In the Borders, where intermunicipal rivalry is a keenly endorsed given, Hawick folk are sometimes considered a breed apart. This has never been something that displeases the town’s 16,000 inhabitants. “A day oot o’ Hawick is a day wasted,” is a local boast often made, not as a jesting matter but in deadly seriousness.
Teries, as Hawick people are known, guard their traditions fiercely. It is more than 20 years since the town was split between those who supported the suggestion that women should be permitted to take part in some of the rides that are a central part of the town’s Common Riding festivities and those who argued that this would be a betrayal of centuries of Hawick tradition. Suggestions for reform were long met by the unanswerable “It’s aye been”.
A compromise was reached. Lady riders could participate in some Common Riding events but still be barred from the main ride out. Now it is suggested that women may ride in support of the young man given the highest honour that Hawick can bestow: the position of cornet and head of the Common Riding. Whatever next? Are there no end to the indignities of modernity?
Even in Hawick, times change. In truth, many immemorial Common Riding customs are more modern than sometimes assumed. In Hawick, for instance, women could ride until 1932, at which point progressivism was deemed to have gone too far. Nor have other Border towns’ festivals suffered from the enthusiastic participation of female, as well as male, riders. Hawick is just catching up.
Even so, there are limits. Might, one day, a married man aspire to be Selkirk’s standard bearer? Might a woman thirst to be cornet in Langholm or Hawick? Maybe, but not perhaps for another half century. In the Borders, if things must change so that they may remain the same, they must only change very slowly. That too has aye been.