Comments on: Bondagers in Berwickshire and Roxburghshire

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:40:15 +0000

hi Miwa, did you ever get your song written about the Bondagers? I ask as have myself written a number of traditional style songs about farming in Northumberland featuring Bondagers,
Hired Lads, Ploughboys, Threshing Day etc.
My email is grahambellwithshorthorns@hotmail.co.uk

By: Gilbert Milne

Gilbert Milne — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:22:50 +0000

I was 9 in 1961

By: Gilbert Milne

Gilbert Milne — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:20:39 +0000

read ‘career’

By: Gilbert Milne

Gilbert Milne — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 19:18:51 +0000

I was speaking to the East Lothian cousin of my step-fathers’farmer boss the other day,and he informed me I was a bondager
in the sense that an informal agreement was made between the two parties that then 9years old me should work
in the fields and Bob as dairyman(his ‘caree’started as a bothyboy Rora by Peterheid,and he had applied for this job as a step up from a Perthshire job.
I worked on Satudays and all school holidays,often with the women wearing their Uglys to protect from the cauld harsh climate.This work continued till I was 14 0r 15.I happy to talk to art project folk.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 13:27:53 +0000

In reply to Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.

Dear Miwa
I have recently moved to Northumberland and saw a small exhibition about Bondagers in a church we visited.
I am an artist working with Textiles and would like to explore Bondagers for a new project I have in mind.
Just starting out with the research I came across your message on this site and wondered how your research went and if you are prepared to have a conversation with me.

Kind regards
Barbara Powell-Jones

By: Miwa Nagato-Apthorp

Miwa Nagato-Apthorp — Mon, 23 May 2022 12:13:33 +0000

In reply to Jim sim.

Dear Jim,

My name is Miwa, I live in Hawick and am currently working as Musician in Residence with Alchemy Film and Arts. As part of this I am hoping to write a piece of music inspired by local agriculture so am doing research about food growing and agriculture traditions in the Scottish Borders.

I am researching Bondagers at the moment and have just come across your comment. You’re the first person I’ve found who has a direct family connection with a Bondager and I’m wondering if you’d be available to meet either online or in person so that I could hear what you have to say about it!

Look forward to hearing from you!

All the best,
Miwa

By: Archie Robertson

Archie Robertson — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:34:25 +0000

In reply to adminaa. My father was bonded to his uncle in Lauder by his parents as my grandfather was very ill. It was September 1928. He ran away home but was returned, by the police my aunt told. He eventually ran away to Northumberland where the bond was not enforceable.

By: adminaa

adminaa — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 21:58:04 +0000

Jim I’m very pleased that someone like yourself with a real connection to a bondager has found this site. Although, as your mother apparently felt, it was not something to be celebrated,it certainly deserves to be remembered as a unique and tough way of life for a young girl.

By: Jim sim

Jim sim — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 21:59:04 +0000

As the son of a bondager I very much appreciated looking through your website I found it most enjoyable. My mother was I think a bondager for her father at Berrington farm near Ancroft Berwick-upon-Tweed Don’t think she was one for my father though a hind at mardon near Branxton where I was born may 1937 I know that she did not seem to think much of the position as she was reluctant to talk about it one thing I do know is that she hates working in the summer months as it gave her a tan hence the bonnet’s !