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The Debatable Land

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The Debatable Land

By: Graham Robb
Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
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About this listen

The Debatable Land was an independent territory which used to exist between Scotland and England. At the height of its notoriety, it was the bloodiest region in Great Britain, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James V. After the Union of the Crowns, most of its population was slaughtered or deported, and it became the last part of the country to be brought under the control of the state. Today, its history has been forgotten or ignored.

When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river which almost surrounded his new home had once marked the Debatable Land's southern boundary. Under the powerful spell of curiosity, Robb began a journey - on foot, by bicycle and into the past - that would uncover lost towns and roads, reveal the truth about this maligned patch of land and result in more than one discovery of major historical significance.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, The Debatable Land takes us from a time when neither England nor Scotland could be imagined to the present day, when contemporary nationalism and political turmoil threaten to unsettle the cross-border community once more.

©2018 Graham Robb (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Europe Great Britain Western Europe Scotland Tudor Ireland England

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This book was recommended to me by my father-in-law, Tom. It sounded intriguing because we visited that part of the country, near Carlisle in Cumbria, earlier this summer, and had started to fantasize about living there. It’s about a 50-square-mile stretch of land, known as the Debatable Land, on the border between Scotland and England that stretches north-east from the Solway Firth to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway. It was a semi-independent buffer zone between the two countries. In the Middle Ages people were forbidden from settling there but they were allowed to graze their horses and cattle between sunrise and sunset. This is where the area gets its name from; it’s not because the territory was in dispute: “battable” meaning capable of cultivation; fertile; productive. It was the realm of Border Reivers: chaotic clans of sheep and cattle rustlers called the Armstrongs and Grahams (amongst others). I’m interested in border regions (see my previous dabbling in the history of the Berlin Wall) and the fluidness of national and regional identity. This book therefore promised much but, like the landscape it describes, got a bit bogged down in the middle. For my tastes, there was a bit too much history and not enough travelogue; and sometimes the historian got the better of Graham Robb and took him off too far away from the core of his subject. The final third of the book seems like it should have been included in an earlier book on Celtic Britain but that he didn’t want to trouble his editors and publishers to include at the last minute, so it was stuck in this book, which, he repeatedly tells us at the beginning, he had no intention of writing.

The audiobook’s narrator, Saul Reichlin, is a pleasant companion and does a good job putting on Cumbrian and Scottish accents and capturing the author’s tone.

Doesn’t quite live up to its promise

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I had read this book before, and quite enjoyed it, so thought Ii would like to listen to it, as a refresher. But the reader spoiled it for me. He had a pleasant voice, and a very Standard English accent; but he was quite unable to read Early Modern Scots in any acceptable way, and when it came to his pronouncing "zett" as in "zebra" - well that proved he was the wrong choice for this book. The word should be pronounced with an initial "y", as a substitute for the initial letter "thorn", It is the same consonant as in the name "Menzies". Also I do not think it is correct to read the plural ending "ia" as if it were like the word "is"".
So I gave up before I got to the end.

The reader could probably read a book in Standard English very well.

spoiled in the reading

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Despite having, in the past lived, in the Scottish Borders for 30 years I had not heard of the Debatable Lands, so found this book interesting and informative. It’s a highly detailed account of the author’s historical research into the topic started after moving from Oxford to live in a remote location in what was the Debatable Lands.

I imagine the book has maps and lists of historical dates so it helps to have an atlas or Ordnance Survey map to hand. Wikipedia has a useful entry with a map.

The Debatable Lands comprised a small lozenge-shaped piece of land about 10miles long by 4 miles wide on the England/Scotland Border situated a bit North of Carlisle and West of the A7. If you visit Scotland coming up the M6 the A7 is the route through Hawick to Edinburgh. It was an area of conflict for many centuries: sometimes among warring families and sometimes between the two adjacent countries. Its history is mixed in with the exploits of the Border Reivers and the establishment of the Riding of the Marshes: the latter still performed as part of annual jollifications in a number of Border towns.

The book also has some Roman history and some interesting historical detective work by the author on the Arthurian Legend as to whether it is entirely a myth or not. Southern Scotland has many names with Arthur in the title, including Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

The author reviews the Scottish Independence Referendum coloured by the history of Southern Scotland and notes that the people nearest to England were more in favour of staying in the Union than any of the other areas of mainland Scotland: rather like the paradox of prejudice against immigrants being less in areas with more immigrants.

I enjoyed the book and the voice of Saul Reichlin, who made valiant efforts at various accents and pronunciations of Scots dialect words.

Obscure but fascinating part of Scottish history

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An engaging piece of writing, making the history accessible and relevant. Very well read. I enjoyed this audio book.

An engaging story

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An insightful book, very interesting. Although I wasn’t expecting ‘Newcastleton’ to pop up every five minutes, I wonder if the author lives there ;)

Worth the read.

Interesting Listen

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