Casting Robert the Bruce! Our Branch Economy

Today they are casting in Glasgow for a big Netflix movie on Robert the Bruce. An English casting director is coming up here to Glasgow, who will get 20%, and who has never worked in Scotland.

Scottish casting agents have been told they cannot participate – a new software was introduced and they were not informed of it – these are agents who have done the casting for big productions such as Trainspotting and Outlander.

The Scottish agents have worked with the Scottish actors for many years and know their strengths and weaknesses. When Brat Pitt filmed here in Glasgow for his movie World War Z a few years ago, it is not always successful to bring in outsiders who don’t know the place, culture, stories or the people.

In both Ireland and Wales they have separate Tv and film agencies and they protect using local crew for TV and film productions – but not here in Scotland. 

The problem in Scotland is that Creative Scotland is too big an umbrella organizing that covers all the creative arts – art, books, music and film and tv. When TV and film are money-making industries that bring in a lot of money and they are not poetry! 

Scotland is treated as a branch economy, where decisions that are often best made in Scotland are being made in London. Being London-centred is not always in everyone’s best interests. Also a branch economy, is always the first to suffer in any downturn.

After the Lyceum theatre lost its photographer a few years back they thought they needed to go to London to get a good photographer. Award-winning photographer Douglas McBride contacted them and said, ‘I am here in Scotland and can do good images for you! ‘

These casting Scottish agents claim this is the first time in 30 years they have not even been allowed to compete. Scottish government money may be involved in the funding for this Netflix production – growth funding.

Yet Scotland will loose out financially. Changes need to be urgently made here for a separate Scottish TV and film agency. There will be a new film studio built south of Edinburgh. 

We in Scotland now have to choose, do we want to continue being a branch economy or run our own businesses?

(PS Casting for men with beards!)

Thomas Annan: Photographer of Glasgow

What Happened to the Glasgow Saltmarket slums?

“It is a revolting State of Filth and Squalor”

Photographer Thomas Annan photographed the filthy Glasgow slums in the Saltmarket. 

He also shot images of the Glasgow cathedral and the building of the Loch Katrine reservoir.

And today near the Saltmarket Glasgow is the upmarket area of the yuppie Merchant City. How times have changed!

In the mid 18^th century (1750) – the Saltmarket had the Glasgow college and it was the place to be, the Dear Green Place was like Bond street or Saint-Germain.

The Saltmarket was originally home to the fullers – scourers of woollen cloth.

After the Union of 1707, from 1750 – 1850, the Saltmarket changed utterly - and the population rose from 30,000 to 400,000.

Displaced people from the Highlands and Ireland flooded here and the Salmarket turned into overcrowded, filthy slums. Their closes were dark and damp  Disease was rife. The only time there as running water was when it rained, and mortality rates were the highest in Scotland.

Alan Taylor writes of these disturbing photos in the Herald. “People with nothing to do and nowhere to go’” Overwhelming impression was one of hopelessness and decay. “There is none of the colour of a Neapolitan back street or the chaos of a Mumbai Shanty town. There is no movement or energy."

 A Police superintendent wrote at the time –

In 1842, a government report spelled out the scale of the problem as ever more people flooded in from the Highlands and Ireland:

“In the very centre of the city there is an accumulated mass of squalid wretchedness, which is probably unequalled in any other town in the British dominions. In the interior part of the square, bounded on the east side by the Saltmarket, on the west by Stockwell-street, on the north by Trongate, and on the south by the river, and also in certain parts of the east side of High-street ... there is concentrated everything that is wretched, dissolute, loathsome, and pestilential. These places are filled by a population of many thousands of miserable creatures. The houses in which they live are unfit even for sties, and every apartment is filled with a promiscuous crowd of men, women and children, all in the most revolting state of filth and squalor.”

The Highland Clearances and De-population of the Highlands took place twice, in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The Landowners forced the existing people from the land they had farmed for generations, to make way for sheep grazing. The smoke from burning roofs filled the skies, to prevent reoccupation. All the homes would burn for 6 days….We drive still through areas with burnt out shells of cottages. People fled to the coast and to Glasgow or emigrated.

Annan was commissioned to produce a series of photos from 1868 – 1871 of the centre of Glasgow. He made 31 images that show how appalling the conditions were for many poor Glaswegians.

The Glasgow college was demolished and moved to the Glasgow Westend.

As an example of ... "clearing" ... the Duchess of Sutherland will suffice here. This person, well instructed in economy, resolved ... to turn the whole country ... into a sheep-walk. From 1814 to 1820 ... 15,000 inhabitants, [or] about 3,000 families, were systematically ... rooted out. All their villages were destroyed and burnt, all their fields turned into pasturage. British soldiers enforced this eviction, and came to blows with the inhabitants. One old woman was burnt to death in the flames of the hut which she refused to leave. Thus [the Duchess of Sutherland] appropriated 794,000 acres [321,320 hectares] of land that had ... belonged to the clan. She assigned to the expelled inhabitants about 6,000 acres [2,428 ha] on the sea-shore – two acres per family. The 6,000 acres had until this time lain waste, and brought in no income to their owners. The Duchess ... actually went so far as to let these at an average rent of 2s. 6d. per acre... The whole of the stolen clanland she divided into 29 great sheep farms, each inhabited by a single family, [and] for the most part imported English farm servants. [By] ... 1835, the 15,000 Gaels were already replaced by 131,000 sheep. The remnant ... flung on the sea-shore tried to live by catching fish. They ... lived ... half on land and half on water, and withal only half on both.

–Karl Marx, 1867, Capital, Volume 1.

Histories are the Stories we re-write

Stories are the oral traditions we tell each other and pass on. The songs and poems we sing. The crafts and the images we create and paint. Our memories and past inform who we are and where we see our future.  Like the monuments raised, our names, the names of places.

**Each January in Glasgow Celtic Connections celebrates musical connections and traditions between Scotland, Ireland, England, America, Canada and Brittany traditions. These are the traditions that have been passed down and also travelled continents. I am not sure how anyone can dispute these connections exist. There are many similarities between the country music of the Smokies and Irish and Scottish reels. This was never meant to be about one race of people, but rather about the grassroots traditions and stories, collaborations and beautifully hand made instruments.  

Capercaillie

Written history however can confuse us - it depends on who won and who then wrote the story.  Renowned historian Stuart McHardy writes that is why the oral tradition and stories expressed in our arts and culture matter a great deal. They often tell us more than the printed historical texts. 

Scottish folklorists such as Hamish Henderson, Margaret Bennett and Dick Gaughan and also our national poet  Robert Burns two centuries ago, travelled and collected the old songs and poems, many that had never been written down before - songs such a Auld Lang Syne. Burns was a great reader of many diverse voices and languages - he knew Scots, English, French and Latin - even though he never attended university. He was taught by a young Mr Murdoch, his father and was also self taught. He was also a great listener and reader and he learnt of the rights of everyman and the impact of rhythm and song.  He went on to write some of our best loved songs and poems.  

In 2015 a new exhibition at the British museum - "Celts; Arts and Identity" surprisingly claims the Celts have never existed. Well they exist in people's art, song and imagination. The exhibit claims the Celts were not a pure race and rather an 'idea'.  Perhaps all those outside the 'empire' and outside big Business?

Writing in the Sunday Times magazine, arts critic Waldemar Januszczak, claims that only in the mind do the Celts exist. What on earth can he mean by this? Does he mean that those in the Hebrides and in Ireland don’t have a separate and unique identity? It is all propaganda.

The Romans only mention those 'people' outside their walls as Gauls - of course Roman history is written from a Roman perspective.  What does this all mean?  Were the Romans or Vikings pure races? Centuries ago these races travelled and mixed with other races. 

Loch Ardinning

Britain’s stories of empire building are of the past. Some UK writers today over use the term ‘British’ – Britain only came into existence after the Union of the Parliament in 1707.  Do these people when aboard call themselves ‘British? Really” Do they not tell foreigners that they are English. I always call myself Scottish. I have little, If any idea of the stories, art or music that Britain stands for. There is a union flag and the songs of Empire building like Rule Britannia. I believe Empire building like the Romans, have had their day and are of the past – or I hope so. Empire building means someone has to pay a price.

I believe in a progressive, healthier future and one of the grassroots. The voices of respect for all and valuing our local stories and traditions.  We are shaped by our landscapes and I believe Scotland has a special and unique story to tell with it’s rough often wild landscapes and ever changing seasons.

Scotland was never ruled by Rome or the Normans and kept her clans and she has a very different story to tell than Ireland or England. Scotland has never been a part of England and never will be a region. no matter how much some Lords might wish it. 

Kilmartin Glen

Scotland has always been outward looking and had it's bridge of boats. We travelled by sea and most of our towns lie on the coast. ( just as also the Viking and Romans looked outward)

Scotland has for centuries had unique stories  - the kilt, bagpipes, golf, whisky, Clans, Burns song, mountain and heathers, wild weather…..Of course there are pipes worldwide – that doesn’t mean that the Scottish pipes don’t have a totally distinctive and unique sound to them.