ON A late summer day in 1997, four men from Coldstream decided to visit the Flodden Memorial.
The date was September 9 – the anniversary of Scotland’s defeat at the hands of the Auld Enemy on the English side of the Tweed.
They toasted the ill-fated King James IV and the Border men who fell, and they laid a simple wreath.
From this almost spur-of-the-moment gesture was born the 1513 Club. Membership is restricted to 50 – and I am proud and honoured to be a member. There are four life members and associate members from near and far – as far as Australia in fact.
Each year on September 9 at 7pm, the approximate hour the battle is said to have ended, members visit the battlefield for a short service of remembrance. The toasts remain the same as 1997 – King James IV and the Border Men Who Fell – and the club’s flag is lowered in tribute. Ex-Royal Burgh Standard Bearers from Selkirk join the club in this tribute.
A few days later the annual dinner is held where the toasts are extended into speeches.
On this, the 500th anniversary of the battle, many organisations from both sides of Tweed – some old, some just formed – have joined the commemorations.
But in its relatively-short history, the Coldstream-based 1513 Club has done much to honour the Scots who perished. A monument has been erected on Tweed Green to the nuns of Coldstream Priory who ventured among the slain to recover the Scottish nobility and take them to Coldstream for Christian burial in consecrated soil. And the unveiling of a stained-glass window, paid for by the club, in Coldstream Parish Church was a moving occasion.
The club pondered long and hard on how to mark this year’s anniversary. It was decided that because the battle had affected every town, village and hamlet in the Borders, it would be appropriate to commission a special banner that would be carried on horseback around as much of the region as was feasibly possible.
The banner is ready and in the safe custody of club chairman and former Coldstreamer James Bell.
Next week it will begin its journey from the battlefield and embrace Coldstream, Kelso, Jedburgh, Hawick, Selkirk, Galashiels, Melrose, Lauder and Duns before returning home to Coldstream. It will be carried between each town by six authorised representatives to agreed handover points (see below), and because of logistics and safety, no other riders will be permitted to join.
James commented: “The Borderers Return is to commemorate the Border men who fell on the field and those who returned to their towns and villages with the dreadful news of the defeat at Branxton Moor. A proclamation will be read at each town and the banner will be bussed with that town’s colours.”