Jackie Kay Fearless Blues Woman Bessie Smith, at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

Jackie Kay 

Acclaimed jazz and blues vocalist Suzanne Bonnar sang some of Bessie Smith’s best-loved songs. She began with the song ‘Nobody Knows you When You’re Down and Out’.

 

Poet and former Scots maker, has written a quality and inspired biography of the legendary Blues singer - her book 'Bessie Smith' was first published in 1991 and the time is right now for its reissue. 

Bessie reflected her times. Her first album sold 750 copes and she was rich. Then in 1931 suddenly blues was out and jazz was in and she was poor again, in. In 1937 she had a car accident. She collided with racism of the times and the blues were considered too rough.

 

Kay said her father bought her Smith’s album when she was only twelve and she remembers the cover – the front had a smiling Bessie Smith and the back her sad face - which in a way told the story of her life.

 

She was a chronicler of her times, with the Blues oral history and counter culture. On the day of her last recording, Billie Holiday came in later for her first recording. 

This event was chaired by artist, feminist and co-founder of the Glasgow Women's Library Adele Patrick. 

 

Bessie Smith

‘Bessie Smith showed me the air and taught me how to fill it.’ And Janis Joplin was certainly not the only person who fell in love with the Tennessee blues singer’s unforgettable voice. As a young Black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie not only an inspiring singer but a complex, sensuous, extravagantly generous woman with whom she could identify. Now of course, Kay has gone on to become one of the best-respected British poets of her generation, herself an inspiration to others. 

 

She joins us to discuss her extraordinary book, Bessie Smith. 

It is as much a quest for emotional truth as for biographical fact, mixing poetry and prose, historical record and fiction. At times Kay enjoys imagining what the singer might have thought, or speculates about the contents of the trunk in which she kept her most beloved possessions. It all adds up to a towering monument to one of the 20th century’s most influential singers. 

Ali Smith’s film 'Art in a Time of Lies' at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

Seeing Things - short film with wonderful images by film maker Wood Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

The highly-respected Scottish novelist has teamed up with artist Sarah Wood to create a new short film made uniquely for Edinburgh. Seeing Things: Art in a Time of Lies, directed and edited by Wood; written and narrated by Smith (one time showing and will not be on-demand). , At the start with wonderful old black and white clips of gangsters.

 

THIS CULTURE OF LIES is like seeping rain, an aesthetic.. 

“I RANT AT THE TELEVISION AM I RESPONSIBLE FOR IT? CORRUPT GOVERNMENT. I FEEL SHAME.

INTO OURSELVES AND BEYOND OURSELVES, INSIDE OURSELVES. DARK AND LIGHT. IMAGINATIONS WAKENED – WITH A CHINK OF LIGHT IN THE DARK.

THEY ARE CUTTING THE ARTS BY 50%.”

 

These cycles come round and round – destroying. World changing too – left EU, end Trump, 

 

“Art is a lie that reveals the truth. What a slippery fish truth is. Little lies become a story. 

A lie distracts from the truth and take us down a garden path,  politics make lies sound respectable, (do they believe we believe them? Its always about power, lies are sanctioned. We become a slngle self, and persuaded to be tribal. A surface world shunts fast info, and we discard so much of it. “

 

Questions? Is art simply a displacement activity, a diversion from the ‘real things’ happening in the world? Or could it be that Ali Smith’s achievement is to reveal – with her trademark nimbleness – just how important art can be in helping make sense of a stupid, shameful, schismatic world? 

After the screening, Smith talked about her writing and some of the artists who have inspired her with Festival director Nick Barley

 

Questions: Is fake news new? “Shakespeare’s fake news is ancient: fake news today is faster – radio or t and now in our pockets.“  Split, diverted politics enrage, people under pressure, exclusion lines – becomes fascism. When we must work together.

Stories give us space, of our history, politics, and our dreams. 

 

Pull something light out of the mess,  Looking and seeing.

Art is difficult and shocking.

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021, Ali Smith - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/ali-smith-art-in-a-time-of-lies

 

In each novel of Ali Smith’s Seasonal quartet, the narrative closely follows real world events. Brexit, the internment of migrants and the Coronavirus pandemic: each is woven into the fabric of Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer, lending them a keen sense of relevance. But look again at this group of genuinely novel novels, and there are countless references – from other times and other places – to artists and thinkers. 

Visual artists Barbara Hepworth and Tacita Dean; filmmaker Lorenza Mazzetti; writers Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare – why do they have such a profound influence on Smith’s characters? 

 

Tom Devine and Ciaran Martin: 'Our Nation’s Future', at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

With Clare English. Where next for the UK’s future? English said, “Since union 1707, 300 years ago, there has been a largely stable relationship?” (Mmm really? Apart from riots, rebellion, hangings, clearances, deportations, battles, 

“In 2014, Scots rejected indy by 55.3%. what now is the settle will? Scots have little affinity with Johnson’s government.” Questions: between votes and the law; what is the UK? Move away from union; control over indy vote; Constitutional chess.

 

Ciaran Martin: Civil servant, Oxford Professor, constitutional director for the Referendum 2014 and from Northern Ireland. We need trusted and impartial government. progressive unionism.  

Tom Devine – Eminent Scottish historian asked, How has the nation changed; concede nationalists? Is threat of nationalism receding. We need cool heads and rational thinking.

 

*Ciaran Martin – ‘Remaking the British State,’  He said there is now a lull but there will be soon be constitutional chess games. Holyrood will request a Section 30 request which will be refused and end up in court. Scottish government will loose. There will be stalemate and a clash of mandate and law, an existential crisis. Something has to give.

 

He asked, what is the union? There is a lack of consensus and understanding, and a lack of any constitution. He recommended Michael Keatings book, State and Nation in the UK. There is two competing sovereignties, and a contested Scottish narrative – one the source of authority; the other multi-national with Scottish nationalism considered self-indulgent.

 

With union, Martin claims Scotland retained a strong sense as a nation, and never became a region. After Ireland left, Britain has allowed itself to break up. Northern Ireland agreement 1998 allowed to vote to leave. Most “countries” will not allow any break up. (BUT is Britain a country, surely it is a state?) Serious ministers will block any meaningful path to break up and the union will be based on force of law. Still unclear, struggle between mandate and law. The stakes will then be tested in the court of pubic opinion. Union an imagined construct: a political construct first. 

 

Poll supporting Scottish indy show 48% support is a serious threat. Over the decade 2011-2021 shows an increase of 10-15% in indy support.  Long way to go, but there will be an existential reckoning. Votes not laws. He discussed the health of the nation and how to expand support for the union. George Osborne and his Project Fear treated  Scotland as a possession and worried about loosing face on the world stage, is not an enduring policy. 

 

1. Muscular unionism – British nationalism, cultural pageantry, views devolution as a disaster. The internal market bill and taking back devolved powers and the Scottish hubs, means a marginalization of Scottish voices. But don’t forget who is paying for the UK.

 

2. Federalism -  Is not achievable with the dominance of England. After Brexit there is no desire to spate into smaller pieces.

 

3. Progressive unionism - The English want to preserve status quo. Best of both worlds slogan 2014 – is devolution settlement still viable - BBC, NHS - ways of dealing with tensions. Does Westminster support devolution? Even Wales feels London is hostile to devolution settlement.  A British state remade?

 

*Tom Devine

May Elections 2021 – “The union is in greater peril than at any time in my life time,” Gordon Brown. Devine says, “ The union is in greater peril since Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his Jacobite army invaded England to remove Hanoverians and to break the union!”

 

August 2021. London press and media’s conventional wisdom is that Scottish nationalism is on the ebb. That the Scottish government is parochial and incompetent, on ferries to drugs, so how can they run a sovereign nation? There has been a slight decline in the Pro indy polls (vaccine bounce?)

 

There is a state of Armistice at present with no battle going on, a truce – no judgement. What is the long term for the constituent parts. I'm not sure this is entirely true, as the Unionist are plotting heavily how to undermine Scotland Devolution settlement of 1997. Scotland has always retained control of its education, health, laws and kirk.

 The UK, under the spotlight. Historians look at the long term view, the demographic one, shows 2020, those under 40, 70% regard the union as over. 

The Grim reaper is on the side of Scottish national party. Two major issues, one is the Brexit vote – the first time Scottish opinion on major issues was denied. The other is a demographic one 2020 – because of the under 40s, 70% regard the union as over.

Sadly Devine’s time was cut short, while he did cover other issues in the Q & A session and he was keen to allow time for that. Martin asked, what other country allows itself to be broken up? What does this statement mean? Ireland considers itself a nation with a long history and distinct culture – as does Scotland and England. But Britain is a state much like Scandinavia and not a nation! 

Tom Devine and Ciaran Martin: Our Nation’s Future EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021 - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/ciaran-martin-with-tom-devine-where-next-for-the-united-kingdom

Tom Devine 'Rewriting Scottish History', at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

In conversation with Alan Little:  “A deeper sense of Scottishness” - Tom Devine Rewriting Scottish History at Edinburgh International book festival 2021

 

Devine commented that Scottish history was hardly studied and shockingly the history of Scotland is less developed than Yorkshire’s. At the ancient universities, any department on Scots history was small, peculiar, introverted, inward looking. A Cinderella project. Wheras British history was considered outward-looking. Alan Little commented that at Primary school it was all Wallace and Bruce - and with no teaching of the evolution of the nation. 

 

Devine said, that today there has been a sea change, with a resurgence in Scottish scholarship, the first time since 18^th century. Scotland has now developed a Constitutive history. A deeper sense of Scottishness. Which came first though? – does the explosion in scholarship predates political development, until 1970s?

He mentioned Canadian historian Rodger Smith, who wrote – “Political constitutive story is crucial – where do people come from, a sense our past, or our mooring threatened with loss. “

 

Devine also discussed the emerging crisis of Britishness with loss of Empire, and that once the union was never challenged. 

 

*The British Empire - “England ruled the empire and the Scots ran it” - came at a time of crisis and cultural revolution, industrialisation, agricultural revolution. Scotland became a place of heavy industry.

 

Scotland was 10% of the UK population but it was around a third of the Empire. Scotland was the world’s second richest country – with immigration from Ireland, Lithuania, Italy, Poland and also the paradox of a great deal of emigration. 

 “no nation has been more connected to the wider world than Scotland’

 

Book What is a nation? Ernest Waldon – Sorbonne, wrote that Nations are based on language, ethnic solidarity, product of imagination, relationship to the past. Scotland’s ties with overseas is very unusual. 

 

*Walter Scott 

Scott reconnected Scotland to its past and what makes Scotland Scotland? Scott began writing poetry to preserve the Border ballads.His writing has Influenced drama, fiction, poetry. At the time the Scots nation was in crisis – identity, sense of self, linkage to the past. Scotland was thought of as parochial, of no value and did not appeal to academics. Scott mixed fact with fiction. At the time 30% of the books being read in France were by Scott. 

“To be literate and civilized you have to read Scott.” 

 

These were crisis times. The enormity of the 5 revolutions in Scotland and the assimilation into England. A hybrid identity of Scottish and British and there was a catatonic shift from peasant life to industrialization. 

History as tragedy, based on the highlands – Scots were perceived as noble, brave and doomed, and  preordained to fail. Like the lament, or the durg…

The poet Edwin Muir 1930 claimed “Scott and other writers were false bards of a false nation.”

 

*Questions.

Devine was asked a few question by the live audience. He was asked if it was a mistake to come out in favour of Scotland’s independence in 2014. His answer was cautious – which included a number of factors and his views would be clear soon. He hoped there would be close connections to the rest of the UK and an amiable relationship with the UK government back in 2014. He said that every historian is biased but that he has kept his impartiality. 

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2021, Tom Devine with Allan Little: Rewriting Scotland’s History -

https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/tom-devine-with-allan-little-rewriting-scotland-s-history

During the 20th century, Scotland commonly depicted its own history through the lens of a kind of colourful, tragicomic victimhood. This amounted to a tartan-clad story set against a Highland backdrop and a sense of national self-doubt that has sometimes been described as ‘the Scottish cringe’. Since the 1980s, however, that characterisation has changed, and Scotland has developed a more confident, modernised sense of its history and roots. 

Tom Devine can take considerable credit for this change: the most influential historian of our times, he has been instrumental in helping reframe the nation’s sense of itself. The Edinburgh University Professor of History and Paleogeography speaks to BBC journalist Allan Little about the changing nature of Scottish history. Using some of the most significant moments in Scotland’s story, from the ill-fated Darien Project of the late 17th century to the arrival of the Scottish Parliament two decades ago, Devine and Little discuss the ways in which Scottish history can be revisited to help us find a new sense of self.

 

BOOKS:

TOM DEVINE The Scottish Nation, from Union to Modern day; The Lowland Clearances,