The mail must go through

We returned home from our short break today and took the Beeftub road back up to Edinburgh. It’s a road I’m very well acquainted with, at one point driving up and down on a weekly basis to visit my mother in Dumfries. It’s now some time though since we have travelled there, but not much has changed. One thing that has always fascinated me is the memorial to the mailmen who perished in the snow, just a short way past the Beeftub, while bravely trying to get the post from Moffat to Edinburgh. It’s a bleak spot indeed. The inscription (extra) reads:

Near the head of this burn
On 1st Feb 1831
James McGeorge, Guard
And John Goodfellow, Driver
Of the Dumfries to Edinburgh mail
Lost their lives in the snow
After carrying the bags thus far.
Erected 1931

This piece that I found tells more of the story, and also suggests that the motives for trying to deliver the mail were not quite so noble and selfless as we now imagine, but perhaps has more to do with the harsh reality of trying to earn a living.

https://www.tweedsmuir.scot/story/the-coaching-disaster/