Devil's Beef Tub (Jim Hume)

Devil's Beef Tub

May 10, 2009 9:23 PM
By Jim Hume MSP

Ladies, Edwardian Woman and Gentlemen, it's great to be hosting this event for the Borders Forest Trust, along with Jeremy Purvis - of course many of you will know I was a trustee for I think 6 years, and still a member - so I've a wee bit knowledge of the good work that's been done in the past with community woodlands, school playground projects, woodland grazing, Wildwood at Carifaran in the Moffat valley, and the huge strides the Trust has made in raising the money needed for this project; so well done to John, Willie, Bridie, Niccy, George, Sandra and the team for the achievement so far and of course those Trustees who I know are invaluable at trying to keep Willie McGhee on the straight and narrow - a near impossible job. And thanks to John and Willie for their fascinating presentations.

But this project is a new venture - its important for ecological reasons as John has explained, similar to Wildwood in scale but quite different in outcomes, crucially important is that it focuses on rural skills - fencing, planting, hedging, deer stalking and stock keeping for example. I was particularly pleased to hear from Willie that the site will be used to train people in those skills because this will be key in not only helping to retain a rural workforce, but also in highlighting the need to keep those rural skills as a viable career path for young people, encouraging them to opt for a career in land management, which I believe has a long a future as it has a past.

I'm glad to see that finally BFT are making good the link of Wallace to the South of Scotland, the leaflet rightly states how important the Ettrick Forest was to Wallace, not only was it his main hiding place after raids on the English held towns, but he did in fact use the skilled archers from the Ettrick forest to great effect against the auld enemy, as did Bruce, and of course over the hill in the Moffat valley was found the most ancient of all British Bows at the unfortunately named Rotten Bottom. So a long link between that very area and archery could also be a good attraction to the Beef Tub project.

Wallace was of course made joint guardian with Andrew Murray, there is question where exactly they both were made guardians, it was named in chronicles as the Kirk O the Forest - so was definitely in the Ettrick Forest Region, but some believe that it was behind Wallace's trench in the old Kirkyard on Kirkstead in Yarrow overlooking St Mary's Loch - but we'll leave that to the historians to debate.

Habitat restoration is important but by no means easy, and I know the Trust has faced difficulties at Wildwood with invasion of fire from neighbouring Muirburning and nibbling by both members of the Capra family and also the odd Bambi. But like all their other projects I am sure they will overcome and deliver at the end of the day.

But anyway I wish Borders Forest Trust all the best in achieving their target of £600,000. I do hope this event, with my Parliamentary motion and all the publicity combined with that does help to promote the Trust vision for Corehead. I hope you all have a super evening, and we'll now pass on to the Question's part of the evening to be followed by a more informal chance for us all to mingle for the important blether.