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Welsh's Scottish Journey

Welsh's Scottish Journey: Episode 2: Borders

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Episode 2: Borders

Borders

BBC Radio 4 - Welsh's Scottish Journey, Borders

The Borders: Adventurous farmers, dying industries and why Muir hated Walter Scott.

In 1934 the Orcadian poet Edwin Muir embarked on his iconic 'Scottish Journey' a set of travels round depression-era Scotland where he tried to get to grips with Scottish identity and to consider what the future held for a country whose industries were being devastated by a recession

'. . . a silent clearance is going on in industrial Scotland, a clearance not of human beings, but of what they depend upon for life'

As a man very much of his time, of the 1930s, he wavered between socialism and nationalism as cures for Scotland's ills, but in-between reflected on the nature of work, poverty, Scottishness, tourism, the ideal way of living, the highland and the lowland character and the possible existence of a best of all possible worlds on his native Orkney. 

In the summer of 2011, crime writer Louise Welsh decided to embark on a mini whistle-stop version of Muir's journey, taking to the roads in an open-top car, just as he did, and trying to get a flavour now of a country also in the grip of austerity and flirting with nationalism. How do people see things today when the big industries are gone and agriculture has to compete in a global economy? In the Scottish Borders, Louise speaks to journalist and writer Stuart Kelly and farmers Tom and Mary Douglas.

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Factual: Travel

Louise Welsh updates the 1930s trail blazed round Scotland by Orkney poet Edwin Muir

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