On the Scotch and North British

I’m going through a funny phase of life just now. It’s my birthday next week and I’ll be half way near enough between the ages my mother and father died. I’ve also found out I may have a wee heart problem.

That would naturally put me into a reflective mood anyway but the prospect of war with Iran, the financial debacle world wide and the Scottish referendum give one a wider context in which to ponder.

Cards on the table time. I WILL vote YES for an independent Scotland. I don’t have to think about that, even though I have.

I am a Scot. Bald statement, not a lot of detail and so what?

What does that mean? Well I was born here and have lived in Scotland all my life. That isn’t even the surface of the story though. For me being a Scot isn’t just a statement it is a way of being. Scot ergo sum basically. It is visceral, elemental, metaphysical and rooted so deeply it is integral to my being.

I imagine many other people feel the same way about their country, though from first hand experience I can only say the Belgians do, as I’m married to one.

The thing is though, if you saw me you would think “archetype”. Big with what used to be a bushy red beard now much more white. You would probably think “that explains it” but it doesn’t. We come in all shapes sizes and colours. Skin tone and descent don’t seem to matter anything like as much as instinct and thought pattern, and I have no idea why.

We are a small wind blasted country on the north west edge of Europe with basically crap weather and midges. If you think that statement is funny I challenge you to go to the West Highlands on a still summer evening and find out what hell is actually like.

You won’t laugh for long.

We have been oppressed and sold out by our own, as well as the neighbours, for centuries. And yet, we’ve kept our languages despite that. We’ve kept our national identity. We’ve kept the sense of not being the same.

We’ve been subjected to stereotype so many times it gets positively embarrassing. Braveheart might have been a good film but it wasn’t actually historically accurate. Harry Lauder was a deliberate character designed to make money and don’t get me started on Brigadoon!

Nowadays we are stereotyped as bigoted football fanatics. Yes there are some but from a population of 5 million, not that many.

This is despite the endless promotion of the idea through TV and radio. It seems to take no account of the fact that there are 35 million Scots born in the world today. We are a nation that got off our backsides and went out there to work. There is a long tradition of education then emigration for a better life.

One of the saddest parts of our story is that we also suffered ethnic cleansing and not that long ago. My great grandfather was cleared from Skye. His father is named on the Battle of the Braes monument in Glendale. That’s pretty damned close in real terms.

If you’ve never heard of any of that, it’s no surprise. It isn’t taught much though it should be. Even worse, there is a statue above Golspie to the first Duke of Sutherland who started the clearances to provide grazing for sheep.

PG Wodehouse said “ it is not difficult to differentiate between a ray of sunshine ad a Scotchman with a grudge”.

Well that is true but what I’ve just written isn’t meant as a moan. Rather it sets a backdrop against which we can list the good things. We produced poets of the stature of Burns and Sorley Maclean. Authors like Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Music of a complexity and beauty to take your breath away.

My family will roll their eyes but I learned English in school. I still think and react in Scots. Both Scots and Gaelic are still spoken and read.  Indeed, on one occasion visiting a relative in a Glasgow hospital I was asked by a nurse which language we had been speaking, the Scots was so broad.

There is a 700 year tradition of literacy and literature. Hamish Henderson dedicated his life to collecting and saving the songs of the people. The interest in this is starting to grow, especially among the children. The pride being demonstrated isn’t hollow. It’s backed by substance.

And now the referendum beckons. We have to decide if we as a people have the balls to take control of our own nation and take responsibility for the future.

When the parliaments combined in 1707, we were sold out to a promise of wealth and the glitter of a superior culture. We found out the hard way it wasn’t superior at all and wealth, as always, stayed with the wealthy.

That might have stayed true now with the City and American culture but again both in recent times have proved hollow and on shallow foundations.

We now have, as Nicola Sturgeon recently said, the means to provide a better future for our nation. I have no doubts we will make mistakes. I have no doubt we will get things wrong. Every country does. But they will be OUR mistakes. It will be US getting it wrong.

Do not be fooled by the London set. All the party leaders base their policies on what suits the City. Tory and Lib Dem would gladly see the back of us if England had secure water and oil. Labour know without Scotland it is unlikely they would gain power in England.  They have their own agendas and I suggest the wellbeing of the Scots doesn’t rank high on their priority list.

When you hear the bullshit and bluster, remember that is all it is.

Many people will write many things before the vote takes place, probably me too.

All I can urge is, before you vote, think it through. Don’t vote on your gut, and don’t vote along prescribed party lines. Vote for what you see as the best future for your children and grandchildren.

We have ONE chance just ONE CHANCE for freedom and if we do not take it I fear for our very existence as a people.