The fire started in a room next to the road, west of the entrance to the farmstead. A large pile of oil cake (cattle feed) caught fire. Several young men from the village, including Tommy Campbell, Jock Campbell, Jock Cavers (the farmer’s son), me and several others tried to control the fire. The fire engine had to come from either Hawick or Galashiels, and arrived an hour after the fire started. We first cut an oil-soaked leather belt that connected an engine to a mill of some sort, through a hole in the wall, to keep the fire from spreading. Jock Campbell carried a full barrel of paraffin oil to safety. It must have weighed 350 lbs. Adrenaline was flowing in all of us. The roof extended over the entrance way to the stables, and fire was progressing along the roof. We got a garden hose and kept on watering the roof at great risk. We ran back and forth along the sloping roof. When the fire engine arrived, the fireman thought that there was danger to the house attached to the east end of the stables. So, with the help of the village women, we carried everything moveable out of the house. The man who lived there (name forgotten) had won many trophies in bicycle racing. Tom Campbell and I carried the cupboard with trophies, china, etc down the steps and across the road. Adrenaline again. The occupant’s mother was bed-ridden, in an upstairs room. Tom and I carried the bed and occupant, tilting the bed enough to get down the stairs and across the road. It was sleeting. Women covered the patient with anything available. An amusing incident – women were starting to carry mattresses downstairs while another woman was about throw breakables out the window. We reversed the operation and had them throwing mattresses out the window and carrying breakables. All of this for nought – the fire did not reach the house.
The only source of water for the fire engine was the little burn in the valley between Heiton and Ladyrig. Several of us lifted a gate from a nearby Ladyrig field, used it as a framework, and with sod built a dam across the mouth of the conduit under the road. Then we helped the firemen string fire hoses from the burn to the fire.
Next day, we re-visited the scene. Jock Campbell tried to lift the fuel barrel and could not budge it. Tom and I tried to lift the trophy case with like failure. Some weeks later, an insurance man came to assess the damage to us. The soles of my fire-fighting boots were so charred that they were useless. The insurance company bought me a new pair of better quality than those ruined.
Owner Ian Abernethy