Communication

Keeping in touch

Even today you can’t guarantee a phone signal deep in rural Coquetdale, and bad weather can still close roads and sweep away bridges.

Long before telephones and computers arrived, people in the valley found inventive ways to communicate with each other and with the outside world.

The fit and fearless local postmen and postwomen played an essential role in keeping the communities connected, whatever the weather.

‘Mam never saw anybody other than the ten of us that was in the house for three month in the winter of 1947. The first person she saw was the postman. The snow was that hard he was walking over the top of the gates.‘
Jean Foreman, whose family lived at Uswayford Farm, ten miles north of Alwinton.

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What’s your story?

How do you keep in touch with your friends and family today?

Has that changed in your lifetime?

A bit of blether

Which hand do ye write with? Are ye cuddswilted?

Heart of the community

Coquetdale’s village post offices, pubs and halls were important community hubs.

People gathered there for news and company. These small businesses would also receive deliveries for the remote farms and hamlets further up the valley whenever the roads were impassable. They offered shelter for anyone caught away from home by the weather too.

‘In Harbottle there was a shop in those days and petrol pumps, a post office. There was quite a community. The pub was quite the hub of the place.’

Anne Dunn, landlady of The Star in Harbottle from 1973 until 2019.