Last updated 21:57, Wednesday, 23 July 2008

WHERE does he find them? This was the question echoing round the British Legion clubrooms last Friday night as everyone listened in disbelief as chairman Dave McVittie fired what seemed like a limitless fund of jokes at his audience.

Each year Big Deev comes up with new jokes, raising roars of laughter from an enthusiastic audience, listening raptly as he tells them in his ain mither tongue.

I was assured by the person sitting next to me that this week, as he chairs yet another Common Riding function, there will be another stream of jokes, all different.

We were told that this year, because both his mother and his mother-in-law, Kate, were in the audience, he’d have to choose his stories carefully. But they still came fast and furious.

He may have an undisclosed source for his jokes but some are homespun, like the one which proved topical and also brought in his own daughter, Baillie.

We learned that she wanted to rename 2 David Street, calling it the ‘Foresaid Manor’. Then she’d be “Baillie o’ the Foresaid Manor”, a reference (for those who haven’t heard the crying of the Langholm Fair) to the immortal words shouted out in the market place on Common Riding morning.

I could see Billy Young, another great Langholm raconteur, was thoroughly enjoying Dave’s stories, as was every single member of the audience. And they say we Scots are a dour nation.

Let them come to the Cornet’s night at the Legion and be proven wrong. I noticed Dave’s wife Jen videoing some of the speeches. I’m certain that if she made copies, they’d sell like hot cakes.

The speeches each year seem to be better than the last and this time every one of the speakers excelled. Can it possibly get any better?

One or two in the audience learned a thing or two about our Common Riding. Wayne Irving, in giving his excellent toast to the Common Riding, explained why there was no spade present at the handing-in of the flag at night.

In days gone by, after it had carried out its duties, it was auctioned off in The Crown yard at lunchtime on Common Riding day.

From the money raised the spade carrier was expected to buy a new spade for the next year. This fact I did know as I’d read it in Billy Young’s book A Spot Supremely Blest.

But I didn’t know that each year Kenny Little paints the wooden (9’ x 6”) inserts that go into the spaces above the flower baskets on the Town Hall in the Common Riding colours, something Big Deev reminded us of when pointing out the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to get this greatest show on earth up and going.

As I stood on Mount Hooley on Saturday eagerly awaiting the exciting gallop up the Wynd, I heard the woman next to me saying, that’s one as the Cornet galloped past. I asked whether she was going to count the riders and the reply was, “yes, I have to or I’d greet”. There’ll be a lot more tears in oor een before it’s all over.

She’d noticed one of the riders wearing a webcam on his hat. How exciting will that footage be? Some lucky person far from hame will be experiencing the thrills of the gallop up the hill from the comfort of an armchair.

As I checked the Common Riding supplement in the office last weekend, I had to frequently refer to the archives. I noticed the Jottings after the 1948 Common Riding covered half a page in the broadsheet paper.

They were headed Common Riding Jottings instead of Little jottings and I wondered how the writer then found so many little snippets pertaining to the Common Riding.

I noticed the writer thanking readers for sending in the bits of news after an appeal in a previous edition.

I find it quite difficult to fill a shorter column with Common Riding jottings only, especially when my friends and acquaintances clam up on me, saying, “Dinna tell her or ee’ll end up in the paper”.

So how about it? If you want Common Riding only jottings, let me know your story and, if ee canna catch us or ee dinna ken whae ah im, hand it in at the E&L office. All will be revealed next week.