Festival review: The Borders Book Festival

This was how it should be all the time. Heat hanging over the Eildons almost as if it was going to stay there. The staff opening up all the side panels in the packed marquees in Harmony House Gardens. The grass warm, the stones hot, the ice cream queues long, the craft beer tent busy but oddly civilised. And all around, Melrose going quietly Med. Take the standing ovation for Judy Murray on Friday. Borderers aren’t normally given to such hot flushes of appreciation. In all the 13 other Borders Book Festivals Alistair Moffat has organised, it never happened. On the 14th it did. Why? Was it really just the weather mellowing Melrose? Actually no. Because what the audience saw in Murray was someone who was possibly more open and charming than they had imagined but who had faced greater obstacles in getting support for her sons than they had realised.