The Saltire – St Andrews flag

Dates back to 832 AD as Europe oldest flag. The saltire is not a martial symbol of the crowned portcullis of Westminster but rather promotes the saltire as a welcoming symbol for all Scots - whether by birth, choice or family roots. 

 

The Battle of Athalstaneford, an army of Picts under Angus mac Fergus, King of Alba and aided by the King of Dalraida, Eochaidh, fought a large force of Angle Saxons led by Athelstane. King Angus led prayers and was rewarded by a dramatic appearance of a white saltire on a blue sky.

 

Since the war there has been renewed interest in Scots history, culture, and symbolism. Our past stories. 

On the AUOB marches thousands of saltires stream along our city streets. For me my identity as Scot is not only about sense of place or past stories, but about democracy. 

Flags can have many meanings.The Union Jack in the 60s was a symbol of Carnaby street and 60s modernity. What matters is the values that underpin our saltire and shaped by the Scottish people – and not our neighbouring country’s think tank. 

The 55th anniversary of the Saltire Memorial 

in 1963 the minster of Athalstaneford had a contact from a Reginwald Livingston who was recently back from India where the Saltire was raised and lowered each day. He was surprised there was no memorial to commemorate the Scottish flag.

 

He suggested steps for a Saltire memorial. The minister contacted the Earl of Wemyss and donations came worldwide, in 1965 the memorial was completed and unveiled by Lt. General George C Gordon Lennox, Scottish command the Scots guard and the first regiment to carry a saltire into battle. Plus a saltire heritage centre in a restored doocot.

 

*SCOTTISH FLAG TRUST – is looking for donations for fundraising restore the monument.  Website www.saltire.scot 

 

Guy Fawkes

AND who was Guy Fawkes and why do we in Scotland celebrate a failed attempt on another country’s parliament?  Why on earth does Scotland celebrate with fireworks and a bonfire an English plot to blow up its House of Lords in 1605 – this is before the Union of the Two Parliaments. James Stewart VI of Scotland became James I of England at the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

 

Our new Scotland should instead celebrate our St Andrews on 30^th November to remember all those great Scots who stood up for our nation. 

 

Sean Connery : Scots Hero

 

Sadly died. He was the best known Scot of recent times across the word as the most charismatic Bond.

He defined the role.

 

He was a true believer in Scottish independence and helped to campaign for the Scottish devolution vote in 1997.

For the restoration of our Scottish parliament he was the voice of the Pro-independence broadcasts. His involvement was a big boost for the SNP’s indy campaign.

Following Salmond’s election as party leader in 1990, Connery was the biggest force driving momentum. There was a Connery day when he scheduled a photo call with Gordon Brown on a boat flying a saltire in the Firth of Forth and headlined a cross party rally in the Old Royal High school – when he said – 

 

“The issue of self government went beyond any political party.” With 100 hours remaining he cautioned, “We don’t have much time.”

 

George Kerevan wrote, “Connery’s own time came to an end last Saturday but not before he made a lasting difference for Scotland.”

Perfect Light IONA

There is a stillness and purity of light, as if time has stood still here. We stood calmly in the suns bright midday rays – chatting and watching as the ferry to take us over the short crossing from Mull, come into view and gently dock at the pier. The gulls call overhead and the calm waters sparkle. We wait with expectant talk, and a woman tells us she has seen dolphins jumping around a boat.

 

We walk on sandy shores and sit a while to have lunch and watch and listen. Yes there are no overhead planes or cars. The colours are soft blues, turquoise and pale greens that blend perfectly together. We are glad we chose a sunny Sunday for our trip.

 

First we visit a well preserved Augustan nunnery that offered a calm sanctuary to abused women – estranged wives, illegitimate daughters, abused children.

 

Then we walk along the shores to the Iona abbey where early kings of Scotland are buried.

On Iona there is the ancient burial ground of early kings of Scotland and Norway. Iona abbey is the best preserved medieval Christian building from the middle ages.

St Colombia arrived from Ireland with 12 companions and brought Christianity here.

 

We pass a plaque that tells us about the visionary reformer who believed that belief is grounded in action. In the 1930s great depression the Reverend George MacLeod, saw the despair,  poverty and hopelessness around him in Glasgow and offered these men some hope and they came to help rebuild the ancient monastery and gave them a sense of self-worth and purpose. 

 

 

 

I sit on the grass to bask in the moment, to listen to my soul cry, to watch the sparkling waters, to hear the voices from the past tell their stories. Many Scots kings are buried on Iona, and also Labour leader John Smith. 

 

So much history here – Oaths were sworn on the black stone of Iona and is considered specially binding

When King James VI was working to suppress the powers of the clans, he held a great meeting of clan chiefs, when one agreement was that the Scottish chiefs sent their sons to be educated in England.

Maybe he thought he was uniting the country - which came at a great cost of many lives. 

 

The Iona community remains committed to issues of poverty, peace and social justice.

 

There are places that lift us up and renew us, if we allow the light to shine on. 

Many are pausing a while to reflect on their own shadow. 

We feel the centuries hold us a while, all the lost souls, forgotten hearts, searching travellers.

 

Hallowed ground. Purity of light – offering body and soul if we can only hear it. 

 

Some places offer magic light. 

 

 

Alexander Pope, ‘An honest man is the noble work of god.’

Singers Transatlantic Sessions

Jim Lauderdale

Julie Fowlis

Here are a few images of the top singers I’ve been privileged to take photos of, who have sung with the Transatlantic Sessions band at Celtic Connections music festival Glasgow over the past decade. Nothing much beats singing with such a quality band! 

Wonderful memories. 

 

https://www.celticconnections.com

John Paul White

Kris Drever

Cara Dillon

Sierra Hull

Eddi Reader

Karen Matheson

Rachel Sermanni

**Celtic Connections 2021 announced!

**Celtic Connections 2021 announces its first live digital festival from 15th January to 1^st February 2021

Offers a unique content online fro the very first time, hoping to reach an even wider audience with special collaborations and workshops.

 

Donald Shaw, artistic director on Folk nights Radio Two, spoke of his long time collaborations  with American Dirk Powell and of the ceilidh bands he grew up with on the Argyll peninsula. Shaw visited Powell when the Transatlantic Sessions played several concerts over in America a few years back. Shaw likes to soak up the ambience of any region and celebrate our differences and also for the festival to engage internationally.

 

Folk music is about the community and is inter-generational. The old plus the new.

Celtic Connections is Europe’s largest winter music festival – welcoming over 2K artists over 300 events. 2021 will be the festivals 28^th year with some of the biggest names in Scottish music scene and beyond. The full program will be announced in early December – with some fo the well-known and bets-loved acts that have graced the festival stages.

 

Roots music is always at the heart of the festival that unites with cultures and music world wide. The festival will focus on creating new digital content commissioned projects filmed over some fo Glasgow’s iconic venues. To support and encourage creative industries and to protect Scotland’s rich musical legacy. 

 

A number of international artists will be filmed remotely and added to the line up. Shows will be available for a week .

Funded by Glasgow Life, Creative Scotland and the Scottish government.

https://www.celticconnections.com

Scots – Jamaicans are the forgotten diaspora. Scotland and Jamaica

In 1656 Cromwell shipped 1,200 Scots prisoners of war to Jamaica. 

The Scots diaspora which is 28 to 40 million worldwide – share a common ethnic identity or community. Jamaican Scots are part of the Scots Diaspora. Many Scots left these shores in the 18^th century – the Covenanters, Jacobites and during the Highland Clearances. 

However according to Professor Tom Devine, Dr Eric Graham, Dr Stuart Nesbi. until the past twenty years 2000 – 2020, there had been no academic studies into Scotland’s part in empire and slavery 

In 1625 England had established a Barbados colony in (a British colony until 1966)  From 1790 – 1800 there were slave voyages with 1.5 million slaves on The Triangular trade to north America and West Indies, of Chattel slavery from the west coast Africa to the new world. Chattel slaves had no human rights and could be murdered. Slave forts were built on the west coast of Africa.

Scotland and Caribbean 1740: Scotland was a major trader from the slave plantations of tobacco, sugar and cotton. The sugar trade was a mainstay of Glasgow’s development for 200 years. However Scotland traded far fewer slaves: and around 3K slaves went on 31 Scots ships over a 60 year period.  

Glasgow was the centre of the Tobacco trade. The Tobacco Lords were Scotland’s richest men and built magnificent townhouses in the merchant city. Scotland was a poor country 1690s but by 1850 it was a leading industrial nation. Sugar was traded for 200 years: with sugar houses in Glasgow from 1667. India remained mostly with the English east India Co until 1801. After the loss of the American colonies in 1775 there was renewed focus in the West Indies trade.

1711 – 1763 Scots plantations Jamaica.

From 1750 – 1800, over 20 thousand Scots left to seek fortunes in the Caribbean  as doctors, lawyers, merchants, plantation owners, bookkeepers, slave traders and overseers - mostly to Jamaica. Scots originally surveyed Jamaica and set boundaries of slave plantations. Many Jamaican place names are Scots and are descended from Scots. In 1774 Edward Long estimated that a third of the white population was Scots. Port Glasgow and Greenock records don’t reveal a great deal.

In Jamaica today there are many Scots surnames – Campbell, Douglas, Reid, McKenzie, MacDonald, McFarlane, grant, Gordon. Glasgow, Argyle, Dundee, Fort William, Montrose, St. Andrews. Of the names in Greater Kingston a quarter are Scottish.

Naomi Campbell

The Scottish Enlightenment figures helped to achieve the Abolition of Slavery abolished 1838. Scotland has a very mixed history: with the tobacco and sugar trade many in Glasgow and Edinburgh became rich, but in the 18th century many ordinary Scots suffered under the wars with America and France. Jamaica became independent in 1962.

In 2009 the Homecoming Scotland  which was a celebration of Scots culture and heritage, organised by Event Scotland and Visit Scotland (funded EU) 3m program, 2m marketing. Shockingly in the Booklet mentions of the Jamaican Diaspora were taken out by the then Labour Scottish government. I remember the major event called the Gathering and I attended one of its main events with a march up the high street by the clans and a tattoo at the castle. We photographers had to run ahead up the Royal mile. Photos below from this occasion. 

Homecoming Scotland 2009

Many Scottish Independence supporters prefer to be known as Democrats. We must acknowledge our nationalism as international, forward-looking and progressive. One way is by acknowledging the Caribbean, as Devine mentions, as being a large part of the Scots history and the Jamaican Scots diaspora a part of our history which has been ignored until recently. Time to change that. 

Nationalism is about our connections, those threads that lead us to know our own voice, and in doing so, better understand ‘otherness.’  We can send voices of light, hope and possibilities around the world. As the poet Hugh MacDermid put it, we must be both international and national: today there’s an urgent need for empathy and to think local. 

Scots have long been great explorers, travellers and innovators. We live in a time when Teutonic plates are shifting and its more important than ever we question, challenge and seek truth, hope and belief in the human spirit. Against selfishness, greed, arrogance and ignorance. Seek informed voices.

Which brings me to unity, equality, openness and internationalism for a new Scotland. Last century Scotland strove to shake off the chains of colonialism and its now time to move on from the sentiments of fighting back in our national song, and to express the new future we all hope to build of an open, fair, inclusive and more equal nation that is so well expressed and hoped for by our great and much loved national bard Robert Burns in his song, Auld Lang Syne – yes its coming yet for a that. 

MUSIC 2020

 

Christine and the Queens – what style, musicality and joy. Young French singer, who combines melody and funky dance beats. 

 

Bob Dylan’s new album – Rough and Rowdy Ways. His first album of original composition since 

 

Blue Rose Code – New Album - Healing of the Deepest Kind

 

Bandcamp Fridays – when you can contribute all your money to the artists you support.

 

Top 100 albums Rolling Stones

 Includes 

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

Marvin Gaye – what’s going on Joni Mitchell - Blue

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

**Celtic Connections 2021 announces its first live digital festival from 15th January to 1^st February 2021

Offers a unique content online fro the very first time, hoping to reach an even wider audience. With special collaboration and workshops. Folk music is about the community and is inter-generational. The old plus the new.

Celtic connections is Europe’s largest winter music festival – welcoming over 2K artists over 300 events. 2021 will be the festivals 28^th year.- with some of the biggest names in Scottish music scene and beyond. The full program will be announced in early December – with some fo the well-known and bets-loved acts that have graced the festival stages.

 

Roots music is always at the heart of the festival that unites with cultures and music world wide. The festival will focus on creating new digital content commissioned projects filmed over some fo Glasgow’s iconic venues. To support and encourage creative industries and to protect Scotland’s rich musical legacy. 

A number of international artists will be filmed remotely and added to the line up. Shows will be available for a week .

Funded by Glasgow life, creative Scotland and the Scottish government. https://www.celticconnections.com

 

 

We continue to enjoy the entirety and story of the album.

The album, as musician Pat Kane writes – “can contain express and captures a whole imaginary world or a rich slice of their era – and sometimes they can do both at the same time. “

 

Burning the Books

Burning the Books: A history of knowledge under attack by Richard Ovenden 

 

Ovenden writes of the importance of knowledge and creative thought. 

 

The Benedictine monks of Canterbury preserved the writing of the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Ovid, Soppho – “most were destroyed by that fat oaf Henry VIII – the manuscripts were sold off to local grocers to wrap their wares.”

 

“But all too often civilization, with its many book and competing ideas, has presented a feeble self-doubt in the face of marching fanaticism. A reading culture is multiple, full of competing viewpoints. The fanatic surveys the world with a monochrome simplicity, and before advancing to burning people, always begins with books, statures and memory.”

 

The great library of the ancient world at Alexandria, with thousands of scrolls. Many were lost in a fire during Caesars’ campaign and destroyed by religious extremists – both Christian and early Muslims, who despised other narratives. Legend says the scrolls were used to heat the 4,500 baths of Alexandria’s lasted 6 months. 

 

Today we have control by tech companies – “the worlds memory has now been outsourced to these companies without society realising the fact or really being able to comprehend the consequences.”

Rather than enforcement, the better way is through education and teaching philosophy. Knowledge is the key. So is freedom of speech. Now we have speech censorship and safe spaces in universities. We must beware censorship, while also hate speech must not be allowed. We must beware the blind and ignorant fanatic. 

 

I believe change can’t occur on the grand scale – but rather with those small ripples we send out on the small scale. Its about changing the system too and having a government used to working in a consensual way and collaborating – and not as the UK government with its 2 man show used to pushing their weight around. 

 

As the caliph Omar said, with impeccable logic, “If these books of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed.”

There is the awful image of the young German students burning books in Berlins Unter den Linden in 1933, with Goebbels boasting about ‘wanting to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past.’ We must beware censorship.

 

Knowledge and philosophy, libraries, bookshops and education are the key to a better future.

Stalin had a philosophy steamer expel all the creative thinkers and artists. Because independent, creative art and thought is a threat to dictators everywhere. Scarily we also have the rise of fierce extremists’ echo chambers and thought police on social media and big Tech platforms. There is so much out there – we must check who are sources actually are.

 

Ovenden is head librarian at the Bodleian oxford and devoted to the preservation of books – a key tool in the defence of open societies. 

 

Fanatics burn knowledge