Hardly anyone has heard of the Borders village where I live, and yet it attracts visitors from all corners of the globe. The reason is not our hospitality - we don’t even have a café or public toilet – but that it lies at the foot of the Eildon Hills on the first stage of the St Cuthbert’s Way. This 100km cross-border stretch, from Melrose to Lindisfarne, has recently been voted by Lonely Planet as one of the world’s top travel experiences. So, now it has become an Instagram hit, we can doubtless expect the stream to turn into a flood. Time to set up stall offering tea and overpriced scones?

In the 30 years since it was created, the trail’s popularity has steadily grown, and with it the benefit to local businesses. Every day in peak season we spot people kitted out as if for the ascent of Annapurna. Carrying packs so stuffed they could be concealing a body, they clutch poles in each hand, as if they anticipate wading chest high across the Tweed.

City friends once called in for coffee and cake to sustain them on their way. They were already exhausted after three miles, and I feared for what lay ahead. As one of them dumped his muddy boots at the door, I relieved him of his pack. It crashed to the floor. “What have you got in there?” I asked. A change of underwear, trousers and T-shirts, he said, and a history of the Russian Revolution, in hardback.

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