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What is a trained, highly qualified and experienced textile technologist doing writing articles about Irish\UK history? Surely technology and history are ill bedfellows which find no comfort in the relationship?
So it might seem on the surface but I make no excuse for my love of history even though it might be at odds with a successful career which deliberates over the physical properties of yarn and cloth and machine.
I have loved history, especially British history for as long as I can remember, and the Scottish\English Borders are a passion. Machines might provide me with a living but it is history which enriches my life. It has always been so.
I have spent many years now walking the Border Line between the two countries of England and Scotland and the lands which abound it.
The conflict and confrontation that existed between the two countries for centuries holds a special interest, a fascination which is now part of my very soul.
I earnestly desire that my contribution to Suite 101 will promote a wider interest in those turbulent times which existed for many generations between the two countries and which would not be resolved until the Union of the two Crowns in 1603.
I have a special interest in the Border reivers, the clans who, ignoring any dictate from authority or monarchy, held sway in the Border lands for hundreds of years and often did their utmost to wipe each other from the face of the earth. Their history is compelling reading and figures highly in the story of the two nations of England and Scotland.
I currently manage a successful textile firm in the beautiful Border country.
Weekends I can be found tramping reiver country on both sides of the Border Line. To come upon yet one more ruinous and desolate fortified site, be it pele tower or bastle house,or to stand and contemplate a place where once great armies stood in confrontation never ceases to stir the blood or excite the spirit.
The Borders are quiet and serene now.
They have not always been so!