An elderly war veteran weeping in despair as he trudges back to his house after suffering the now-familiar verbal abuse and threats on his return from a local shop.
A six-year-old child terrified by the repeated loud crashes of boots against the front door of his home. The dejection and civic shame of an elderly Jedhart lady as she once again finds her garden the target of mindless vandalism by crowds of Buckfas
t-crazed, foul-mouthed young men from her own home town.
Are these scenes from inner-city Glasgow or Edinburgh, or Belfast during the 1960s? No, they are scenes enacted every weekend in the ancient Royal Burgh of Jedburgh.
I write to add further context to the article in TheSouthern of December 27, outlining the continuing economic decline and civic pessimism afflicting Jedburgh in recent times.
Allow me to speak for the fearful silent majority and the increasingly angry and potentially dangerous would-be vigilantes who are, as yet, in the minority. I have spoken at length to both these groups, and as I have a philosophical and psychological foot in both these camps, I feel emboldened to say the following words.
The guid folk of Jethart have had enough. They have had enough of the school-generated litter, the dog shit, the mindless drunken vandalism of under-age morons apparently untouchable by the forces of law and order. They have had enough of living in fear and shame in a town in which they once felt pride, reduced as it is in many areas to a bedraggled, grafittied and littered shadow of its former self.
I make no apology as an incomer for offering these remarks. Any outraged local who wishes to challenge my observations is welcome to do so. Before doing so, however, they would be better to ask themselves what are the root causes of the gloomy prospects for tourism and employment in the town and whether the appearance and atmosphere of the present Jedburgh are in any way reminiscent of the town of their childhood, which attracted so many admiring devotees willing to spend their time and money here.
It is widely held by folk who have thought seriously of Jedburgh’s future that any return to affluence will have to be preceded by a ‘back to basics’ change in attitude by everyone in the town.
The first principle that urgently needs renewal is the concept of basic law and order.
The mob rule in Jedburgh has to stop. A regular and proactive police presence must be re-established and soon. The offences of breach of the peace, drunk and disorderly, criminal damage, pavement fouling and graffiti painting will have to form a larger part of the diet at the sheriff court for an indeterminate period of time till the environment again becomes worthy of the title royal burgh. Witnesses will have to be offered protection, not by the police, but by their friends, neighbours and townsmen.
Those many talented and industrious young people who do show initiative and drive in contributing to their town’s wellbeing will need to be honoured an encouraged by word and public gestures.
The full article contains 534 words and appears in Southern Reporter newspaper.
