The last time we met on this journey I referred to Glasgow as my adopted home. My real home – where I was born and lived most of my childhood – is the town of Dumfries, 120km further south.
That makes me a Doonhamer, a name apparently drawn from Dumfriesians working farther north in Scotland – which most of the country is – referring to the southern town as “doon hame” (down home).
Nestled between the rolling hills of the southern uplands and the often grey waters of the Solway Firth, it would be unfair to say Dumfries has been by-passed both geographically and historically.
This is, after all, where the poet Robert Burns spent his last few years, died and is buried here. You can still see the indentation where his head lay on his pillow as he drew his last breath, as well as drink near his table in his favourite pub.
There’s even a statue to his wife, Jean Armour. One of the few memorials in the world, they say, to the long-suffering spouse of a celebrated writer.
A few centuries before that, Robert the Bruce murdered his political rival John Comyn in Greyfriars church (which is still standing), sparking a long trail of terrible revenge by the most horrific means but culminating in the battle of Bannockburn, where England’s King Edward II was “sent homeward to think again,’ according to the Scottish anthem.
It is also near here, just to the north in the town of Thornhill where, believe it or not, the pedalled bicycle was invented in 1839 by local blacksmith Kirkpatrick “Mad Pate” MacMillan.
Explorer Joseph Thomson, who also lived near Thornhill, was the first European to travel through Masai land, from the coast at Mombasa to Lake Victoria in East Africa, naming waterfalls and gazelles as he went.
The great Shakespearean actor John Laurie – probably best known as Private Frazer – “we’re doomed… dooooomed, I tell ye!” – in the TV series Dad’s Army, was also a Doonhamer. I served the great man a strawberry milkshake when I worked in the Golden Arrow café in my early teens.
At nearby Caerlaverock Castle I had my first TV gig, as an extra – literally a spear carrier – in The Legend of King Arthur (1979). This 13th Century citadel is unusual in that it’s triangular. The ruins of Sweetheart Abbey are just down the road
JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan also lived and was educated in Dumfries, but even so, the town is not Neverland and, in fact, feels as if it has been hooked to the side.
The border with England lies less than 50 km to the south but the road from Carlisle to Glasgow and beyond passes 25 km to the East, through the sadly, much better-known town of Lockerbie, scene of the terrorist bombing of a Pan Am flight, 35 years ago.
Dumfries lies just off the trunk road that takes goods trucks to and from the ferry at Cairnryan, in the west, near Stranraer, for the shortest sea crossing to Ireland. Larne lies only two hours away in Ulster, although through geopolitical pretzel logic, goods are transported to and from the EU without, technically, traversing a border.
If Scotland, which voted overwhelmingly against Brexit, ever gains independence and rejoins Europe, the transit from the Irish Republic which is in Europe, to Ulster which isn’t, then back to the Euro zone in Scotland, then out again in England will be borderline insanity.
But for now, Dumfries is spared such agonies. When we visited last year, the town seemed to have settled into a peaceful slumber unperturbed by the valiant efforts of the local football team, Queen of the South, to extricate itself from Scottish League One, which is really the third division, behind the Premier League and the Championship.
The club has a glorious history and was top of the first division for three weeks immediately after I was born – but never again, although it’s had its moments.
The highway to Ireland has long-ago by-passed the town, taking lumbering HGVs off its narrow streets. But apart from that, nothing much has changed in the 50 years since I last lived here.
The Camera Obscura, the oldest working version in the world, still projects images of the townsfolk going about their business from the streets far below the museum in the old windmill. It’s still a wonder, even in these days when a phone is also a movie camera.
The old suspension bridge and the ancient Devorguilla bridge parenthesise the Whitesands – a broad street mostly given over to parked cars that might have had sand at one point and which may have been white but the nearest seaside is all grey mud flats, so I doubt it.
Twenty-first century Dumfries seems to be reshaping itself as a launch pad for hikers and outdoorsy people, Burns fanatics and history buffs and it does all of those things tremendously well.
A little train runs from to Glasgow and back every hour and before you think that too is a trip back in time, it boast surprisingly good wi-fi.
And that’s Dumfries, just as modern as it needs to be and just as old as it feels. Next stop a town that taught the world about workers’ rights.
