I've been fairly quiet of late on the old blawg. Reason being I'm still sitting back and guffawing at the way that the 'No' vote are building their campaign for the Independence referendum. So far they've been entirely predictable, and to use a crude metaphor, have shot their load far too early. The weeks since the Tartan Overlord rewrote the face of Scottish electoral history, have seen commentators, mostly from the South, wake up to the reality that everything has changed and they are utterly impotent to do anything about it, other than pick up the baton of fear which they'll monger to the maximum for the next three years. Every inaccuracy they've mustered has been spat out, the pro-Independence movement have three years to inform and educate those who would believe the opponents of self determination.
This past weekend we've seen supposed differences of opinion on the fiscal probity of an Independent Scotland and today the frankly dribbling assertion from a nuclear consultant that Scotland faces a forty year period without any puff to drive our wind turbines. No doubt Kite manufacturers will have been leaping off cliffs at this bombshell. I fully expect another crank headline in the Hootsman telling us that our tides have turned and Scotland has now developed the ability to repel all forms of natural energy...
Anyhoo, I attended the 75th Saltire Society celebration up in Glasgow on Saturday (if you're not a member get clicking www.saltiresociety.org.uk) and found a body of mostly elderly (some of whom may have attended the inaugural meeting in 1936) amazing academics, enthusiasts, performers, poets, singers, musicians and digital day gurus, who promote and celebrate this wee bit of land we call home. I left with a further understanding that the struggle for Scotland's right to self determination has been going on for far longer than my own involvement. It's easy to dismiss what's gone before, but the old adage about standing on the shoulders of giants truly rings true. The SNP victory earlier this month was built on the hard work, goodwill and generosity of the likes of those Saltire Society members who see Scotland as something more than a surly peninsula of Northern England.
So by way of a circuitous digression let me take you back in time, to a photograph...in fact two photographs (thank you photoshop) that I took nearly twenty years ago, that encouraged me to become better educated about my countries history and people and reverse that Scottish school education which served up a succession of English Kings and Queens.
December 12th 1992 was a strange day in world history.
This past weekend we've seen supposed differences of opinion on the fiscal probity of an Independent Scotland and today the frankly dribbling assertion from a nuclear consultant that Scotland faces a forty year period without any puff to drive our wind turbines. No doubt Kite manufacturers will have been leaping off cliffs at this bombshell. I fully expect another crank headline in the Hootsman telling us that our tides have turned and Scotland has now developed the ability to repel all forms of natural energy...
Anyhoo, I attended the 75th Saltire Society celebration up in Glasgow on Saturday (if you're not a member get clicking www.saltiresociety.org.uk) and found a body of mostly elderly (some of whom may have attended the inaugural meeting in 1936) amazing academics, enthusiasts, performers, poets, singers, musicians and digital day gurus, who promote and celebrate this wee bit of land we call home. I left with a further understanding that the struggle for Scotland's right to self determination has been going on for far longer than my own involvement. It's easy to dismiss what's gone before, but the old adage about standing on the shoulders of giants truly rings true. The SNP victory earlier this month was built on the hard work, goodwill and generosity of the likes of those Saltire Society members who see Scotland as something more than a surly peninsula of Northern England.
So by way of a circuitous digression let me take you back in time, to a photograph...in fact two photographs (thank you photoshop) that I took nearly twenty years ago, that encouraged me to become better educated about my countries history and people and reverse that Scottish school education which served up a succession of English Kings and Queens.
December 12th 1992 was a strange day in world history.
Whitney Houston was still keeping dogs awake with her third week at the top of the poptastic charts with 'I Will Always Love You'. One of those little known natural catastrophes, namely a tsunami, had occurred off the coast of Indonesia, wiping out 3000 lives and 18,000 homes on the Flores Islands in a matter of five minutes. Nobody seemed to understand -- or care.
The tabloids were up to their Monarchist best with some full scale deflection in their coverage of the Royal Wedding between Princess Anne and Commander Tim Lawrence, who chose to get married at Crathie Church near Balmoral. After a year that had seen theRoyal Princes' Charles and Andrew separate from their respective spouses. This latest Royal Wedding was seen as an attempt at stability and mass hypnosis.
Edinburgh was playing at being all grown up and important as the host to the the European Council and the President of the European Parliament. The delightful European top notch leaders condescended to visit Auld Reekie, to visit the castle, drink whisky, ogle our wummin and debate Denmark's rejection of the Maastricht Treaty and find a way of agreeing to their having certain exceptions before the Danes could have a second Referendum.
The genial host, was none other than the original Grey man. Prime Minister John Major, who said of his trip to North. "May I begin by expressing my thanks to the people of Edinburgh for the very warm welcome we have had and the excellent way in which we have been cared for throughout the last two days."
Admit it, as you read that quote, mentally you were doing it with that horribly strangulated voice that Spitting Image used to lampoon the man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant.
What John Major, failed to notice, a mere eight months after he'd unexpectedly defeated favourite Neil Kinnock's Labour Party at the 1992 General Election. Was that the natives in Scotland were revolting.
General Election map 1992
Labour in Scotland had garnered 1,142,911 votes, the Scottish Tories 751,950 the SNP came third with 629,564 and the Lib Dems a distant 4th with just 383,856 votes. Which oddly enough returned them 9 MPs. The Tories had 11, Labour 49 and the SNP a grand total of 3. So a total of 72 constituency seats in Scotland saw Labour win 49 of them. The feeble fifty were reduced by one MP when Frank Doran lost Aberdeeen South to youthful Tory Raymond Robertson. The SNP lost the admirable Dick Douglas, the former Labour MP for Dunfermline West, who had resigned the Labour whip and defected to the SNP in 1990. Dick had stood up to Labour over their simpering approach to combating the introduction of the Poll Tax. At the General Election he took the fight to Donald Dewars Garscadden constituency and took a sizeable 5500 chunk out of Dewars majority.
For many Scots, the final nail in the 'Fighting Fifty's' coffin was the whimpering demise of the Ravenscraig steel works, which at its peak had employed 13,500 workers. It was closed by the British Steel Corporation in 1992 and the remaining 1,200 employees were made redundant. Industrial Scotland was well and truly deid.
Yet 1992 should have been a year of optimism, earlier that Summer, we had witnessed one of the most successful Olympic Games of modern history, with the games taking part in Barcelona, capital of that most autonomous of Spanish 'regions' Catalunya. These games were littered with firsts. The first unified team from Germany since 1964. Post-apartheid South Africa were allowed to participate for the first time since being banished in 1960. The biggest group of new entries came from those previously little known satellite states that managed to break free from the oppression and might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the former Yugoslavia. Across Europe small, newly free nations were celebrating their new found freedom and expression. Scotland's hopes after the election faded like Liz McGolgan's hopes of Gold in the oppressive heat of the Women's 10,000 metres final.
So, whilst Major was saluting the civic leaders of Edinburgh for putting on a tasty spread, some Scottish punters were dusting down their saltires, downing a fly nip and taking to the streets of Edinburgh for a wee wander to the Meadows for the then newish body going by the all encompassing name of Scotland United.
A motley crew of between 25,000 and 30,000 ironed their stonewashed 501's, plugged in their walkmans, spruced up their mullets and descended on the streets of Edinburgh to make a lot of noise, so that Mr Major might attune his ears to the local accent...
Fast forward the best part of two decades, and Scotland again faces the same situation. Do we continue to blunder along tagged on as an afterthought to England, hoping that an incompetent Westminster will turn its attention to our own part of the world and change our lives for the better, or do we trust in the ability of those Scots and those who choose to come her that we can make things better, that we don't need to go down the path of the diaspora heroes who left for pastures new, to find a place to realise their ambitions and hopes?
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