Rugby and woollens is what comes to mind when you think of Hawick, if indeed you think of it at all. Give or take the odd Walter Scott, the Scottish Borders are not awash with well known writers, living or dead. And, frankly, anyone who wades through Walter Scott deserves a medal. I can't remember Hawick having a new bookshop for the last 30 or so years, save for a dull WH Smith and a dull Menzies before it. There is a longstanding second hand bookshop called Waterspade but I have never, ever found it to be open. This last week the visible books in the tiny shop window are different to the ones a few months ago, but there is no other sign of life. No opening hours are given; there is no website. Could it be a front for money laundering? Is the owner called Marie Celeste?
But there is somewhere to go: a wee cafe called the Damascus Drum, www.damascusdrum.co.uk, run by Chris Ryan. I'd never gone in the back of the cafe before, imagining the second hand books were for decoration only. Big mistake - the selection is rare. I felt my whole reading life passing in front of me looking at the shelves, which are especially packed with travel writing of the Bruce Chatwin era. I spent a couple of pounds on an old Penguin S Y Agnon book I'd not seen before and fought off buying the a book by the New Zealand writer Elizabeth Knox. And this is clearly where Hawick literati meet... the next night the local writing group was launching its latest anthology, there were some other small press mags around. Just as I was leaving I was cheered to find a bunch of teachers discussing the Hawick teenage book award. The Drum is on Silver Street - the same street that a couple of gay men were ran out of town from some thirty something years back. That it is the same street feels appropriate somehow, the old Scotland and the new.
I was cheered also to see the library looking good (I'd worked there in 1972). And there is one other small gem - the Turkish interest coffee table mag Cornucopia (www.cornucopia.net) is based in the town. It's a bit glossy for me, but from Hawick? Almost enough to make me move back. Well, almost.