Peebles: Why there's a white stag in the River Tweed

Peebles' new resident is artificial, of course, but its origins were a mystery – until reporter Hilary Scott took on the case...

It took me all of 10 minutes to hunt down the man behind the stag and it came as no surprise.

Bonnie Peebles volunteer John Falla is responsible for introducing Hay Lodge Park to ‘Tweedies’ – an alphabetical treasure hunt which involved putting googly-eyed stones in trees for children to find the letters and spell their name.

And when he’s not out cutting grass and attending to flowerbeds around the town, he’s wading through the River Tweed with a deer!

When I contacted John this week to ask if my sources were correct, he laughed: “Who told you that?!”

^ John Falla is the man behind the 'white stag'. Photo: Helen Barrington

He said: “There’s been a bit of mystery about where it came from – [but] yes it’s me.

“It’s called Flash Art, that’s the concept of something all of a sudden cropping up in different places.

“It was in the garden at Dovecot near Tesco and we moved it to its new location on the island in the River Tweed.”

The white stag has been the subject of many an admiring glance from pedestrians crossing Tweed Bridge.

Asked where he got his hands on this rare creature, John, who previously worked at the Castle Warehouse in the Old Town, said it was given to the company by a blacksmith.

“It was just a metal frame and I covered it in paper mache and dressed it with plaid and tartan, as that was all the rage at the time.

“They said they didn’t need it and kindly gave us it.”

Having braved the fast-flowing River Tweed, John is tight-lipped about the journey to the island, but he does admit to getting a tad wet when relocating ‘Stag Tweedie’.

"I’ll not be going in to retrieve him, so we are looking for someone with waders to go in and capture him when the water goes down," he said.

John says he will be “a wee bit upset” if the stag gets taken away by the current.

“He’s withstood a fair amount of water. I’ve looked every morning and said, ‘Well done, Tweedie’. 

“I do wonder if Berwick-upon-Tweed lifeboat will get called out because they thought a deer was oot in the North Sea!”

For now Tweedie is staying on the island, but John says: “He won’t be there for long and could be having a drink at the Tontine fountain – who knows.”