Crossroads and Characters
22. DABBLING IN THE BURN.
One of the great playgrounds for Dunning children is the Burn when it's not in spate, and this scene of 1914 has had an equivalent for hundreds if not thousands of years. There will hardly be a child raised in Dunning who has not spent many summer days netting eels, angling for trout, wading or simply getting wet. Then there are the fields beside the Burn to dry out on. The fields were in bygone days bleaching greens used to whiten the linen and cotton woven in the nearby weavers' sheds and houses. The bleaching greens extended for perhaps a mile back up the burn, wherever there was a flat space, since 2 or 3 months' exposure to sun and rain would be needed for cotton for example. At the Granco in the background was a waulk mill, or laundry, presumably using the water of the Burn for both washing and for power.
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