Stobs Military Camp

[1] Stobs estate, surrounded by hills, was an ideal location for an internment camp as "there were few easy ways out of it for any potential escapees.

[1] Several postcards from an earlier date when it was a training camp mention it as "very hilly country"[3] and "all Hills for miles".

The influx of so many troops raised concern amongst locals over how the infrastructure would cope with this addition of so many men and the impact it might have on the town's traditions.

[5] In the Hawick Burgh Minutes of 27 October 1902, a special council was held to discuss the protection of the town's water supply "from pollution through any operation connected with the proposed military Camp at Stobs".

The first regular troops at Stobs Camp are recorded as being there in June 1903; they were the First Battalion Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

"[11] Many of the men arrived by train, and correspondence from the North British Railway Company refers to the development of sidings, signals and platforms at Stobs.

These have images of dancing, YMCAs, Guild tents, church services, the camp, and soldiers doing various tasks.

Postcards depict engineers building fortifications, troop marches, and soldiers washing dishes.

[23] These were all in attempt to get the soldiers ready for battle but as Jessie Crawford expressed in her diary "little did they think that the next war would be fought in trenches".

[1][5] The Scotsman reported on 2 November 1914 that "Arrangements are being completed for interning a large number of German prisoners".

[28] There was only one small hiccup in the construction of the camp when a joiners strike was held in April 1915; the government responded quickly and the next day a detachment of Royal Engineers arrived at the camp to continue construction as reported by the Southern Reporter.

A prisoner wrote in the Stobsiade,[29] the camp newspaper, “anyone who has gazed longingly through the barbed wire fence into the distant blue sky in summer, knows how important a lecture, a concert, a play, a competition is for our mental and physical well-being.”[5][30][31] They set up a school which had 3,500 pupils pass through it, held lectures on various subjects, had a gymnastics team, and held various other activities.

These activities helped them to no longer feel like prisoners as Ketchum remarks “one cannot be consciously a prisoner while playing centre forward on a football team or translating Goethe in class.“ [6][27] The Stobsiade amongst other things had a puzzle corner and advertisements for services within the camp.

Inevitably some of the prisoners died, from wounds, disease or by their own hand, and the authorities allowed them to construct their own cemetery on land outside the camp.

Her poem "Penchrise", first published in her collection The Tinker's Road and Other Verses (1924), was inspired by the moorland landscape around the camp.

Mrs Borthwick, a local, remembers a man coming to visit his son's grave every year until his own death.

[5] After the Second World War, usage of the camp changed again in response to the Polish Resettlement Act of 27 March 1947.

The Hawick News stated on 19 June 1959 "the War Department have informed the County Council that dismantling at Stobs is nearly complete".