THE KILLING TIME

May 11th, 2024, I find myself in Wigtown Parish Church. I’m not a regular churchgoer, by any means. I sit towards the back, trying to be inconspicuous. My friend Donna, who knows these stories better than anyone, and who has kept them alive with her faith and her many kindnesses, looks out to the congregation and speaks from her heart.

“Today I’m going to do something unusual… would all those who are related to the two women, Margaret Wilson and Margaret McLachlan, or the three men - William Johnston, George Walker and John Milroy – stand or make themselves known to the congregation…”

I stood, and found myself choking back tears. A line of heads, some known to me, some I would make myself known to soon, were dotted throughout the rows in front of me. Heads of grey or white hair for the most part, and not many, but we were there. There is a service and commemoration ceremony, every year now on May 11th. Their stories would go on. Their lives were celebrated, folk sang, spoke their names, prayed for them, and remembered. Now that I know these stories, I will play whatever small part I can to keep them alive.

I have visited their places, spoken their names in these places and tried to picture their lives. These men and women, killed for their faith, their principles. Their kin were banished, their possessions and homes destroyed or taken, simply because their faith was different and that could not be tolerated.

We are privileged in so many ways today. I can stand on what was their land and be thankful for the freedoms I have, and what has changed; but I see too what has not changed, what we have not learned from the dark days of The Killing Times. The darkness is still there, around the world. I don’t have Margaret or John’s courage, their faith – but what I can do is hold a light up for their stories to shine on. Them, and so many like them. Stories of the past. And stories of the present, now, still, today.

This is an extract from The Killing Time

shortened for online reading