ON a patch of land on the outskirts of Gretna, Ian Fraser is toiling away in the late morning sunshine shifting piles of rocks and rubble.
It is here in a bend of the River Sark, the winding body of water marking the border between Scotland and England, that an almost completed cairn dubbed The Auld Acquaintance stands, a potent symbol of the independence debate in Dumfries and Galloway.
The structure is the brainchild of Rory Stewart, Conservative MP for Penrith & The Border, and over the past seven weeks, the public has been invited to lay a stone as a symbol of friendship between the two nations.
"I felt there was a desperate need for people from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland to be able to express their belief in Britain as a family," said Mr Stewart. "To express identity, emotion, connections, relationships, respect, love and affection for Scotland."
Mr Fraser, 60, a retired teacher, has travelled from Kilmarnock to lend his support to the project and is staying in a camper van in a nearby field. "It felt important for me to be involved because I firmly believe people should be together, rather than put walls between them," he said. "There are plenty of people volunteering by knocking on doors and making phone calls, but this is my little contribution. The cairn will last much longer than the politicians."
While the steady stream of visitors to The Auld Acquaintance wear their heart - and politics - on their sleeves, in stark contrast there are scarce few openly visible shows of support for either Better Together or Yes Scotland around Gretna. The bold posters, which have become ubiquitous sights in the windows of many shops and homes around the country, are notably absent.
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and feelings run deep in this proud Border town. Not least for Alasdair Houston, chairman of Gretna Green Ltd, a family business founded in 1886.
The company owns the Famous Blacksmiths Shop, which hosts 1,500 weddings and attracts 750,000 visitors each year; the Old Toll Bar, also known as the First House in Scotland; and four-star boutique hotel Smiths.
Gretna is renowned for its weddings, but should Scotland become independent it would arguably be an acrimonious divorce for many living here. The town has many businesses that rely heavily on cross-border trade and there are fears among some about how employment and tourism could be affected should border controls be erected.
Speaking at the Scottish Conservative Party conference in March, Home Secretary Theresa May warned Westminster would have to take measures to stop Scotland becoming a "convenient landing point" into the UK. Separation, she argued, would create a "literal and figurative border" which would force people to show their passports to cross. It is this wh ich is one of the main deal-breakers that prompted Mr Houston, who has farming interests at Gretna Green and Berwickshire, to donate £10,000 to the Better Together campaign. "Put bluntly, we don't do divorce in Gretna - it's not what we are famous for," he said.
"I'm a proud Scot and it's my heart as much as my head that says that I want us to stay in the UK. Half of my team work in England and half in Scotland, but we are right on what would become the battle line if there was to be different taxation rates, currencies, licensing laws and, God forbid, daylight saving hours."
Oil resources is another topic which concerns him. "Much of what the SNP are saying I agree with in relation to wanting a more vibrant and confident Scotland," said Mr Houston. "But I fundamentally disagree that the best way to achieve that is to separate ourselves into a country with about the same population as Yorkshire and which is building an awful lot of the hopes and aspirations based on a resource that even the most optimistic predictions give about a 30-year life span.
"Oil is a finite resource and it isn't going to last forever. It would take a lot of wind and whisky to replace that oil."
This corner of Dumfries and Galloway, however, is arguably far from being the landslide that Better Together may aspire to. Stacey Seaton, 38, a shop manager from Gretna, and Gillian McCubbin, 37, a customer adviser who works for a bank in the town and lives in nearby Annan, have both moved towards a Yes vote in recent months. Such is their conviction, they have since devoted their spare time to canvassing for Yes Scotland.
"We are a proud, ancient nation and I want nothing more than to see us independent once again - just like other normal countries," said Ms McCubbin. "Scotland needs to have full control of our vast wealth to enable us to protect our public services, invest in jobs, in our economy and in our people.
"I want to keep our NHS in public hands rather than going down the path of privatisation as England are right now."
Not everyone is as firmly decided. The Mill Forge Hotel in Gretna Green hosts around 600 weddings a year attracting visitors from all over the world. According to general manager Graham Smith, however, some 70-80 per cent of its customers hail from the north of England.
"We do get some people from Wales and across Scotland as well as overseas, but the majority is from the Midlands and north of England," he said.
As September 18 looms, Mr Smith is yet to make a decision on how he will vote. "I'm of divided opinion and can swing both ways on the issue in the space of an hour," he said. "It's questions like: are we going to have different taxation systems and currencies? There is a lot of cross-border trade here and I frequently shop in Carlisle which is the nearest city.
"My customer base is predominantly English and if it was a toss-up for them between a venue in Scotland and one in England, at the moment it would probably be 50-50. I feel that if we end up with a different currency and taxation system, the added hassle of changing money and so on would sway more couples towards our competitors south of the border.
"There could be knock-on implications in terms of suppliers. There are still a lot of grey areas."
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