In the early days of Wholehope, we could be sure of meeting many old pals any weekend we walked up Clennel Street, a hardy bunch of lads and lasses, people who loved the wildness of the Cheviots and the outdoor life.
Some of the stories from those days have passed into the mythology of Wholehope and people have retold them to me as if they personally had witnessed the whole affair!
As an example, one year we decided it would be rather nice to have a Hallowe'en Party at Wholehope. A few of us were up on the Friday night to make the necessary preparations, and as usual the lads claimed their places by laying out their sleeping bags in the lambing shed outside.
Late on Saturday afternoon, a group of us went down to the Rose and Thistle in Alwinton to get into the party mood via a few swift ones, but on arriving back we found our sleeping bags thrown into a corner and others neatly laid out in their place. This rather annoyed a very good pal of mine and he became even more upset when we weren’t able to get into the hostel because about thirty people, mostly strangers, were crowded around the fire telling ghost stories.
"I’ll shift these b*****s" he said, and off he went outside. After a few minutes, I thought I had better see what he was up to and I followed him outside. Hearing a scraping noise coming from the roof, I looked upwards and to my suprise I found him up by the chimney with the paraffin kettle. In spite of many warnings of the obvious dangers he poured about a pint of paraffin down the lum.
The chimney was already hot from the big fire below, and with a roar like a jet engine, a huge column of flames and soot shot into the night sky and my pal came clattering down the slates, preceded by the empty kettle and some rather rude language.
Hurrying inside, we saw that people had certainly moved back from the fire, but nobody knew what had happened - they had heard a loud noise, a lot of soot had come down, and that was that.
In the Rose and Thistle on Sunday night, we kept our traps shut when we heard that the flames had been seen for miles around and that the Rothbury Fire Brigade had searched up the valley for a fire!
Map images on this page are courtesy of the Ordnance Survey Get-a-Map scheme
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