The Ian Landles Archive: Oral Histories of the Scottish Borders

The Ian Landles Archive is a series of interviews collected by local historian, retired teacher and author, Ian Landles, between the 1960s and 2010.

Originally started in order to preserve the memories of local men who had fought in World War One, the archive also contains testimonies from local women and material on The Hawick Common Riding, poetry, music, farming life, mill life and the Border railways. Many of the interviewees speak in the local dialect of Border Scots known as 'Teri Talk' which gives the recordings great linguistic significance.

The collection of 150 tapes was donated to the Scottish Borders Council Archives at the Heritage Hub in Hawick by Ian Landles in 2014. Digitisation of the interviews was carried out by Tobar an Dualchais with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

This collection is also being made available through Scran in the form of segmented interviews with full summaries. Some transcripts are also available. Interviewees who talk about their life in the Scottish Borders include:

• Jane Stewart (b.1881), a former mill worker
• Meg Wilson (b.1893), a former domestic servant and shepherd's wife
• Jimmy Scott (b.1895), a retired police constable
• Jock Scott (b.1900), a retired railwayman
• Jimmy Gray (b.1928), a retired railwayman

There will be regular new uploads to the site from the collection so do visit this page again soon as there's plenty more to come.

Listen to the Ian Landles Collection on Scran