MELROSE Parish Church Trimontium

It was Easter Day and the clocks had to go forward. On the saddle of the Eildons the early birds had their early service, dogs and all, and if that was missed Bowden Kirk with Communion was next and then on to Melrose where the choir sang three Easter pieces, to applause. The theme covered three Works of Art. The first was the statue of Christ on a hilltop overlooking Buenos Aires, originally meant to honour the abolition of slavery in that country by Princess Ysabel but delayed by politics before being established years later. The second was the Salvador Dali painting of Christ of St John of the Cross purchased for Glasgow’s Kelvinside Art Galleries after WWII by Curator Dr TJ Honeyman, the painter having hired a stunt man to adopt the pose so that the view is seen from above. The third was the Angel of the North on a height above Gateshead, seen as welcoming or a commemoration of the heavy industry of the past. A recent visitor had commented on its immensity;’ how small it made you feel’. Three examples of artists trying to come to grips with an idea – like Easter – the enormity of which they were trying to convey to other people.

The previous day JS Bach had been trying to do the same with his St John Passion performed by the Borders Choir and Orchestra in front of 400 people who had queued to come in. Students from the Trinity Laban School of Music in London on an intensive course in the Borders played at the end of the Melrose morning service and were to play also in Galashiels in the afternoon. Music had certainly been given its due in Holy Week and organists, players, singers and leaders deserved all the thanks that could be heaped upon them.

News: All the usual local outlets would be in vogue during Easter week.

James Curle was always sketching his finds and if he could not find parallels in his books he would send the sketches down to Reginald Smith in the British Museum in London to ask his opinion or to put the question to a friend of Smiths or another scholar who might know the answer:

“Dear Smith, I enclose a sketch of a bit of Samian ware [red-coloured pottery] which I think belongs to a vase by the potter CINNAMUS which I have seen somewhere. Can you identify it? Have you any date points about this potter beyond the fact that he belongs to the Antonine period?

“It is important in the dating of some of the Newstead alterations to know where he comes.

“I wrote to you when you were in France about the potter DIVIXTUS. Did you find that Dechelette is certain that the medallion fragments from Camelon [near Falkirk] are by the same man as the maker of your bowl (type 30, according to Dragendorff’s system).

“I am going to give the Rhind Lectures in Edinburgh in Spring 1908 and one of them must be devoted to pots [a prestigious annual series of lectures still being given by a respected scholar on his/her chosen topic at the invitation of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, funded by the estate of Alexander Henry Rhind of Sibster, Caithness and initiated in 1874. The structure of Curle’s lectures shaped the content of his 1911 book].

“Newstead continues to supply material.

Here are the contents of the Bath waterhole cleaned out this week: a human skull; a rusted sword, doubled up but with its bone handle preserved; fragment of another sword, with bronze mounting at upper end of blade; blade of a gladius sword 19 inches long , in good preservation; a die of bone; a strigil (body scraper) of iron; an iron lamp; several iron rings; three bronze cooking vessels; a very fine winejar with maenad (wild woman) head on the handle and a band of lotus pattern round the body; a magnificent bronze or copper mask for a helmet like our iron one, but almost complete – it is somewhat doubled up but I have no doubt we can get it straight.’

“Believe me, Yours sincerely, James Curle.”