Prince Charlie⁽⁷⁾

When news of the army's imminent arrival in Earlston, locals feared the Jacobites' notorious reputation for looting. Valuables were hidden wherever possible. Horses were hidden in a hollow below Caldies Hill known as 'Howe of Hope'. The exact spot had provided Covenanters a meeting place one hundred years before.

Caldies Hill is part of the old Earlston Golf Club. 

On August 8th 1906, a meeting was held in the Smaller Exchange Hall to discuss the formation of an Earlston Golf Club. Twenty men attended, and the site chosen for the proposed course was Caldies Hill, owned by Lord Binning. The Chairman of the meeting, Rev N C Keith, advised the group that he had already gained permission from Lord Binning and his tenants.

On August 30th, Willie Park, a professional golfer and course designer, visited the site to draw up the plan for a nine-hole course.

The course was officially opened on Wednesday, November 7th 1907. However, the first competition occurred in October 1907 for the Silver Challenge Cup, presented by Issac Wallace, an Earlstonian who had emigrated to Australia. The Cup was won by Robert Lountain with a score of 79.

The game prospered in the village with both ladies and gentlemen sections. Two businesses, John McDonal, Saddler, and John Weatherston, Watchmaker, stocked clubs and balls.

Despite the best intentions, the Club was forced to close by the end of World War 2 due to a lack of members and funds.

However, the Club members were undeterred and boldly decided to open a golf course on the Moon.

To quote the Club's website (https://www.earlstongolfclub.com/):

With the purchase and restoration of the original golf course being unattainable at an Earlston Golf Club Committee Meeting in 2000, it was agreed to pursue the purchase of land to build a course on the Moon. This transaction was completed on November 3rd 2000, and initial planning was soon under way.

 

 There are 18 Seas on the surface of the Moon, each of which has a Latin name which has been translated and given a Scottish Borders flavour to reflect the origins of the Club.

 

The holes on the Earlston Golf Club Moon Course were named to keep the authenticity of the course location whilst ensuring that the history and traditions of the Club are echoed in each hole.

One can assume that Moon buggies will be substituted for golf buggies.

Moon Buggy⁽⁸⁾

Credit links

1. https://justsomepunksongs.blogspot.com/

2. https://spindizzyrecords.com/

3. https://auldearlston.blogspot.com

4. https://www.standard.co.uk/

5. https://marlowbookshop.co.uk/

6. https://auldearlston.blogspot.com

7. https://www.msn.com

8. https://en.wikipedia.org

Do you know of any unlikely topics or objects that are connected and linked with Earlston? Let us know in the Comments section below.

Robert Carter- Earlston Lad to A New York Businessman: Part 2.

Part One of the Robert Carter (1807-1889)  story related his early memories of growing up in Earlston - as a child helping at the harvest, working at the loom and    witnessingan  execution of a murderer, before  studying to be a teacher,  Here Part Two tells of his journey to New York, his career as a teacher and publisher, and returning on holiday to Earlston with his family.

Robert's  daughter Annie Carter Cochrane wrote his life story and  in 1899 presented a copy of the biography  to Earlston Reading Room.  Her writings form the basis for much of  the article here. 


Arriving  in New York

Having said goodbye to his family and friends in Earlston, Robert walked via Peebles and Edinburgh to Greenock where he sailed on the ship "Francis” in April, 1831. Forty-five days were spent on the voyage, not an unusual time in the days which preceded the steamship. Robert helped to hold religious services on board ad many of the passengers that he met on the voyage became life long friends. 
 
New York, with its 200.000 inhabitants must have been a daunting experience after Earlston. But the letters of introduction Robert carried from Scotland secured him teaching posts, before he took over a small  insolvent bookseller, buying his stock. He soon moved into larger premises on Broadway  and then started up a business  as a publisher, which proved the beginning of successful  commercial career.  

Everything was read by him before he undertook to publish it. He focused mostly on religious works, and was instrumental in making Americans conversant with much of the best religious literature in Britain.


A Life Based on Christian Principles 
On the morning of his first Sabbath in America, Robert  sought out the Scottish church.  He  became a Sunday School teacher, superintendent and then an elder.   He was a leading man in many New York organizations. For 17 years he was a delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America;  he became vice-president of the Bible Society, a trustee of the Board of Foreign Missions and  helped to found the New York Sabbath Committee.

A Family Man 
Robert never forgot his Earlston roots and quickly had saved enough money to bring his parents  and their large family out to settle in Saratoga, New York State, where there was a small Scottish community.  His father Thomas died after twelve years in America, leaving eleven children and fifty  grandchildren.  Two of Robert's  brothers,  Walter and Peter,  joined Robert in the publishing business in 1848.  

It was at the church that Robert met his wife Miss Jane Thomson, one of ten children of a wealthy businessman. They married in 1834, at 6am in the morning, so that the bridal pair might reach Philadelphia before nightfall. In 1836 their first child was born and named after his maternal grandfather Samuel Thomson. Sadly he died at the age of three.

Five  more children were born and they spoke warmly of their childhood and close family life.  However it was not a household where playing cards and dancing were indulged in;   the theatre was not a place to be visited and the practice of the house was not to drink anything  intoxicating.   Yet Robert was known for his hospitable nature and the regular gatherings of extended family and friends.

Robert supported the cause of the native Indians and the fugitive slaves, remembering his father's words 

 "This government has a fearful  record to meet someday  from its treatment of the Indian and the Negro. If ever you can do a kinds service to the red man or the black man, be sure to do it."

Returning to his childhood home in Earlston
Robert was a great believer in the value of travel as a means of education and made regular visits to Europe and back to Earlston. 

His biography  gives a graphic description of  a stormy sea voyage returning  to America in 1856:

"It was impossible to move about and no meals were served.    I never witnessed so severe a storm   Each  time a sea of such magnitude and power came at the ship, I thought it was all over for us.    For 36 hours,  the wind raved  with a fury and power unknown.  thundering loudly and unceasingly around us. The sails on the fore-yards clewed down, burst from their fastenings and  roared and flapped furiously  breaking over and against the ship.  The sea broker over the main deck and into the engine room.  Portions  of wreckage rolled   deep and dark over the quarter deck  One of these struck the captain on the head  and the wave drove him insensible and  he was barely saved form an ocean grave. "

In 1856 the family spent a month in his beloved Earlston, and his daughter recalled:

 "He greatly enjoyed taking his children to the scenes of his childhood, and showing them the house where he was born, the arbor where he sat with his books overlooking the path along which his cousin walked to aid him in his studies, the old kirkyard where his forefathers slept, Rhymer's Tower, and "the bonnie, bonnie broom of the Cowden Knowes........the beautiful scenery of Berwickshire became very familiar to all. Kelso, Melrose, Dryburgh, Abbotsford, were visited.  No view that he enjoyed more was  that on Bemersyde Hill (Scott's View)  His two sons later preached in the  church of their forefathers.

 Ivy covered Rhymer's Tower and Rhymer's Cottages, c.1900

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 Robert died on 28th December 1889  at the advanced age if 82, "after a life of activity and usefulness" with large numbers attending his funeral.      Three sons and two daughters survived him – one son joined the family business whilst the other sons became Presbyterian ministers.  One daughter also married a clergyman.

Left - Part of a lengthy obituary that appeared back in the Scottish Borders in "The Southern Reporter":  4th July 1895.  


Robert Carter today is remembered as  one of the many self-made men  who began life in humble circumstances,  to leave  their home in Scotland and make their mark in countries abroad.  



Acknowledgements:  

• Robert Carter:  His Life and Work, 1807-1889,  by Annie Carter Cochrane.
  The full text is available HERE on the Library of Congress Internet Archive.
• Obituary in "The Southern Reporter":  4th July 1895.
• David McConnell - a descendant of Robert's cousin,  Elizabeth Carter.  

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Robert Carter (1807-1889) : Earlston-born New York Publisher: Part 1.

Earlston born Robert Ewing Carter (1807-1889) emigrated to the USA in 1831 and became the founder and head of Carter Brothers, a well known New York Publishers. He was one of the many self-made men who began life in humble circumstances,    left their home in Scotland and made their mark in countries abroad.  

Robert's  daughter Annie Carter Cochrane wrote his life story and presented a copy of the biography  to Earlston Reading Room.  Her writings form the basis for much of  the article here. 

EARLY EARLSTON REMINISCENCES

Robert Carter

His Early Life 
Robert Carter's birth was recorded in Earlston Old Parish Records - " Born 27th Nov. 1807 and bapt. 1st Dec. Robert, son of Thomas Carter, Earlston." This was a time when no stagecoach passed through the village, and little or no communication was held with the world beyond the village.   

Yet Robert's life was to extend  well beyond his birthplace - from walking  the 25-30 miles to Peebles and Edinburgh to further his studies,  to setting sail for New York.  

His father  Thomas Carter, a weaver,  worked six looms.  He and  his wife Agnes Ewing   had  a large family of children,  many of whom assisted him in his occupation and there was a strong Christian ethos in family life. 

Robert's younger brother Walter recalled:  

"The  earliest recollection I have is of morning prayers.........The Sabbath was the "day of days"  - morning church, then Sabbath school - it was the first Sabbath school in the south of Scotland  and well attended. The superintendent was Rev. Mr Crawford of the Relief Church     Brother Robert was his assistant.......We met in a stone cottage built from the ruins of the Rhymer's Tower.  We had none of the modern improvements -  no library, no Sunday School hymns, no picture papers. But we had the bible  and hearty singing of the grand old psalms.  Family worship closed the blessed day. "

From an early age, Robert developed a love of  books, study and learning. Yet his childhood was hard.

Helping with the Harvest

"From very early years, the harvest was a season  of hard labour.   When not more than six or seven  years old, I accompanied my older brother  at gleanng  behind the reapers -  to pick up the golden ears of wheat or barley,  or oats till our little hands were full,  bind up the handful and lay it aside  and commence again and again until  the end of the day,   it was no easy task  with the back continually bowed;  and in evening to walk home a distance of  one or two miles required no small effort. Glad were we, worn out and  weary  to sit down to our evening dish of oatmeal porridge and milk. 

As soon as I was able to wield a sickle, I became a reaper. This work for me was extremely painful. My hands were soft and for the first week or two were extremely bruised. And oh,  what a relief did Saturday evening bring."

Working at the Loom
Aged just nine,  Robert was taken from school and put to work on the loom.  From that time his education was acquired entirely by his own efforts.  Robert wrote long afterwards:

"My work was light but tedious.  From dawn till ten,  and sometimes until eleven at night. I cared little for the confinement, but grievously the loss of books and mental improvement...... I had a board erected at my left hand  on which I fastened my book and worked and read all day.  The books in my father's library having ran out, I was obliged to borrow from some of my neighbours."  

Seeing the titles of books that Robert read, strikes us today as very erudite for a child. Robert's cousin Thomas,  who was reading theology at Edinburgh University,   encouraged him in his studies, and  taught him Latin and later Greek. 

Earlston Fair
Leisure time was rare, but Robert gave a colourful description of the Earlston Fairs - one in summer and one in autumn "These fairs were looked forward to with great delight by the village boys .  There assembled dealers in cattle, hardware, toys and books."

Memories of a Murder and Execution  
Robert in much later life wrote about the impact of  a local murder, followed by an execution that he witnessed as a twelve year old boy.  Two men walking home from Earlston Fair, were set upon and killed  by  an intoxicated Robert Scott,   He was arrested and taken to Jedburgh Jail, tried and condemned to die at the very  spot where the crime had been committed. 

Robert Carter recalled 

"Thousands came to witness the execution. I was in that crowd. At a turn of the road I was within a few feet of him, and such a haggard face I never saw. It haunted me for many a year. When on the scaffold, he , in a loud voice that was heard by thousands,  prayed for mercy - that he might be delivered from blood guilti-ness, — prayed for the widows whom he had made widows, and for the children whom he had made fatherless. I never heard such earnest pleading, and I never forgot it."

Becoming a Teacher

In 1822, when Robert was fifteen years old, a cousin  who was a teacher in a private school in Selkirk, and about to attend a course at Edinburgh University, invited him to take his place at the school  - an experience which proved invaluable 

When he returned to Earlston, Robert  opened an evening school in his father’s house.   He soon had twenty-eight scholars, and the school was notable in that most of the pupils were older than their teacher.      About this time a course lectures  for teachers was being offered in Edinburgh.   Robert walked the thirty mile to Edinburgh,  to hear them, leaving home on a Monday morning shortly after midnight, and reaching the capital at ten o'clock in time for the first lecture.   He gained the friendship of the Professor, and when, about seven years later,Robert sailed for America,  he carried with him a letter of introduction from the Professor to Dr. Griscom, head of the High School in New York.

Back in the Borders, Robert  heard of a vacancy at Peebles Grammar School. and   set out to walk the distance of twenty-five miles to make a personal application, taking with him, as usual,  a book to peruse on the way.  Despite reservations about his youth, he was offered  the post,  and achieved success with both his pupils and the staff.

A position at the parish school in Smailholm, became vacant,  just six miles from his home  and Robert walked there to apply for the post.   But his application would not be considered , because he was not a member of the Church of Scotland.  Robert's church allegiance was to Earlston Secession Church which had broken away from the established Church of Scotland, largely over the issue of patronage and who appointed the minister.

Robert felt this rejection deeply and told his father

"I shall not apply for a position in my own land again, I will go to America where the religious domination  will not stand in the way  of my progress."  
 

Leaving Earlston 

In March 1831 Robert booked his passage from Greenock to New York on the  ship "Francis"  The separation from home and family was hard.

At six o'clock in the morning, about thirty acquaintances and friends met in the old house to say goodbye to him, before he set out to walk from Earlston by way of Peebles and Edinburgh to Greenock.

"As I arose to go, my mother embraced me most tenderly  fainted and fell on the sofa.  My father and many friends accompanied me, until at ten miles, my father  and a dear friend alone were left.    We parted in silence.     I gazed after them until they disappeared from view.   I then sat down by the silvery Tweed and gave vent to my feelings.  I was alone with God."

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Part Two of the Robert Carter story will trace his time  in New York where his success enabled him to bring across  to America his parents, brothers and sisters across  to America.   But Robert never forgot Earlston and made repeated visits back to his birthplace.

 

 

Acknowledgements:  

• Robert Carter:  His Life and Work, 1807-1889,  by Annie Carter Cochrane.
  The full text is available HERE on the Library of Congress Internet Archive.
• Obituary in "The Southern Reporter":  4th July 1895.
• David McConnell - a descendant of Robert's cousin,  Elizabeth Carter.  

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