Scotlands Many Voices

Thinking this over – it seems England views Scotland as a north region, like Yorkshire say – rather than a separate country that has centuries old entirely separate history, many ancient traditions and old Celtic ballads and a distinct culture. Before James VI left to become King of England, Scotland had its line of Scottish Kings, from King David and later the Stuart kings. It's really a question of - does Scotland's separate identity matter for the success of the country and for the UK too?

Scotland is one of the oldest countries in Europe. Scotland is also a land of many huge contrasts from the great imposing drama of the highlands; the misty heathers and fast running streams; the green and cultivated lands of the north east; the quiet beauties of St Andrews and Fife and the coastal walks; and the charm of the borders.  

Alasdair Moffat and Alan Raich in their book, Arts of Resistance write of the destruction of Scottish culture. 
“The wholesale reduction of a culture to tartan tourist clichés. Ian Crichton Smith evoked images of the white streams screaming through the moonlight of the Cullen’s – a permanent scream of protest against all the trivialization of our history that has been foisted upon us.”  

Keeping Scots Alive!; culture, words, art and Music

In the 18^th century after union of Parliament – many poets and others worked diligently to keep Scots and what the Scots believe in, alive...such as Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Robert Burns.

They felt it was vitally important.

In the 17^th century after Union of the Crowns, the Scottish royal court left Holyrood for London. This was good! It meant all the hangers on left too -  and meant the Thinkers and the Philosophers, were free to voice opinions! The Scottish Enlightenment led Europe. Many great Scottish thinkers left a huge mark on the world.

The poet Hugh MacDiarmid said in his Lost Interview, ""Lord [Harold] Acton, the historian, has said that no small nation in the history of the world has had a greater impact on mankind at large than the Scots have had. That influence flowed from the national character which is utterly different from the English. To analyze that national character is to discover the factors comprising our Scottish culture."

*Some Forgotten Scots Heroes – Thomas Muir, George Hamilton, James Clerk Maxwell, (Maxwell is the greatest physicist ever – and yet it was only in 2008 that a statue of him was unnveiled in Edinburgh. Odd really considering)

James Clerk Maxwell

*Scottish Artists – Arthur Melville, Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret MacDonald, Glasgow Boys, Henry Raeburn, 

*Great Scottish Poets – Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, James MacPherson, Robert Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid,

*Scottish Writers – Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Iain Banks,

Alasdair Gray, Irvine Welsh, Janice Gallowy, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Nan Sheperd, George MacDonald,

*Scottish Scientists  - James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, James Chrichton, Alexander Fleming, John Napier, John Leslie, Joseph Black, James Hutton, John Leslie, James Clerk Maxwell.

(I'm ashamed and saddened that growing up in Edinburgh I learned practically nothing of Scottish history, culture and the arts. I used to walk down the Royal Mile and wonder about all the history here... I am now teaching myself.

‘To be truly internationalism, we must first be nationalists.’ Hugh MacDiarmid.

The sky in Scotland changes with often rapid speed – when the wind gets up one moment and is suddenly still and clear the next. Then a sharp wind catches us as the skies darken and heavy clouds roll over and there will be a sudden heavy shower as we hurry for cover and wait for the weather to shift and for some warm rays to descend and we are grateful.

The dark and light of our weather.

 

Scottish Women Poets & Writers

 Over the centuries it is the women of Scotland who passed down the oral stories and folk ballads. Most histories were told in poem form.  There were Oral Folk Poets; Ballad singing and Song composition.  Here are a few Scottish Women Poets, we never hear of – strangely. I am certain there must be many more! 

When students study literature – it is the literature of men that is studied.  Many wonder – where are the women writers? 18^th century Scottish culture was transitional and interactive with regard to both oral and written literature.

**Poet Jenny Little

Little was born in 1759, the same year as Burns. She was also a servant to Mrs Dunlop, Burn’s patron. She was the daughter of a farm worker and as a servant to a local clergyman, she had received a good education. She developed a love of reading and became a local poet.  She wrote in both Scots and English as Burns did too. She even wrote an ‘Epistle to Mr Burns. ‘

Because of their class both Burns and Little struggled to be taken seriously. Burns was the ‘Heaven taught ploughman’ and Little was the ‘Scotch Milkmaid’ poet.  She came out with a Poetry Collection in 1792. She is studied in North American universities as significant in the study of 18^th century studies, while she is mostly untaught in Scotland.  She wrote of gender, class and nation.

**Lady Anne Bernard

She was from a noble family of Fife Scotland, born 1750 and wrote the well known ballad ‘Auld Robin Gray’. She lived in Georgian society during the Scottish enlightenment. To reward the nobility of Edinburgh a grand new town was built.

The Scottish aristocracy sold out. Her family were the Lindsay’s of Balcarres and these families carried the Union flag around the globe and helped to shape Britain’s empire. Her father said, “You were born after the Union, Scotland is no more and never likely to revive.”

Was it so great though? Of her 8 brothers, 4 entered the army and 2 went to sea and one joined the East India co. Three died in different corners of the world and a fourth spent years in a Mysore dungeon. Eventually Bernard moved to London, married at 42 and went to live in the Cape of Good Hope.

**Willa Ewina Muir

Willa was a writer and poet, born 1890 – 1970. She and her husband Edwin Muir were part of the Montrose Scottish Renaissance between the great Wars. The Muirs were part of the “restless intellectual group of writers and thinkers” in 1920-30s active during the Renaissance of Montrose along with the poet Hugh MacDiarmid.

Born Wilhemina Anderson in Montrose of Shetlandic parents (unlike her husband Edwin who did not attend secondary or higher education) Willa earned a 1st class degree in Classics from University of St Andrews in 1910. She taught languages before marrying Edwin 1919. For 40 years the couple travelled and worked in Europe before their five years at Newbattle, and went from there to Edwin’s post as Norton Professor of Literature at Harvard University in the United States.

Much of her work explores feminism, gender & the position of women of 1920-30s and is said to contain “perceptive comments of the patriarchal world she existed in”. There has been a recent re-evaluation of her published and unpublished work, including Aileen Christianson’s 2007 Moving in Circles: Willa Muir’s Writings. 1996 Imagined Selves: Willa Muir and many translations with her husband and under the pseudonym ‘Agnes Neill Scott’

Her publications include: Women: An Inquiry, Imagined Corners, Mrs Ritchie, Mrs Grundy in Scotland, Living with Ballads, Belonging

Is there A NEW Scottish Writers Museum

I saunter through the energy of the Fringe performers on the High Street. I walk along George street, on up the Mound and on down the high street.  I eat at  Bilbos on the corner of Chambers St.

I stopped in at the very small Scottish writers museum up a small winding stair in a hidden close at the top of the High street. There are exhibits to Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Walter Scott. Apart from a few Burns paintings and a display of the  Kilmarnock first Edition of his Poems - there is not a lot here.

I asked the lady there about a possible new museum. I said I had visited the Irish Writers museum which is housed in an impressive Georgian mansion and is 50 times bigger

There was talk of putting a decent size Scottish Writers museum beside the National library.

There are no modern authors or women writers or any of Scotland’s great philosophers of the enlightenment; Where is Robert Fergusson who wrote of Edinburgh and inspired Burns to write in Scots? Where is Adam Smith, David Hume, Allan Ramsay, Arthur Conan Doyle, Hugh MacDiarmid, James MacPherson or JM Barrie?

At an Irish concert at Celtic Connections I mentioned to an Irish lady beside me about the interesting Irish Writers Museum – she said perhaps there weren’t enough good Scottish writers!  I hope one day she might be proved wrong and we might have as Scottish Writers Museum that truly reflects not only this great city of Literature and  also the MANY great Scottish writers and artists.

In 1786 Scotland’s greatest poet – and one of the world’s greatest poets – made his way on a borrowed pony across the lowlands from Ayr and on into Edinburgh. At the time they were building the Georgian new town. He came in order to try to get the second edition of his poems published. He went to find the grave of the poet Robert Fergusson, who also wrote in both Scots and English. He stayed in a close near the castle and met many of the great and good of the capital – it was all a New World for him.

And where is any Edinburgh statue to Burns?

There is no a statue to Robert Burns, one of the greatest poets and songssmiths who ever lived in the centre of Edinburgh. I learnt recently there is a statue to Burns at the bottom of Leith walk, I used to pass every day only way to secondary school in Newhaven, near the Forth river. It really is a shocking state of affairs which makes me think Burns (while he tried) wasn’t considered unionist enough by the powers that be – not compared to the tall Gothic spire to Walter Scott in Princes street anyway. And A Mans a Man for A That as too egalitarian and feared by upper classes….. (votes for all was not until after WW1).

Famous authors Edinburgh Book festival 2016

Alan Cumming

Jonathan Dimbleby

Steve Beaumont

John Doyne

Vince Cable

Joanne Harris

Paul Mason

Paul Morley

I look forward each August in August to the place for contemplations, introspection, literary collaborations, thought-provoking conversation, famous faces, - the imaginative landscape that represent creative liberty and literature at the book festival. The stories we will hear, famous faces, new books. All the characters – Philosophers, individual free thinkers, dreamers, creative, artists, academics,

Some of the famous writers who gave talks this year at EIBF 2016.

Historical and cultural author Melvyn Bragg talked of  - that it is not language but our being able to ‘Imagine’ that makes us better – mostly IMAGINE BETTER.  The Book Festival is truly international with over 800 participants from 55 different countries coming together to share their books, ideas and stories.

Edinburgh Book festival 2016

Every year when I enter the white tents that encamp on the historic gardens of Edinburgh’s Charlotte’s Square beside the ever changing light on the Georgian town houses, and the Bute house, home to Scotland’s First Minister – I feel that anticipation of new ideas, poetry, music, comedy and more.  The stories we will hear, famous faces, new books. All the characters – Philosophers, individual free thinkers, dreamers, creative, artists, academics, The EIBF is a celebration of the written word and of creativity.

The Edinburgh Book festival offers a community of writers and readers  - a place to reflect and take time out from our frantic paced world. Around the Statue of Prince Albert people throng in the grassy centre – children play and others read and relax. There’s the gentle sound of walkers on the wooden walkways and the hum of anticipation voices.

Scotland has always been an outward looking, inclusive, open to new ideas, country. 

Thanks to all at the team – the hard work, the effort, the time put in,

I look forward each August to the place for contemplations, introspection, literary collaborations, thought-provoking conversation, famous faces, - the imaginative landscape that represent creative liberty and literature at the book festival.

Melvyn Bragg talked of  - that it is not language but our being able to ‘Imagine that makes us better'  – mostly IMAGINE BETTER.....

Alan Cumming

Jonathan Dimbleby

Joanne Harris

Paul Mason

DEBATES

Closing the Attainment gap. Sue Palmer's book, Upstart Scotland, which promotes Primary school starting at 6 and Kindergarten for 4 and 5 year olds. 
My thoughts on Closing Attainment Gap - http://yesforscotland.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/closing-attainment-gap.

UK Politics: Politics on the outer edges is thriving. Those echo chambers online. And good journalism. Will the politicians or the people win/ politicians have lost touch with the people.

*MUSIC at EIBF,

Wilco Johnstone, Billy Bragg, Roddie Woomble,

On the Saturday Unbound evening - Roddie Woomble and friends – which included Andrew Mitchell dynamic on bass, Siobhan Wilson’s beautiful voice and on cello, and also keyboards. I wish I had recorded this event, what an enjoyable, top class band! Well done to all. 

**BOOKS & TALKS –

Melvyn Bragg – Now's The Time

Alan Taylor - Glasgow, an Autobiography

Paul Mason – Post Capitalism

Ruby Wax – Mindfulness Guide For the Frazzled

Erica Jong – Fear of Dying

Laura Cumming - The Vanishing Man

Writers appearing at the 2016 Festival included:

Han Kang, Hisham Matar, Mervyn King, Malcolm Rifkind, Val McDermid, Eimear McBride, Chris Packham, Liz Lochhead, Kim Leine, Chimwemwe Undi, Sjón, A L Kennedy, Howard Jacobson, Gordon Brown, Alan Cumming, Can Xue, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Simon Callow, Shappi Khorsandi, Nina Stibbe, Wolfgang Bauer, Frank Gardner, Stuart MacBride, Irvine Welsh, Laura Bates, Janet Ellis, Lionel Shriver, Sarah Ardizzone, Gregor Fisher, Philippe Sands, Gillian Slovo, Kenny MacAskill, Sumayya Usmani, Sue Perkins, Tom Devine, Jessie Burton, Jem Lester, Kit de Waal, Arkady Ostrovsky, Ian Rankin, John Boyne, Ali Smith and many more…

The Book Festival is truly international with over 800 participants from 55 different countries coming together to share their books, ideas and stories.