Scots Wa Hae Over Scots Wa-Hey.

I’m Scottish. I was born in a seaside town and raised for the most part in another close by on the banks of the River Clyde and known for its shipbuilding. My parents and their families are all from Scotland, most from the west coast but some from the Borders and great grandparents who hail from Yorkshire and Spain. My partner is from Glasgow and our daughter was born here. I have always lived in either Clydebank or Glasgow, apart from 3 years spent in a wee village in the Lothians (I can still hear the banjos a-strummin’!)
I feel that there is a lot to be proud of in being Scottish. I think that the hard-bitten, weather beaten and doggedly determined character that we Scots have makes us a very specific kind of people – hard-working, innovative, darkly humorous and with a grace in defeat which certainly comes handy for our sportsmen and women.
Sure, there are some very bad things about us. We have a terrible tendency towards excess especially where there is alcohol involved and we also veer towards unforgivable fighting and violence, most often towards those we should be protecting i.e. our families and friends but also historically at the forefront of colonialism. Grinding other cultures under our heels and enslaving and trading other human beings made the fortunes of our great cities. We can sometimes be a bit too subservient and “fore-lock tugging” towards others we see as our “betters” while at the polar opposite being fierce defenders of justice and the cause of the individual. We can sometimes be a wee bit smart for our own good, doggedly pursuing pointless endeavours rather than admitting we are wrong. And sadly we have atrocious records in terms of health, deprivation, illness, early death and other societal ills.
At the moment however and certainly in political terms there is a great deal in our favour. We have always been a people with a strong working class ethic who certainly lean far more left than centre and solidly reject the Conservatism that has its hold again down south. We have a system that allows free prescriptions to all, free tuition to all young people (and not the so young) heading into further and higher education and we provide free care to our elderly in their declining years. As an Anarchist, I see no country and cannot support independence but can weigh its attractions in making us more locally centred and less of a part of the bigger hole that Cameron and his ilk have the united “kingdoms” racing toward.
It’s a land of great beauty in its rolling hills and glens, it’s stark and majestic mountains, fast flowing rivers and rugged coastline. Where else can you move from driving rain and howling wind to rainbows and sunshine in the space of a few hours?
We have a heritage of and are home to great artists, innovators, scientists, musicians, actors, writers and comedians who are loved and celebrated the world over.
So why oh why oh why is the image of one particular kind of Scot endemic? I am talking about a man in a kilt. This was prompted by yet another discussion between myself in one corner and others who find such an image so very, very sexy. Sexy? Are you kidding? The modern kilt as worn by the likes of Ewan “Paedo Polanski Pal” McGregor
and just about every bloody husband-to-be and his gaggle of groomsmen (and pretty much every other man in the wedding party it seems) who think that donning what is little more than a woman’s skirt suddenly makes you attractive. No, it makes you look like a man in a dress, more Moira Anderson than Connor MacLeod (of the Clan MacLeod). Our forebears didn’t wear anything like this over-romanticised Victorian invention – they may have wrapped themselves up in a length of woven plaid, dyed with the plants that grew on the wild mountainsides but this would have been over leggings or trews to keep warm like a cape or portable sleeping bag. Is a man in a tartan slanket or a picnic blanket sexy? No!
This is made worse when coupled with those flouncy “Jacobean” shirts and the romantic image of the “Highlander” as seen on the covers of American romance novels. Don’t make me laugh – chiselled jawed Adonises (Adoni-i?) with streams of flowing Titian locks and sapphire blue eyes staring out from tanned faces? More likely a big baw-faced farmer type in wellies, the cauliflower eared, broken nosed, large-thighed rugby “hunk” or the more common wee whippet faced man-child in a white tracksuit, walking and grimacing as if perpetually holding in a shite.
Name me a famously good-looking Scot? Apart from Sean Connery.
Yes? Yes? Okay, maybe Kevin McKidd
. Or at a push Gerry Butler or Jim McAvoy. But that’s about it. So get rid of your fancy notions of being swept up by a charming chieftain. You’re less likely to have Rabbie B and more Rab C.
Now, Scottish women on the other hand…x