THE St Ronan’s Border Games week took place virtually for the second successive year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But once again everyone went above and beyond to make the event enjoyable.

The highlight of the week was the appointment of the Principal Guest, Standard Bearer Elect and Standard Bearer’s Lass Elect, viewed live by thousands online.

The Principal Guest is Aileen Borthwick whose first introduction to Games Week was in her pram before she was a year old.

Standard Bearer Elect is Blair Laurie who has lived in Innerleithen all his life with his parents and siblings.

He attended St Ronan’s Primary School where he was head boy in Primary 7 and recently started a new role as duty manager at Peebles Swimming Pool.

He is extremely excited about following in the footsteps of two of his cousins and his uncle who are all ex-Standard Bearers.

The Standard Bearer’s Lass Elect is Rebecca McAvoy who is from Edinburgh and is looking forward to being a fully-qualified solicitor in 2023.

Afterwards Blair and Rebecca laid a wreath at the War Memorial for the fallen in the two World Wars.

A number of competitions took place throughout the week.

Alice Williams won the children’s badge design competition and received a framed picture of her winning submission.

Entries for the competition are currently displayed at the Co-op.

Hannah and Aria were joint winners in this year’s children’s art competition.

The fancy dress winners were – Couples 16+: The Bears, Angela Walker and James Wright; Couples 16-: Wizard of Oz; Groups: Craig and Gillian Rendle, SB and Lass Individual; 16-: Millie the Caerlee Cowgirl.

The Wilson family (High Street) won the scarecrow competition. Runner-up was Lynda McPherson and third was Lynda McLeod (both Horsbrugh Street).

Fifty five teams took part in the virtual quiz with ‘Eccles Cake’ taking first prize with 225 points.

Second was ‘Hollytree’ with 216 points and third was ‘Virtually Challenged’ with 202.

The walking treasure hunt, written and organised by Ex Standard Bearer Stewart Wilson, also took place.

Answers to the clues are on Facebook.

The Innerleithen Pipe Band and St. Ronan’s Silver Band’s Virtual Retreat took place at 7pm on Saturday night.

The committee also sent their thanks to Ronan, Caitlin and supporters for awarding the virtual rosettes; to Mark Sansom for technical skills and to everyone who took part throughout the festival.