Age of innocence

![][1] In the 1950s there was great rivalry between the only two sizeable communities in northern Kirkcudbrightshire–perhaps there still is. The background, as usual in such cases, was complex. Our village had been cheated, by them of course, of a charter which would have made us a royal burgh some half a millennium previously. That still rankled. But we now had twice the population of the admittedly tiny royal burgh. And we had a secondary school and a far better football team. But the rival village three and a half miles down the valley still had its attractions. Sometimes in the long summer holidays, when local diversions palled, a couple of us … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif