Scottish Collaborations: Medici Intersection

In Edina at the Mercat Cross, the great and good gathered -  from all walks of life and it was a great melting pot of ideas. They met near William Creech’s publishing house, in the time of great men such a David Hume, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, Robert Burns, Alexander Nasmyth, and many others. 

“During the renaissance the Medici family provided opportunities for people from different disciplines – artists, writers, scientists, engineers, natural philosophies – to all come together, in a space where they could work together to solve problems. All the labs in England and Wales are commercially driven and are completely privatised. Whereas in Scotland we have  a more cohesive organisation, not driven commercially.”

‘its partly our philosophy of working together, which comes out of the Scottish enlightenment. The enlightenment here emerged in a different way than it did in England and Wales and France and elsewhere, because instead of just having scientists and natural philosophers working together to solve problems we also had artists and writers and poets and we brought them all together in some sort of a rammy.” Forensic scientists Dundee centre, on their multi disciplinary approach. "  

Namh Nic Daeid, Dorector Forensic centre Dundee

Medici intersection

Robert Burns Ellisland

This summer I was so pleased to visit the last farm our great poet Robert Burns lived in. Ellisland is just north of Dumfries and incredibly is pretty intact as when Burns lived here and contains books and other material he had there.  

 **In 1788, Rob and Jean settled at Ellisland farm, a few miles north of the town of Dumfries. It was romantic and he was so pleased to have the river Nith running beside the new farm. A new farm house had to be built: the land was neglected with old ‘run-rigs’ strips, little drainage, no hedges to keep animals off the crops and no farm house. They had a servant and farm workers at Ellisland farm, so he was then able to write many songs and poems while he lived here - Auld Lang Syne (1988), Banks O Doon (1791) and his masterpiece the narrative poem Tam O'Shanter(1791). 

Robert Burns had enjoyed a second winter in Edina in 1788, when stayed in St Andrews square. 

He left Edina that March, little knowing I would never return there. He wanted to return to find his muse to the land and to raise his young family. 

Burns married his Jean in March 1788 and they lived for a time in a small room in Mauchline. 

He was offered the choice of three farms and decided on Ellisland. The farm houses and Byre had taken some time to build and Jean stayed with his mother to learn about cheese making for those months.

Burns found time to write near the woods of Craigie burn near Moffa and at the Hermitage.  He visited the Birks O Aberfeldy on his highland tour. He wrote and sang in the open air to study nature and human nature both. He studied the life of nature around him, from the wild flower, the river banks, the woodlands, the bird song, the small animals underneath, and the fields of corn.

His most famous song, Auld Lang Syne was written after he heard an old man singing this songs and Burns added new verses. Burns collected all these old songs on his Scotia travels, which inspired him to write his own songs too

He wrote Tam O Shanter – his most famous narrative poem on a free day as he walked along the shady path by the banks of the river Nith. He lived at Ellisland for four years. 

He also began training to be an Exciseman, which meant long rides away from home. 

Burns was only thirty and he had been the toast of Edina - he was the new father, the struggling farmer and the ambitious bard. 

Perhaps he had been doing too much - a young father, Exciseman, farmer and collecting songs and writing poetry.  

It became all too much. He sold off the stock to leave the farm life for town life in Dumfries.  

And in 1981 he and his young family left Ellisland for a town house in Dumfries town

Why Our Stories Matter

In London there is the Tate Britain, the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, the Beefeaters at the Tower of London, Carnaby street, the Globe theatre and the Thames flowing past. My favourite London walk is from the National Portrait Galleries and Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall and no 10, past the now crumbling (and being rebuilt at a cost of millions) gothic Westminster, and on over the bridge to the Southbank and the late evening sun.

I am not very proud of the great wars, I think it is sad a generation of young men had to die to prove a point against Germany, not once, but twice. There are stories of great heroism, fighter planes, muddy trenches and gas gas boys, from the poignant Dulce et Decorum Est poem by Wilfred Owen. He ended up in a rehabilitation centre at Craiglochart in Edinburgh and then was sent back to die at the front. It all seemed pointless.

Thankfully out of the ashes the European project emerged (one of Winston Churchill’s ideas) sand we’ve had free trade, prosperity and peace now for over 70 years. After the war many of the British empire countries regained independence. At one time the British navy (along with the Dutch navy which joined forces with our navy under William of Orange or King Billy)  ruled the waves and many small islands around the world. And Glasgow and Belfast were the greatest centres for shipbuilding.

But times change. Our long reigning Queen has presided over a Commonwealth of faded past glories and now places like China and India have strong growing economies. And recently the stories coming from England have become defensive, confused, floundering. I don’t really know what modern Tory England stands for today. Has it lost its way? I am often reminded of the past stories that England once stood for - Bath and Jane Austen; Brunel Kingdom’s bridges; Cameron Mackintosh and Lloyd Weber and Cats; Liverpool and the Beatles; the great painters Freud and Hockney, Turner and Constable. Royal babies 

Campaigning in council elections recently in London, Tory MP Tom Johnson claimed, “Everyone knows the Tories will spend less and deliver more and better resources.” I am not sure I understand this logic unless they are miracle workers? Is it possible to spend less and provide more, like Jesus and his fishes? They are attempting to hire more nurses from Jamaica, which will drive nurses salaries down. And in London near the Thames there are shining empty monuments to failing London centric capitalism, the blackened Grenfell tower and tellingly knife crime and murders have increased. Whatever happened to training those British workers?

And sadly some have decided that Britain’s leaving the EU project will sort out Britain’s housing and NHS crisis. It won’t. Europe has given Britain prosperity by being an integral part of the world’s largest trading block and I fear this self-harming will seriously damage our economy. Brexit has become this strange word banded about like a dangerous football.

But there are other stories among these crisis. After two weeks of Commonwealth Games this April at the Gold Coast, we discovered that there is a Windrush generation – those from Jamaica who were invited to help Britain rebuild after the war. They came here and worked in our hospitals and buses and have lived here all their lives since the 50s and 60s., mostly in Birmingham and the south east. Scandalously their rights have been taken away – their right to work, health care, passports and some have been put in detention centres and deported. Because of Ukip’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and May’s hostile environment at the Home Office, these grandparents suddenly found they had no rights to citizenship. We were asking Commonwealth citizens to leave!

There are many other stories often forgotten in ‘Britishness’ though – the Welsh valleys, the Scottish mountains, islands and seas, and the Irish rolling hills and dairy farms. During the Brexit debates I heard no mention of the British ‘regions’. So much is centralised on the white cliffs of Dover, the London’s financial markets and the cosy shires, that the regions are looked on as peripheral and unimportant backwaters. Recent polls suggest those in England would sacrifice the union for their Brexit and care more about Gibraltar.

For the people who live in Belfast or near the Irish border in Newry or Derry or in the busy harbour of Aberdeen or the remote Hebrides or historic Edinburgh, they feel isolated and cut off from this ‘British’ story. I recently visited the western isles and it struck me to have a healthy economy we must care about all our remote regions. Scotland has run its own devolved parliament since 1997 with limited powers, and now dominated by the SNP since 2007 for ten years now. In fact ever since the Union of the Parliaments 1707, Scotland has been run by some kind of Scottish government (or over lord suppressor). At that time only the landowners, or less than 5% of the population had a vote – so this take over was never democratically voted on. In fact, most Scots at the time, rioted in the streets!

The south east of England knows even less of their Irish cousins and the Irish border was never mentioned before the referendum vote - would the English have voted for Brexit if there was a risk of the dreadful Troubles starting again? I remember the horrific nightly news broadcasts of knee capping, bombs and murders. The DUP are presently propping up May’s Tories, so how the customs alignment is to be achieved is beyond most people’s understanding and some think a few cameras might suffice at the three hundred mile border. 

A majority of Scots want home rule or devolved government: the question might be, how much should Scotland be run by those in London- on defence (trident in Scottish lochs); on welfare (bedroom tax), on foreign affairs (Brexit, Windrush), pensions (lowest in the OECD). The Scots language has been protected within the EU by a European charter. One third of today’s population speak a modern version of the same language used by Burns. Will old Scotia’s heritage, laws, rights, language, culture and arts be protected once we leave the EU? Will our wildlife be protected?

Westminster may not imprison Scottish indy supporters, instead they tie our hands with limited free press or media. Around half of Scots support indy and undemocratically less than 5% of the media represents these views. Scotland’s stories have always been different, and Scotland kept its church, law and education and runs its separate health service. Three hundred years ago, politics mattered less than the church, which held the dominating powers. 

Are there British stories in Scotland - well yes but mostly not good ones? In St Andrews Square Edinburgh we have the tall, dominating statue of the tyrant who enforced the highland clearances Henry Dundas. Overlord of the clearances. Also in Edinburgh the new town has streets named after the Hanoverian kings (rather than the Stewarts) although I discovered recently that George of Hanover was the grandson of Elizabeth Stuart (daughter of James VI of Scotland). I read of the golden eagle being endangered by these large Robber Barons grouse shooting estates. Our Britishness here means the flag waving of aggressive Orange parades or the empty shipyards on the Clyde… 

Otherwise I struggle to think what Britishness means here in Scotland. Most of our statues are to great Scottish thinkers or poets. Edinburgh had a great 18^thcentury enlightenment and then in the 19^thcentury series of books by John Prebble, which put out a false myth of a poor downtrodden Scots people. Scotland has many unique and different stories we must be proud of – Reformation, radical thinkers, enlightenment, expressive Scots Poets, Gaelic song, scientific and engineering discoveries.

The young Robert Burns admired independent minded freedom fighters such as Hannibal and William Wallace and from his writing it is clear he supported democratic values and votes for all men. A Mans a Man for o That, the Slaves Lament, Parcel of Rogues to the Nation, the Tree of Liberty. At this time (1765 to 1783) the American and (1789 to 1799) French revolutions were raging and there were great fears of rebellion in Britain too. Equality means we all deserve equal rights – but equality does not mean we are all the same. Humans have succeeded because of their diversity and also from co-operation. I believe in some capitalism (as in Sweden) but also far more social programs to benefit all. 

Edina now runs one of the world’s most important International Arts festival. I had no idea though, growing up in Edinburgh how major it was, or of all Edina’s important stories. I studied history at school, but it was all English imperialist history and literature. I am teaching myself Scottish history now and I am sad for the not knowing when I once walked down her cobbled high street to college. 

Can a Thousand Scotlands Bloom?

This blossoming of artists, musicians, writers since the Scottish parliament opened 1997 (20 years ago) gave us belief back. I used to hear – ‘oh Scots are a nation of scroungers!’ After the 1979 Devolution Vote farce for a hoped for Scottish Parliament, many left Scotland and we felt demoralized, it was a sad time. For centuries Scottish culture has been suppressed and ignored by those Anglicised Scots – those Scots who view themselves as English first, Scottish second.  

In response to Gillian Bowditch and her Sunday Times article, ‘Narrow cultural focus will tie us all to a tartan straight jacket’ where she writes on the author Muriel Spark - Spark wrote of a decidedly small niche of cloistered girls at Gillespie’s secondary school Edinburgh – how is this so deep or rich, compared to say Burns or Irvine Welsh?

How can a thousand Scotland’s bloom when we were taught nothing of our heritage, and culture in Scottish schools until recently….!

I grew up in Edinburgh and walked her historic streets and I wondered about her stories. Meanwhile I learnt of the Tudors, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wilfred Owen,  and American writer Hemmingway at school.

Plockton cottages

In their time Burns, Scott and James MacPherson were internationally famous.

Burns was greatly influenced by both Scots ballads and English poets and he knew four languages, he was not simply a ploughman poet!

The only place I encountered Burns was at Primary school choirs. Burns wrote of nature, love, radical politics, hypocrisy, those conflicts between morality and our wilder passions.

Burns crossed many borders and was both national and international.

We are strongly linked to England and Ireland, but that doesn’t mean Scotland should be ruled by London. We never gave up our Kirk, which was far more important than the politicians in 1707. Burns also wrote the proud Scots songs Scots Wa Hae, and Parcel of Rogues. 

Scottish historian Tom Devine, in his lecture on the Scottish Enlightenment, spoke of how Scotland has for centuries been an outward-looking, trading nation – many Scots travelled to Poland, Netherlands, France, In fact more outward-looking than an often more insular England. “Scots suffer from “virtual universal historical illiteracy’, says Devine, “ perhaps that’s why they’ve struggled to engage with Referendum campaign."

It is only when we understand our roots, that we can also look outward. 

Yes the old tartan shortbread, White Heather club idea of ‘Scottishness’ of the 60s was so embarrassingly parochial. Surely we have moved on.  Two major Scottish festivals, Celtic Connections and Edinburgh Festival, both embrace their international element. Each August I attend the Edinburgh International Book festival where I see many inspired young Scottish writers of today. 

Edinburgh art galleries

This is also about whether you view empire building or stories of ancient Rome – where you have one group superior to the rest and an exploited underclass. Or you see a more progressive future for Scotland of a more socially integrated, fairer society that is fundamental to the success of our culture, economy and education. A successful small country in a larger European trading block.

pipers at Edinburgh castle

The Scottish nationalist movement is a broad church and not exclusively about the SNP. It was begun by poets such as Hugh MacDiarmid, back in 1939, and the Scottish renaissance of Montrose. MacDiarmid wrote - 

We are both national and international and to forget our rich heritage is a dark, ignorant thing…

skies across from Appelcross

near Loch Ardinning and the Campsie's

Suppression of Scottish Culture - Writers and Artists

Robert Burns statue bottom Leith walk

A recent tv program documented Burns success in American. There are 15 Statues of Burns there, more than to any other writer or musician. Yet in Scotland’s capital, which is covered in unionist statues along its Hanoverian new town streets there is one statue hidden away down the bottom of Leith walk. I was over for the Edinburgh festival and noticed all the George St statues, shockingly there is little on Scotland’s most famous son. 
This happened to the world’s greatest poet who was dismissed as simply a ‘heaven taught ploughman poet’ – when in fact he knew five languages and was a ferocious reader of the classics, philosophers and of the Scottish enlightenment. 

There has been devious, underhand, manipulative moves - not only to ignore the Scottish contributions to the world of the arts, writing, history, and science -.but to whitewash them out of history by those who support the Unionist establishment, the Anglicised Scots of all things English, who see their future in a House of Lords!

**As an example in 1854 the Irish poet Oscar Wilde was born and his mother named him - Oscar Fingal Ossian - ‘Isn’t that grand, misty and Ossianic” she said - yet today who has heard of James MacPherson's Ossian poems? More recently the 1980s there were moves by the English controlled Arts council to close the Scottish National portrait gallery and ignore Scottish art, which was strongly opposed, and thankfully has instead been refurbished and is flourishing today.

Oscar Wilde

This happened in Scotland’s schools where practically no Scottish history was taught until recently – nothing on the Scottish enlightenment, nothing on the great inventions, nothing of great Scottish writers, nothing of the medical inventions.

What I did learn was of Tudor England and of English writers such as Shakespeare, Wilfred Owen and some American writers. My only lessons in Scottish history were a couple of Burns songs with the Primary schools choir – Ca the Knowes, Comin Through the Rye. I was hooked. I feel angry that at school and college in Edinburgh, I learnt of French, American and English writers – but nothing on the great Scottish writers! Hopefully today with Scottish studies at our universities, this has improved in our schools too.

We need to ask - Why have we Scots forgotten? The idea has been to suppress the subordinate cultures such as Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Writers likes Burns and others fought against this in the years after the forced union. I was reading of the origins of Romantic poetry after I picked up a book at the National portrait gallery London on Romantic poets – of the Ossian poems of James MacPherson (read by Napoleon and worldwide), Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Walter Scott, and of course the unparalleled Robert Burns - there was no mention - the international success of Scottish writers has been suppressed.

A few years ago my son graduated at the Royal college of Surgeons Edinburgh, where I was surprised to learn that we have the oldest centre for medicine in the world! There have also been many great Scottish scientific and medical innovations.

Artist and teacher Alexander Moffat and poet and lecturer Alan Raich, write in their informed book, Arts of Independence –“In most countries in their national galleries, half are devote to International Art and the other half to the Art of that nation itself." This is not the case in Scotland where Glasgow artists have been neglected too, as recently as the 1980s and they had to go to New York for recognition.  

I sat beside an Irish woman at a Celtic Connections concert once and I mentioned the wonderful Irish Writers museum in Dublin and by contrast  the tiny Scottish writers museum in Lady Stairs Close. She wondered, perhaps there are only a few great Scottish writers and she may well wonder….where are they and how are they remembered?

“Scots suffer from “virtual universal historical illiteracy’, says historian Tom Devine, “ perhaps that’s why they’ve struggled to engage with the Referendum campaign." 

I believe it is not only very important, but also time we honoured our great Bard, with a statue of him in St Andrews square (and not the other forgotten tyrant Dundas).

And that we also honoured Fergusson (Burn’s muse), Allan Ramsay and the many recent great Scottish writers along with the manygreatrecent authors with a decent Scottish writers museum.

Nationalism understandings matters – it matters to know and understand our roots, heritage and the stories that inform our nation. To understand the places and streets we walk upon. And not in an exclusive way but an inclusive way.

Hugh MacDiarmid

***The great Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid wrote, “To be truly international, you have to be national to begin with, to see the entire Scotland – and not an Anglo-centric or Anglo-American perspective that dominated media and 20^th century cultural analysis.“

“The idea that national self-determination can fuse and ignite art, safeguard its provision, be the ground from which self-knowledge, love of others and the optimism of curiosity grows.”