IT WAS easy to guess the views of the Scots piper, staring out to Scotland amid the stunning scenery at the Scottish-English border at Carters Bar.

“It’s a no-brainer for me all right,” laughs kilt-wearing Allan Smith, of the Scots town of Hawick, “I look out to Scotland every day and think, ‘this will all be ours again, mine again.”

Allan, who pipes 240 days of the year for tourists at the border, which is right on the A68, has been filmed by camera crews and snapped by news photographers from across the world interested what will happen to our two ancient countries.

“Al Jazeera were the worst," he says. "They were here from nine to six, there was no end to it.”

His message of patriotism is not simplistic and, beyond the smiles for the tourists, there is a well-reasoned argument. It was an engagement and thoughtfulness we found in everyone we approached for comment on the Scottish side of the border.

Allan explains that if a border post or checkpoint was installed at the border “I would be knackered, my living would be gone”. But he doesn’t believe that will happen, putting the idea down to desperate scaremongering by English politicians and would vote yes anyway. He argues both Scots and North-Easterners, should be positive.

“Scotland will be a successful country, looking after its own affairs,” he says, “and I think that will be a good example for the people of the North-East and other regions in England too, like Yorkshire. They could get more powers from London for themselves, that’s what I wish for them.”

It’s a clear, positive message but we only had to stroll ten yards to the roadside cafe to find doubts expressed.

Jane Craig, serving up burgers and teas chatting in a strong Scottish brogue, lives no more than five miles over the border. Her boss’s husband is an SNP councillor, but Jane is clear she’ll be voting ‘no.’

“When my kids were at school we lived on the Northumbrian side of the border and the council wanted them to travel miles to Berwick to school instead of just a couple of miles away, it was a hell of a fight,” says Jane, explaining that there are already numerous dilemmas thrown by living so close to a frontier. “Those kind of things would just get a lot worse by a going it alone. It hasn’t been thought through properly.”

We pressed on, speeding past the political signs emblazoned in farmer’s fields, ten miles north to the Jedburgh, the ancient town framed by its ruined abbey.

Thoughts that this town, close to the border with strong Northumbrian connections, would be almost uniformly ‘no,’ are soon dispelled. Strolling around it is far easier to spot ‘yes’ signs proudly displayed than the opposite.

And yet, perhaps tellingly, we find significantly more people against separation than for independence as we accost people, admittedly totally at random, as they go about their business. Even more striking is that every single last person we canvass is willing to talk, something that has never happened to either The Northern Echo photographer or myself in all our years of reporting.

Waitress Jennifer Craig, who also works in a pub, was strongly no. “I think it would just be a waste of time and money,” she explains. “There’s been a lot of talk in the pub and I’ve been surprised at the amount of yeses. Even people in the health service and firefighters, people you think would be no because they’re part of Britain-wide institutions.

“ t seems romantic to say yes. There’s a 16-year-old I work with who will be voting yes, and when I asked why, she just said, ‘because I feel like it.’ It worries me that people haven’t thought it through.”

Jennifer’s practical concerns about unanswered questions around tax and are echoed across the town. Head stronger than heart.

Chris Strickland, a photographer, is typical, “the economy won’t sustain itself.”Aimee Cromie, 19, originally of New Zealand with a Scots mum; “my family are scared businesses will leave.” Josh McKeen; “I don’t believe they will be able to protect the NHS, and what about the army and our nuclear deterrent?”

In fact, in direct contrast to our experience south of the border where everyone was against, it was an Englishman who first told us Scotland should go it alone.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to get everything they want,” says Michael Lee, of Newcastle, who regularly crosses the border. “It won’t be easy, it wouldn’t surprise me if their students would end up paying fees, but it least it would be down to them.”

Finally, we find a Scotsman with a vote who is a strong yes. Paul O’Neill, originally of Glasgow, a traditional Labour voter, said he was surprised that a lot of people were yes in Jedburgh, although he agrees that yes people were more likely to proclaim their allegiance than those against. “You’d expect a strong yes vote back in Glasgow, but not here but they're proud Scots too,” he says, “for me the key is we don’t get the Government we vote for, so there’s no democracy. It’s a nation, not just a region of a nation. Labour are a right-off now. I don’t think we can get a fair society from any UK party now.”

There has been no bitterness, no cross word, no real anger from anyone we’ve spoken to on either side of the debate or border. Instead nearly everyone was chatty, eager to talk and even share a laugh. Heading back we approach that famous border once again. The thought strikes that this 700-year-old frontier, an invisible line in the earth created in a deal between medieval barons and kings only really exists in our minds.