SONGS make a Nation

The Proclaimers

And the poetry and art. Since the 60s Scots have been singing in their own Scots and Gaelic voices – first with Flower of Scotland on the football terraces, the resurgence of Scots folk protest songs such as Hamish Henderson’s Freedom Come All Ye and then with the Proclaimers songs. 

We might ask who is writing new songs for the union?

 

“Now everyone sings Scottish songs and if I were a unionist politician of whatever party, but especially the Labour party, I would be counting the songs, have a habit of making the laws also.” Ian Hamilton wrote. 

 

Since the 60s and 70s, the resurgence of Scots voices, culture and arts have had more impact on our hearts and minds - than the often hollow and ignorant political chat. Early in 1970s Edinburgh, traditional folk songs were flourishing around the folk clubs, bars and folk festivals – Girvan, Ayr, Arran, Sandy Bells and many more. 

Before this I had mainly listened to music on recorded albums, so the live local music scene was a revelation for me, with its foot-stomping fiddles, the strumming banjos, guitar and bohran, the perfect unaccompanied singers, and the traditional Scots ballads. 

 

The impact of the Proclaimers first tv appearance on channel Four’s music program the Tube – when they performed Letter to American in strong Scottish accent was immediate. They combined folk and punk music. Then we also have dougie macLleans powerful Caledonia and David Steele's Scotland Yet.

 

As attitudes towards the British empire changed after the war, in the mid 1960s at the men’s football game they started to boo and agitate and to sing their own songs as the band played the national anthem, God Save the Queen. In 1966-67 fans started to sing Flower of Scotland – and eventually authorities recognised this and dropped the UK National Anthem for Scotland.

 

The Corries

Ian Hamilton, who along with other student stole the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey, wrote -

“Nobody sang in Scotland in the ­middle part of the century. To be more correct, those who sang did not derive their songs from Scotland. Their sources were ­foreign and what they sang was only an alien copy of other people’s ways of life.”    He saw a very different Scotland in the early 1990s compared to the past: “Now everyone sings Scottish songs, and if I were a Unionist politician of whatever party, but especially of the Labour ­Party, I would be counting the songs, rather than the votes. The people who make the songs of a country have a habit of making the laws also.”

Perhaps that is a little too romantic for some but it contains a kernel of truth. What we sing and who sings says something about who we see ourselves as ­being and how we stake our claim in the world. Maybe in his heart, Ally McCoist knows this too.

Extracted The Songs We Sing, Gerry Hassan, The Sunday National 17^th September 202 - 

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23794397.gerry-hassan-god-save-king-flower-scotland-unites-us/

 

 

Images Scotia from Enlightenment to Kailyard

Journalists, historians and fake historians novelists have written of Scotland’s victimhood and of the false romantic myth-making of the Kailyard school of writing.Tom Devine is highly critical of the John Prebble books ( Glencoe, Culloden,  Highland Clearances) which are often on display by the National Trust for Scotland at key historical sites such as Culloden, Burns Alloway cottage, Edinburgh castle and more.

Journalist Lesley Riddoch writes, “Scots ignore what’s truly distinctive and successful about their culture, hero worship the very long dead (Wallace and Bruce) skip the interviewing period and despair about the future.”

 

Visit Scotland, who are set up to promote Scottish tourism, recently displayed on its website neon images by artist Professor Ross Sinclair, which were shown at the Glasgow gallery of modern art (GoMA) 2015 and 2016. The one sign objected to stated, “We love the highland clearances” We love Bonnie Prince Charlie”

Charles Edward Stuart

All the romantic myth-making, famously by Walter Scott, was to portray a Scotland that is gone and lost forever1800s. According to political theorist Tom Nairn, while the rest of Europe was pursuing nationalism 1800s, as a way for the bourgeoisie to encourage the workers of their nation to rise up against the “Uneven nature of capitalism.” Only Scotland was left behind and totally missed this upsurge, as Scotland after union had already transformed early 1700s after union. From a backward feudal nation to a progressive enlightenment (the Scottish enlightenment late 1700s). I paraphrase here Nairn’s highly readable academic work The Break up of Britain.

 

There is this split personality of Scotland’s that shows today in the 50/50 spilt over Scotland independent future. The Sinclair images are shocking and continue to promote this backward risk adverse Scotland and this false cringe and victimhood. 

 

Where is the pride?

Where is the real authentic Scotland? Where is the Scotland we have all forgotten?

The heart often rules the head when we decide who to support. 

 

The controversial painting Monarch of the Glen, a majestic stag surrounded by en empty glen, devoid of people and trees, provoked debate on what Scotland’s lands became, after Queen Victoria set up her holiday home at Balmoral estate. The Tory Scotland or the Jacobite myths and Jacobin reformers. The founding father of democracy and equal rights. 

 

Or the scientific achievements; the Scottish enlightenment; Robert Burns songs of shared humanity or Walter Scott’s myth-making Scotland; Scotland as traders and seafarers. 

A Canon of Scottish literature

 

Scottish literature over long eras has been neglected or deliberately obscured,  so securing its place in the firmament is a kind of redress, a reclamation. “ Alan Riach

Language expresses who we are, 

A canon is a form of cultural empowerment, “any canon of Scottish literature is a form of cultural reclamation, a resistance to the canonical weight of English, or Anglo-American, or Anglophile literatures in English, what used to be called commonwealth literature.”

Lewis Grassic Gibbons

RL Stevenson

Galt, Gibbon, Mackay Brown, Oliphant, Spark, Janice Galloway, AL Kennedy, Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, Scott, RL Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Irvine Welsh, JM Barrie,…..Celtic folklore, ghost stories, landscapes of Highlands, western isles, rich histories of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Over the 1700s many poets worked to reclaim and keep alive Scots voices and ballads, - Allan Ramsey, Robert Burns, Robert Fergusson.  

**In 1800s, Privy Council in Westminster, created the Scottish Education Department, to teach English (to replace the Church of Scotland, who taught Scots and Gaelic). The plan was cultural change. At that time Scots spoke Scots or Gaelic or both.  

In 1911, the Scottish Education Department moved to Edinburgh. English was then used to deliberately destroy Scots culture and to eradicate “Scottishness.” In 1950s Gaelic teaching was stopped, - and only English was taught. In some counties of Scotland today most English teachers are non-Scots. 

 

Scots should be taught in schools as a second language – to protect our history and culture. In the EU children are taught their own language and English as the language of western international business. 

 

The importance of Scottish literature

WHY has Scottish literature not been explored as confidently as other literatures. 

“The subject needs to be more widely known and discussed with more confidence and curiosity.... There has been work since 1980s, and more needs to be done." Alan Riach 

 

At college down Edinburgh Royal mile, I studied French author Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and American poet Sylvia Plath, when I specialized in English, at school I studied Chaucer, Shakespeare, and novels Catch 22, English novelist Jane Austen. The union 1707 was basically an elite project begun under James VI – to incorporate Scottish history, literature and religion into the English system. Many rebelled – poets Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns), Covenanters, academics. Holyrood must protect Scots literature and Scots language, so its taught in schools alongside English.  

 

All this began with the elite project under James VI, at a meeting of clan chiefs on Iona, when it was agreed that every eldest son would be educated in England. 

 

Robert Fergusson

**BOOKS

Why Scottish literature matters? Professor Carla Sussi

 

SCOTTISH LITERATURE – from poets

And scholars such as George Buchannan, who wrote of democracy for all. 

American founding father – John Witherspoon, 

Our great Bard Robert Burns, Scots authors - 

And todays many acclaimed Scots academics, authors, artists, musicians and innovators. Scots literature and Scots voices do matter and have unique contributions to make.  Alongside scientific discoveries and one of the world\s first surgeons and medical schools. 

 

Douglas Stuart

**SCOTS Booker Prize winners

 

Disgracefully as usual in a Time article there is no mention of Scotland’s recent Booker prize winners. The Scottish literary scene boasts several Booker prize winners – 2020 Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, 1994 James Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late. 

Plus Booker shortlisted authors – Ali Smith, Andrew O’Hagan, AL Kennedy, Graham McCrea Burnett, Muriel Spark. World famous Scots novelists of modern times include –Iain Banks, Val McDermid, Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh, Liz Lochhead, Alan Bisset, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Alexander McColl Smith, Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, William McIlcanney, Maggie O’Farrell, 

 

Famous Scots writers of the past – Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Boswell, John Barbour, Adam Smith. 

 

Hackett quotes Irish writer Magee, “The English may be too comfortable to write great novels.”  

At least six times in her article she labels ‘Britain/ England’ as one and the same, the England label can never include Scots or the Welsh and we’ll never regard Britain as England as our cultural or historic home, even though so many Scots remain in ignorance of Scotland’s rich histories of which we might be proud. Its time Londoners woke up to this reality. 

Our creative stories, arts and music are intrinsic to our shared voices and view of self.

 

Perhaps creative thinkers either can’t afford or don’t want to be in London. In ‘Britain/ England’ mind-set little exists outside of London. In the 80s London boasted a thriving literary scene around Soho. But today’s London is dominated in its skyline by foreign oligarchs empty high-rises, populist musicals, global chain outlets and over priced art. 

 

 

**BOOKS

Anthology of Scottish stories – Gerard Caruthers

Scottish literature, an introduction – Alan Riach.

The Fair Botanist – Sara Sheridan

 

Scottish Pastoral: Robert Burns and British Romanticism – 

Edinburgh Festivals 2023!

 

Warm and muggy today. There’s a long queue at the Jazz Bar, for a Joni Mitchell tribute. I’m at Biblos restaurant at the corner of Chambers st – another year, I’m not sure I am any wiser though. Biblos has its own music playlist and is off the main beaten tourist track. 

 

Climate emergency. A letter suggests it should be the scientists who need to be in charge and not hedge fund managemers. Can we keep our planet safe, for our children and grandchildren? Can we have hope? We are running out of time now…. The most urgent issue of our times. And some, even with all the wild fires and floods, still don’t take it seriously. 

 

Where Do We Go From here?

 

It’s good to be back on the high street to savour the excited buzz, the expectant crowds…. There are the handsome young men in kilts, bemused Koreans, retired Edinburgh residents, excited tourists and young families, lively students and the outlandish performers. 

 

First day I enjoyed a walk around the Scottish Portrait galleries - in the central atrium Robert Burns statue enjoys pride of place. There’s also a bust of Elsie Inglis. Here there are contemporary portraits, as well as the historical portraits on the top floor (Jacobites, Stuarts, Hanoverians) all tell of the varied and rich histories of Scotland. Later I recharged my phone at the central Library & enjoyed the High st.

Edinburgh festivals suffered during Covid and ticket sales have inevitably fallen. But this year things are more back to normal. 

Public funding for the festivals is 11m.

For the cycling world championships, 36m. 

 

There are small gems to be found – classical music concerts at St Andrews church George st or at the Scottish Portrait galleries. Alongside the renowned cultural events sits the gaudy, tacky side – overdone, raucously wild. And the unexpected comedy. 

At Edinburgh International book festival, #edbookfest23

now at the Edinburgh Art College location for its third year there. Since the lockdown years things are now more back to normal. I went to talks with the poet Don Paterson, autobiography Toy Fights; novelist Denise Mina, book Three Fires on Florence culture wars and the bonfire of the vanities;  

 

And a lively political talk on Scotland’s future - Moving Forward:  with Kezia Dugdale  Lesley Riddoch and Ruth Wishart. If we agree on the destination, how can we then agree on the road to reach it?  We must find a middle ground – otherwise we in Scotland are stuck. Riddoch’s new book Thrive – asks what is the road, now its ONLY about the road (currency, borders etc) and not the destination or our common bonds; while Wishart provided excellent sound bites and humour on these critical issues. 

EIBF is a good place to recharge batteries, consider reflections. 

 

“I can’t think of anywhere in the world that is more full of belief and joy than Edinburgh at this time.”  Andrew O’Hagan

 

Jokha Alharthi1

Kamila Shamsie

Alexander Moffat & Alan Riach 

Main Venues – Pleasance, Assembly Rooms, Gilded Balloon, Traverse, 

 

The fringe festival programme held more than 3,000 shows, in 288 venues hosting a diverse selection of work from Scotland, the UK and worldwide. Artists, arts industry representatives, media and audiences from 170 countries and with 2,445,609 tickets issued. The themes and issues tackled by artists in the 2023 programme included mental health and wellbeing, disability, queer lives, working-class representation and the climate crisis. Affordability was a big issue, with sky-high hotel prices,