Dunbar

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In my 1920s guide book, the one that smells of times gone by, in whose pages sits an occasional piece of dried heather placed there carefully by some traveller long ago, it says that Dunbar consists 'mainly of one long street.' And who am I to argue with that? For Dunbar does indeed consist mainly of one long street. But where some towns have nowt but that lengthy thoroughfare, Dunbar at least has a fair smattering of other streets, along with a brewery, castle ruins, a harbour, and the house of a man whose words are like nectar from the plants of the gods. For John Muir was born in Dunbar. He is said to be the 'father of the modern conservation movement,' and if that doesn't move you then maybe his words will:

'I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.'
It is hard not to cry when reading his many beautiful quotes, hard not to stop and think of the world in which we find ourselves, a world which today seems constantly under threat from one thing or another. During my day in Dunbar I sighed a lot. I sighed with wonder as Muir's words washed all over me like a cool mountain stream, and I sighed even more as I wandered lonely as a yellow spring cloud around the delightful streets of a most charming town.