A GREEN-FINGERED pensioner has beaten off the competition to win a gardening contest at the age of 100.
Despite becoming a centenarian in July, James Douglas still keeps his colourful garden meticulously.
It has now won him first prize in a gardening competition run by the Scottish Borders Tenants Organisation.
The contest is open to thousands of tenants of Scottish Borders Housing Association but Mr Douglas, from Burnfoot in Hawick, Roxburghshire, was judged to have the best garden and was presented with the annual trophy.
The former railway signalman - who has five children, 12 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild - attributes his fitness to cycling 53 miles every weekend in the Borders to see his future wife when they were courting.
He still lives independently and said he was delighted to win the prize with the knowledge that people appreciate his horticultural efforts.
Alison McNeil, chairwoman of Scottish Borders Tenants Organisation, said: "He is a very interesting gentleman with a real sense of humour."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article