North Berwick stopped putting witches on trial centuries ago. We have developed more sophisticated procedures.
North Berwick has form when it comes to witch trials. In 1590, people accused of witchcraft in and around the town were swept into one of Scotland's most notorious persecutions. It was brutal, paranoid and horrific.
This week sits inside the same six weeks of the year. Wednesday was the autumn equinox, Mabon to modern pagans, one of eight festivals they call "sabbats." That's the same word as the "sabbath" in "witches' sabbath," the old term for the kind of meeting the North Berwick accused, Geillis Duncan among them, were said to have held on the harbour green, on Halloween, six weeks from now. Same word both times. Very different evening.
Same instinct, different evening
Thankfully, we are more civilised now. These days, when something happens that we dislike, we no longer blame witchcraft. We find someone or something else instead: a parking meter appears and someone wants to know who did this; a shop changes hands and people want to know who allowed it; something happens at the Glen and everyone wants to know who knew. A bench moves three feet to the left and suddenly half the town is demanding transparency.
For a town with two beaches, the Bass Rock, the Law, some of the most famous golf courses on Earth and a frankly unreasonable number of places selling sourdough, we maintain an astonishingly high baseline level of grievance. We are living in the sort of place other people save all year to visit, and somehow we're still walking around muttering "Absolute shambles."
Parking as moral philosophy
Parking is our masterpiece. Elsewhere, parking is a minor logistical problem; in North Berwick it is a moral philosophy. A £2 charge can raise questions about fairness, tourism, democracy, the future of the High Street and who exactly has decided to make everyone's life more difficult. Someone will point out that visitors should pay. Someone else will explain that visitors are the only thing keeping the town alive. A third person will announce that they haven't been into the High Street since 2023 on principle, apparently unaware that this may slightly weaken their argument about saving it.
Soon somebody mentions the bins, then the swimming pool, then a decision taken in 2017 that nobody can quite remember but everybody remains furious about. Eventually comes the ceremonial phrase, "Can we keep the comments respectful please," which means we absolutely cannot. The trial is underway.
Modern North Berwick justice is wonderfully efficient because everyone can simultaneously be witness, prosecutor and jury. Evidence is admitted under the traditional rules: "My neighbour says…"; "I heard from someone who works there…"; "A friend of mine knows someone who…". By comment 73, a parking meter has become evidence of institutional collapse.
The citizenship test
We also maintain an impressively complicated citizenship system. You don't need paperwork to prove you're local: you simply need to know that "the Glen" requires no further explanation, and that "going into town" can mean walking a distance most people would regard as already being in town. Most importantly, you require your own cut-off date for incomers. Move here in 1985 and the 1990s lot ruined the place. Arrive in 2002 and you're entitled to complain about the Edinburgh people. Move here during Covid and your probationary period is admittedly still ongoing. But eventually even you will look through your curtains at a removal van, say "Another one," and citizenship is granted.
Confession
I used to find all this very amusing. I considered myself detached from it, one of the sensible ones. Then somebody changed something near where I live. It was tiny. My reaction was not.
My first thought was: Who approved that? Within a minute I wanted to know what it cost, who had been consulted and whether anyone had properly considered the consequences. I had no idea what the thing was for. This was irritating.
The witchery was not happening around me. I was doing witchery.
Custodians of the correct version
And that may be the uncomfortable truth about North Berwick. We don't just live here: we all believe, at some level, that we are custodians of the correct version of it. My North Berwick has the right shops, the right amount of tourism, the right level of development, the correct number of cars and exactly the appropriate quantity of people discovering it. Your North Berwick is almost the same. Unfortunately, yours is wrong.
That is why nothing stays small. A planning application arrives as a planning application and leaves as an assault on character. A parking charge doesn't stay a parking charge for long: within minutes it's a referendum on who the town is for. A café changing hands can prompt the sort of mourning normally associated with the fall of a minor European monarchy, and any proposal containing the words "public realm improvements" should immediately be surrounded by police tape.
The funny thing is that all this fury probably comes from affection. People care because North Berwick matters to them. They have memories invested in streets, beaches, shops, golf courses and views, and every change feels slightly like someone editing a family photograph without permission. Which is touching. It is also how you end up spending your Saturday morning writing 600 words online about a bollard.
Perhaps we should be more grateful. Perhaps we should occasionally look up from whatever outrage is currently circulating and notice that we are arguing in one of the most fortunate little towns in the country. We could even enjoy it, although that sounds dangerously like complacency. And somebody really does need to explain what happened to that bench.