WE are walking along a road in Reiff, Ross-shire. In the distance a woman is walking her two dogs. It has rained relentlessly but at last there is respite and the clouds have lifted the lid. The woman is closer now and I am conscious as she approaches that we are possibly the first tourists she has seen since lockdown began.

She strides towards us, her face contorted, pointing her stick. “Are you holiday makers?” We consent to our crime, confused, not quite believing what is happening. “Get back in your car and return to where you came from. You are not welcome here.” Her tirade leaves us shaking. It continues. I stand my ground. This is not a private road. We are Scottish. We live in Scotland. We are legally within our rights to be here. It is July 4.

Rage distilled over centuries of injustice to a single encounter on the road to Reiff. We became the dirty, infected “other” who must be driven out.

Even as I try to defend myself against the onslaught of her rage I am conscious of the irony of her disrespecting social distancing and raising her voice. I am ashamed to claim kinship with her. But reeling from the shock of her aggression, my brain falters, even as my heart is thudding in protest. She cannot hear me. It is a confident hostility; certain of its rightness. With her anti-incomer sentiment she seemed to speak for an entire community.

So, if you ever read this, we would like you to know that we have loved this place for more than 20 years – a love affair that began with the poetry of Norman MacCaig, that brought us to Lochinver, then one day to Achnahaird, Achiltibuie and Polbain year after year. And over that 20 years, a Highlander restrung my son's broken fiddle gratis. Another repacked a tyre on our car and refused payment. The lady in the Achiltibuie stores lent us a hair drier because we could not buy one. We were always conscious of a gentle kindness – a neighbourliness that, as visitors in our own country, we were both thankful and proud of.

We had to come on July 3 as we were about to look after our mother who has been suffering from advanced dementia. There would be no future foreseeable when we would be able to return. It is important to record these personal details because on the road to Reiff we were dehumanised by a prejudice more ugly than we could bear. We have not slept and the dark cloud over the Summer Isles will not leave.

We have listened. We will get in our car and we won’t come back.

Lynne and Gail Cunningham, Stirling.

AS a person who was born in England to a Scottish father and English mother and having moved to Scotland when I was ten, I was very saddened by the small demonstration at the border wanting the English to stay away ("Sturgeon hits out at Scottish border protesters", The Herald, July 7).

Do these demonstrators and like-minded people not realise how much the English, Welsh, and Irish bring to Scotland's economy?Not to mention international tourists?

Scotland needs this money and even with it couldn't afford to furlough the working people of Scotland, yet Nicola Sturgeon has the audacity to ask for further funding till October. The SNP will accept all cash from the UK Government and can only do this because we are part of the United Kingdom.

Neil Stewart, Balfron.