The 2014 Scottish independence debate and the re-ignition of the SNP's
call for a second vote in the wake of Brexit - and indeed Brexit
itself - begs a reappraisal of what nationality and borderer identity
actually mean in the twenty-first century and how the past affects this.
As a borderer and historian John Sadler is uniquely qualified to examine
the border from Roman times to today. He's been in these Marches all his
life, read about their wild inhabitants, traversed every inch and
studied every castle, bastle, tower and battlefield. In July 2010 in
Rothbury, a latter-day outlaw, Raoul Thomas Moat, a vicious petty
criminal and murderer, holed up in Coquetdale as hundreds of police
tried to flush him out. Nasty as he was, he became a kind of instant
folk hero to some. Four centuries ago, Moat would barely have been
noticed on the border - just another Reiver. From the Hammer of the
Scots, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Mary, Queen of Scots, right
through to today's new nationalism, the story of the borderlands is
tempestuous, bloody and fascinating. And a 'Hot Trod'? If your cattle
were stolen there was a legal requirement to pursue the rustlers within
six days, otherwise you're on a less enforceable Cold Trod.
