The White Knight hits the stage

I’m not the only one to have been fascinated by the real-life figure of Antoine d’Arcy de la Bastie, over the years.  In 1834, a newspaper editor (J.M. Wilson of the Berwickshire Editor) wrote about him, as part of a set of 474 local stories published over the decade. ‘Wilson’s Tales of the Borders’ was a very popular series in its time – and is now the name of a charity in Berwick, which is dedicated to preserving this unique legacy.

The project organizers do all sorts of great stuff, from running competitions to adapting Wilson’s work – and in May 2025, they took things to a new level, by putting on a play, based on de la Bastie’s demise. ‘The White Knight’ wowed audiences in both Berwick and Duns – and, thanks to the lovely people at Duns Players, attendees could buy The Trail of Blood afterwards.

Although fact and fiction are often presented as mutually exclusive, this is a brilliant example of how creative story-telling can help preserve the past. If only Antoine d’Arcy de la Bastie knew how he’d be remembered, all these centuries later!