Top Gunn

Atholl Innes • Published 6 May 2010 14:58 0 Comments

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DOUGLAS Gunn won a landslide victory in Selkirk on Friday night and he did not even have to cast his vote.

For Douglas (35) was the unanimous choice as the town's Standard Bearer for 2010 without a polling booth or election agent in sight.

Selkirk does not need a Westminster election to whet its appetite, and although the three councillors, Conservative, Liberal-Democrat and SNP,

were in the Town Hall, party politics were put aside.

And it was not only a special night for Douglas, who had waited 13 years to carry the Royal Burgh flag on June 18, but also his dad Kenneth, who just

happens to be the local SNP councillor, and his wife Wilma.

He will be supported by Attendants Mick Craig, Gavin Henderson, Peter Forrest and Scott Rodgerson.

"It is a great honour and I am very proud," Douglas said. "I have waited all this time. I was first an Attendant in 1997 and so it has been a long time in coming.

"I have waited a long time and now it is reality. I will carry out my duties to the very best of my ability and try and uphold the traditions and high standards of my predecessors."

Douglas, a corporate manager with film company Sherezade in a job, which has taken him from Bahrain to Mexico, will spend the summer in Selkirk. "My boss has been excellent and I am able to deal with e-mails when I can, and a bit of the load has been lifted off me.

"I am looking to my year in office in Selkirk and to going round the other towns and meeting the other Principals."

Dad Kenneth added: "The best day in our lives (along with Wilma) absolutely. We are both very proud of him. It has been a long wait for us and a long wait for him as well.

"It is finally here. All the doubts and the worries are behind and we all look forward to a Hail Smilin Morn."

His dad proposed Douglas as Standard Bearer in a break from tradition.

"That was a complete shock. I did not know it was happening," the Standard Bearer said.

Kenneth added: "I only knew last Tuesday. You have got to have some secrets."

The motion was seconded by ex-Provost Chalmers Stillie, of the Incorporation of Weavers.

Provost Jim Henderson added: "I congratulate on your appointment, one which brings great honour to you and also your family, and is richly deserved. The Royal Burgh flag will be in safe hands and I wish you good luck in the execution of your duties."

And Douglas congratulated ex-Standard Bearer James Cheyne on the way that he carried out his duties in 2009.

James then received a photograph from the Shirley Lothian Request as a reminder of his year in office from Provost Henderson. "I have some tremendous memories of that week in June," he said.

It was revealed that the 50th year Standard Bearer is Rob Brunton and the 25 years Tom Renwick.

The new Standard Bearer was announced in the same Town Hall that Sir Walter Scott dispensed justice, at a meeting of the Common Riding Trust chaired by Provost Henderson in his final year of office.

And the town's worst-kept secret was out, even although Scottish Borders Council convener Alasdair Hutton had made the name public at a recent

meeting, when Douglas was carried out of the Town Hall by his Attendants and carried round the Back Row and Kirk Wynd, and then on to the Victoria

Halls for the annual concert run by the Ex-Standard Bearers, chaired by Grant Kinghorn.

The Market Place and local streets were packed with local people as Douglas waved to the crowds and headed off for a year of celebration.

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