WHEN, next Friday, former mounted policeman, Iain Clark, drives his spade down into the ground to dig up a clod of turf, then shouts “It’s a’ oor ain!” (It's all our own), it will be 21 years since the last Musselburgh Riding of the Marches. Twenty-one years since the last "turf cutter" performed this part of the town’s eccentric 'common riding' ceremony. Twenty-one years since he toured Musselburgh's boundaries protected by the town champion - a local dressed in armour with a lance.

That is just how long an interval there is between these Musselburgh 'ridings', a quirky tradition, based on what was once a more serious Medieval practice of marking the boundaries of towns across the Borders, a ritual developed during a time of savagery and land disputes, of cattle-stealing and marauding by the notorious criminals that were the Border Reivers.

That such traditions still exist is remarkable. But what's even more remarkable is not so much what they tell us about distant history but what they tell us about how life in small Scottish towns has changed in recent times, and how life is today.

In essence a common riding ceremony - of which there are a number across Scotland - are mass cavalcades along the boundaries of a town. But Musselburgh's tradition is among the more complex and involves a lot of people riding round on horse, some in fancy dress, some throwing around bits of turf and shouting commands that sound a little strange to the modern ear.

Immediate questions have to be: why keep it going, at a time when there are no Reivers or landed gentry out to steal land - when building developers and supermarkets are more likely to have designs on the plot next door? And why does it take place every 21 years?

To the latter question, the organisers have various different answers.

“Tradition,” says Alaric Bonthron, a former turf cutter. Who also offers: “I don’t think you could afford to run it more often.”

“Once in a generation,” suggests Gaynor Allen.

“It’s ae been,” says Alistair Knowles.

In towns across the Scottish Borders, where the common ridings are the heartbeat of rural social life, the events are often accompanied by partying, balls, high emotion, male-bonding and alcohol, and they ride the boundaries of their land once a year - not once in a generation. For them, each summer brings a new enactment of the tradition. But Musselburgh’s ridings, because they occur so infrequently, are almost like a generational time capsules. Its archive of photographs and anecdotes is like history speeded up, with jump-cuts. They tell us not just about how the town has changed, but how we’ve all changed.

With an event that happens every year, notes Alistair Knowles, a former Town Champion, what ties it together is “short stitches”. The widely spaced Musselburgh ridings, are linked, he sees, by a “golden thread of human endurance”.

As Neil Wilson, this year’s Town Champion, puts it: “Alistair and I are the only two champions alive. And there have only been 15 or 16 that we know of. That’s a special bond.”

That it continues also seems to testify to an ideal of community. Even though some of the old connections and institutions have been lost from the town, even as some industries have disappeared, everyone keeps reiterating how strong Musselburgh's community sense is. They also seem to genuinely have a desire to connect with the past, to the generations that came before, many of whom were antecedents - since most of those involved are "Musselburgh born and bred".

The earliest Musselburgh Riding of the Marches on record occurred in 1682. However, it’s thought that the tradition was carried out for many centuries before that. It’s just that council records prior to 1682 were burnt.

Given the gap between them, each riding of the marches is performed by a new generation - so each in some way takes place in a different Musselburgh. The 1914 Marches were delayed by the first world war, and held instead in 1919 in a spirit of “thanksgiving for the end of the war” and remembrance. Nearly a century later, 2016 takes place against the backdrop of Brexit and Scottish independence, a time of uncertainty with regard to

borders and boundaries, though currently Musselburgh’s own boundaries are not under threat – no one seems to be worrying, as they sometimes have done, about the dreaded “incorporation into Edinburgh”.

One example of change is the fact that Fiona Grant-Macdonald, this year’s turf cutter’s assistant, is a woman. At the last riding in 1995 the team of principal roles was entirely male.

In the interim between those two ridings there was, famously, a bitter dispute in Hawick, home of the biggest common riding, when in 1996 two women riders decided to take part, only to be spat at and blocked by a huge phalanx of women singing traditional Hawick songs. The riders, Ashley Simpson and Mandy Graham, launched a sexual discrimination case, and in 2011 won the right to take part in two of the events sixteen rides.

But there is no spitting in Musselburgh, where Grant-Macdonald talks of frequently being clapped for being the “first woman principal”.

“It's very weird,” she says. “It’s hard to know how to react to it - 'Thanks for clapping me just for being a woman’?”

Change is revealed too in the photographs of past processions, with their floats and banners. Go back to 1956 or even 1974, and it is possible to find a very different Musselburgh, of friendly societies, paper mill workers, net makers, vegetable growers.

“Industry is one of the things that has gone from Musselburgh,” says Neil Wilson, town champion. “Where Tesco is at the side of the Esk we had a wire mill, still producing 21 years ago. In 1974 we also had the net mills. We produced rope, wire, paper, netting. Go back to 1974 and a big company producing vegetables was Lowe’s. In 1974 there was a lorry with the letters for Lowe’s shaped out of leeks.”

At 74 Alaric Bonthron recalls the first riding he attended in 1956 at the age of twelve. “My father had a dairy business just at the top of the road. My brother and I drove ponies with traps. And mine had pigs in it, live small pigs, and my brother had a calf in his.”

In fact, the past few decades have been a time of astonishing change, as Fiona Grant-Macdonald observes. “It seems to me the biggest changes in the world have happened in the last 21 years, particularly with technology. So now you have social media and the internet and all these things that just didn’t exist when the last one took place in 1995.”

The cast of characters

Fiona Grant-Macdonald, turf cutter’s assistant 2016, 38 years old,

'When I was asked if I would like to be nominated I didn’t realise I would be the first woman. Then, when I had my interview for it, I asked the panel, “Has there ever been a woman principal?” They said, “No, you’re making history.” I didn’t quite know what to do with that.

I like that it’s a celebration of the town’s identity. It’s where I’m from. It’s a big part of who I am. It’s a big part of who my family are. Going back in history, my great grandparents lived here.

I’m a school physics technician. I hadn’t done much riding before this. I think with these big historical traditions, there’s not necessarily that openness to females. You do see women not treated as equals in certain towns in the Borders. Things are going in the right direction, but it’s just one of the things that is so ingrained in those communities.The world has changed so much in the last twenty years. It’s not a male-dominated world any more. Hopefully we’ll have more women principals and women on the board in 21 years time. You never know where the world is going to be in all those years’ time. It might be all women. I go into the schools and say, “How many girls want to be town champion at the next Riding of the Marches?" I get them all geared up. Because there’s no reason for that not to happen.'

George Innes, turf cutter in 1974, 76 years old

'I’m going to be riding this year. You’ve heard of Dad’s Army. This will probably be more like Dad’s Cavalry. Nowadays we hire in horses or you’ve got your own horse for recreational purposes. But when I was young what were used were working horses for a lot of these people: store horses, cart horses for taking their vans round selling their wares.

I took part in my first Riding of the Marches in 1956. I was 16 years old then and I wasn’t riding that year. I was carrying a banner. All the trades were represented: the bakers, the butchers, the weavers, everything like that. But also the friendly societies. I was on the banner for the ancient order of foresters. You had all these friendly societies that were basically insurance companies. My family were foresters. They kind of ran Musselburgh, the foresters.

I was the turf cutter back in 1974. There’s a story about that involving Neil, the current Town Champion. When I came to the first turf cutting point, I threw the turf over my shoulder, as you do, and it landed smack into his pram. It was a lucky sod. He became an honest lad – and now he’s the champion.'

Neil Wilson, Town Champion 2016

'The town champion has always been armour-clad, as far back as I’ve seen pictures. We had to source my armour, because it has to fit correctly - from battle re-enactment people down south.

I run the only greengrocer’s in the town, Wilson’s of Musselburgh. If I wasn’t being the town champion I would probably have a float in celebrating the greengrocers of Musselburgh, of which we are the only one. There wasn’t one there for many years and I just decided 11 years ago to start trading there. I was a manager in Standard Life prior to that.

I do have my own horse, but I was never going to ride him for the festival. He’s not quite the type. He’s a warm blood and he’s a bit too fired up for that. My interest in horses started when I was “honest lad” in 1993 [each year an honest lad and an honest lass are chosen as part of the event]. I had never been on a horse when I was elected by the town for this key role in the annual festival and had to go on a crash course in horses. Literally in four or five lessons I was out doing common rides. My love for horses started then.

When the turf cutter digs up that big bit of turf, he shouts “It’s a’ oor ain”. That really does mean something to me. I’m a Musselburgh man through and through, and the saying for me is absolutely 'Musselburgh is ours'.

People ask me, “What makes Musselburgh?” I always say the one thing for me is community. A lot of that can be found in the organisations in the town: the golf club, the football club, the brownies, the Rotary club which I’m now president of.'