![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/025df02e5de37f54d1777d24445aedb7.jpg\" "\\"Melrose")
\nClass Register<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Alan Sleater<\/em><\/p>\n The first register I called at Selkirk High My mother was a Bell, and her family hailed What remains, beyond the battle sites, But true to the Borders, in their non-inclusive way. Once a year, they ride the marches of the past. Class Register by Alan Sleater The first register I called at Selkirk HighWas, to my incomer\u2019s eyes, a roll callOf the Borders clans, and three hundred years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":579,"featured_media":13673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/579"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Was, to my incomer\u2019s eyes, a roll call
Of the Borders clans, and three hundred years of peace;
Armstrong, Douglas, Elliot, Scott,
A second-year class, sitting in ordered rows,
Like the shields in the entrance hall at Abbotsford.<\/p>\n
From Bemersyde, her three-times great grandmother
Buried in Bowden Kirk. The Bells were farmers then,
No longer feared as one of the riding clans,
But, no doubt, fiercely proud of their Borders name.<\/p>\n
Or places that bring to life the Border tales?
The Armstrongs are gone from the gloom of Hermitage,
The Kers and Douglas-Scotts have made their peace,
Home, from Eton, to their Borders-wide estates
Of landscaped gardens and artificial lakes,
Tied tenancy and a hundred million sheep,<\/p>\n
The lasting harms are English-made: the burnt-out abbeys,
Ripped-up railways, forgotten motorways;
Communities destroyed in time of war.<\/p>\n
In Selkirk, safe in, the local colours cast,
The Standard Bearer, Fletcher, dips his flag,
And The Flooers o the Forest is heard in total silence.
Surprised by tears for a battle long ago,
I reflect on the strange allegiances
Of this Royal Burgh\u2019s absolute devotion
To the clans and customs of the Border lands
And a Crown that slaughtered all its men, bar one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"