Both the Grahams and Carruthers were border reiver families of some repute during the 14^th – 17^th century and were heavily involved in the family-based organised crime gangs that plagued the area stealing livestock, running protection rackets, taking prisoners for ransoming, burgling properties and intimidating, beating and murdering their way around the hills.

The Grahams, in particular, were such a menace to society that they were ‘abhorred in Cumberland’ and deported en masse to serve as soldiers in the Netherlands during the Pacification of the Border in 1605. When that failed, they were sent to Ireland – only to cross the water back again when the heat was off.

One often-repeated myth persists that those who returned changed their name to Maharg to avoid detection. However, they were spelling their name Grame at the time, and the real origins of the story probably come from the American boxer and baseball player Billy Maharg who was embroiled in the Chicago Black Sox scandal in 1919, most eloquently put down on paper by WP Kinsella in his novel Shoeless Joe, the basis for the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams.

Maharg was accused of being a ringer, a ball player called George ‘Peaches’ Graham, and that his surname was, in fact, Graham and not Maharg, the backward spelling. Billy hotly denied it, but that’s really where the popular legend probably began. It’s 100 years old, not 500.

The Grahams were the most troublesome family in north Cumbria while the Carruthers were mainly based in Annandale across the border during the reiving times, when chopping down trees was also considered an offence.

There was a major incident in 1598 when a Scottish ‘hunting party’ came onto English ground at Redesdale and started cutting down and carrying off timber ‘without licence or Warden and in a very contemptuous manner,’ according to the official William Selby. The Rutherford Laird of Huntly’s brother, one Robert Pringle, a Robson of Chatto and another Rutherford were killed by the pursing Redesdale riders who chased them back over the border.

But that was on another level to the ‘moronic mission’ carried out by the duo from Carlisle and Wigton who have written themselves into notoriety as surely as their more illustrious ancestors.

Raiders Along the Anglo-Scottish Border will be published in 2026.