Peebleshire, one of the smaller counties of Scotland, lying near the Border, so called from its royal burgh, is bounded by Dumfries and Selkirk shires on the south, Lanarkshire or Clydesdale on the west Mid-Lothian or Edinburghshire on the north, and Selkirkshire on the east.

Consisting mainly of the upper part of the valley of the Tweed, the county is variously and more familiarly known as Tweeddale, a designation which, in its old form of Tuedal, is sometimes assigned to it in state documents and historical writings in past times.

Letters to the Editor from Dawn Day

Dear Janet,

Your newsletter continues to interest us in the ‘goings on’ of fellow clan members.

Congratulations to Steve & his band on their achievements – great for a band only four years old.  Steve looks ‘bonny’ with his Bass Drum.  Both my dad & my husband were pipers in the Blue Lake Highland Pipe Band & so we know how much work & dedication goes into preparations for competition. 

Talking of pipers, every Friday at noon, a lone piper plays traditional Scottish airs on the balcony of the Glen Innes Town Hall.  Glen Innes is in northern New South Wales, with a population of 10,000.  They welcome visitors with the Gaelic ‘CEUD MILE FAILTE’, meaning one hundred thousand welcomes.

The town has it’s own tartan & the Australian Standing Stones.  The stones are recognized as a national monument to Australia’s Celtic pioneers & as a national gathering point for Celtic descendants & clans.  The annual Celtic Festival attracts thousands of people.  Highlights of the Festival include a street parade, Celtic dancers, concerts, choirs, storytellers, yard dog trials & The Kirking of the Tartan.

As we all know stone circles were built by the Celts as calendars & later developed religious significance.  The main feature of the Australian Standing Stones is a circle of 24 stones, representing the 24 hour day.

Outside the circle, four ‘cardinal’ stones mark true north, east, south & west.  These stones, with a single stone just inside the circle, form the Southern Cross – symbolizing the link between the old & new worlds.  Another formation represents the Ionic cross, symbol of the early Christian Church & still used on Roman Catholic churches.  Other stones mark the summer & winter solstices, the longest & shortest days of the year.  There are three stones standing in the centre of the circle.  The northern stone, the Gaelic Stone represents Gaelic-speaking Celts from Ireland, Scotland & the Isle of Man; the southern most stone, the Brythonic Stone, represents Brythonic-speaking Celts of Wales, Cornwall & Britanny; the gold-colored middle stone, the Australian Stone, represents all Australians.

Outside this array, there are the Gorsedd Stone, for the Cornish & Welsh, & Ogham Stone for the Irish.  The Ogham Stone has an inscription carved in Ogham, the oldest writing known to have been used by the Celts.  It translates in Gaelic as GLEANN MAQI AONGUSA, the Glen of the Sons of Angus, or, more simply, “Glen Innes.”

In January Dawn also wrote;
Dear Janet,

This was to be a happy New Year message but the New Year has turned into a nightmare so far.  The devastating tsunami was so shocking, with such unimaginable losses, our minds were reeling just trying to grasp the scale of it.  But the disasters haven't stopped there.  We have heard about the mud-slides & the avalanche you had in your country.  Here at home, in our own State of South Australia, on the Eyre Peninsula, we have had fire burning for nearly two weeks.  Thank God it is out now.  It started on the west coast of the Peninsula & with a roaring westerly wind behind it, it burnt right across to the sea on the other side.  In it's fury it took 9 lives, four of them children, 50 homes & tens of thousands of livestock.  It burnt 80,000 hectares of land & the soil below.  In all, the damage is estimated to be $50 million.  Our State Government has pledged $7 million for rebuilding, some of it in promises to waive duties on farm vehicles & housing.  There have been tones of aid trucked to the area but the people have lost their sheds & all the tools they kept there, simple things you don't think of.  So I guess tools will be next on the agenda.  A branch of our Turnbull family live there, but we haven’t heard yet whether any of them have been affected.

We just hope & pray that as the year progresses things will get better. Meantime, loving greetings to all the Clan from all the Turnbulls here.

Dawn