Anglo-Scot Blog
January 1st, 2009 - Cultural Identity
2009 is declared the year of Homecoming. The Scots diaspora is to be welcomed home to a sort of genealogical ceilidh. As I contemplate this declaration from my home in Scotland, I wonder whether the welcome extends to me.
20th January 2009 - Where to begin?
"Are you actually Scottish?" Inevitably, people ask me this. Not straight away, that might be rude, but eventually, as surely as a hangover follows a night on the whisky.
("Are you a true Scotsman?" is a different question, to which we may return.)
What people want to know about me, though, is my breed.
There is a heirarchy of answers to this probing question:
"Born and Bred, never been away, lived here all my life." is the safest, although not necessarily the most promising.
"Born here, both parents from [insert somewhere in mainland Scotland], went to School in Scotland, lived in London/Washington/'Down South' for a while, but decided to come back to raise my kids." is bad to beat, as they say in Langholm.
"My father is Welsh, my mother is Irish, but I was born here and have lived here all my life." probably passes the test.
"My grandpaw was a cattle rancher for clan McCain and I'm over here to trace my roots." will be treated as an offer to buy your interrogator a drink.
In my case, when they ask me "Are you actually Scottish." I bring out a string of patter as carefully assembled and well-worn as an old watch-chain:
My father was from Aberdeenshire, he went South as an economic migrant in the 1950's, married an Englishwoman and never came back, except for holidays. His father was from Orkney, his mother from Wick. I was born and brought up in Hertfordshire and decided to come back here to University. I've been here for most of the last 28 years.
By this time the damage is done. "married an Englishwoman", "born and brought up in Hertfordshire". A pigeon-hole has been found for me in the Doocot of authenticity, and it is quite near the ground.
I raise my thoughts on this with my friends in the pub, three purebreds, a Yorkshireman and a Uruguayan. "Is homecoming year intended to embrace Anglo-Scots, too?" "You're not a Scot anyway, you're a Viking (Orkney ancestry invoked), so I don't know what you're worried about." starts the range of responses. "You're the only one who is worried about your identity; you are just projecting your anxieties onto other people's views." is where it ends. In the middle, the Yorkshireman speaks of his identity being pulled by the lodestone of York Minster. I reflect that nobody from Hertfordshire burns with their identity. What an ironic term "Home Counties" turns out to be. I go home feeling slightly more paranoid that usual.
25th January 2009 - Burns Night
An old friend from England calls out of the blue. We have a long chat about many things, trying to fill the gaps in the 20 years since we last spoke. Somewhere in the conversation, in the context of it being Burns Night, emerges a phrase about his partner: "She's a real Scot, not like you. She was born in Edinburgh and left when she was 6 months old, but she's got the credentials." It was a passing comment, a sequitur, background detail. This raises the other end of being an Anglo-Scot, the English bit.
My upbringing in England was founded on the simple assumption that everyone should be proud to be English, a Brit. These notions were interchangeable and the assumption unchallenged. When I said I supported Scotland at football and rugby, it was assumed that I was just drawing attention to myself perversely. Teenage rebellion, like pretending to be working class or a republican. The right thing to do was to be loyal to Queen and country. By all means cheer on the home nations if they are involved, but you back England for the World Cup. England didn't make it to the World Cup in Argentina in 1978. Scotland did. This was my opportunity; 15 years old, my identity, my credentials, in line for a major boost. The rest, of course, is history.
Burns wrote in both Scots and English. Critics are quick to agree that his use of the Scots language is where his genius is revealed. Beyond that, his themes are those of the ordinary man, equality, social justice, sex, drink and punctured hypocrisy. English poets at the time were still paying their dues at the altar of classical heirarchies, reason and noble sentiments. Burns was a Scot, Scots admire Burns, align themselves with his values. Tonight we will eat humble offal and oatmeal, tatties and neeps in his honour. People from all strata of Scottish life will affect simplicity to assert their identity. That didn't happen to me when I was growing up in England.
6th February 2009 - Foreigners
I take my enquiry to another group of friends; two thoroughbreds and an incomer. My friend of Polish parentage tells me that my definition of an Anglo-Scot is too loose. "An anglo-scot is someone born of two Scots parents who lives in England." So I don't even qualify on those grounds, at all. I disagree and rush to Wikepedia for reassurance, where I find my looser interpretation to hold good.Last time I was at Hampden Park (a friendly between Scotland and Croatia), the visiting fans started up a chant of "Stand Up if You Hate England" (sung to the tune of the Pet Shop Boys' Heaven, or "One-nil to the Arsenal" if you know that one better.) This was quickly and wryly taken up by the home fans. The Croats obviously knew which button to press with their hosts, when it came to nationalism. After all, their recent history will have given them plenty of experience of defining themselves by exception to their geographical neighbours. I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the song, for obvious reasons, but I have to admit that there have been times I have stood up, and I have joined in the chorus. At one level, it is tribal banter; at another, it is altogether more sinister. Now that my son accompanies me to these matches, I don't do it. I have a responsibility, I think, not to show that particular example.
August 8th, 2009 - Meet the Ancestors
I dragged my family to Orkney this year, on a short homecoming pilgrimage. This was the trail of their paternal ancestors. So my son went with his father to the places where his grandfather and great grandfather were born and lived. He also paid his respects at the graveyard plot of his great great and great great great grandfathers. Six generations of us united in a simple journey. As if that was not enough, he saw the lands that their forebears had farmed right back to 3000 BC, entering neolithic chambered cairns, iron age houses and farms cultivated by successive generations.
I wondered at all of this history and marvelled at the sense of place, of identity, that it gave me to go to these rooted haunts. The teenagers were less than impressed, aghast at the lack of entertainment, inwardly disconsolate that we were not in the South of France. However, they were gracious enough to indulge their sentimental father in his homecoming quest.
November 2nd, 2009 - The Anglo side
The other side of my ancestry (maternal) is rooted in wild places; Cumbria and North Yorkshire (Hebden Bridge) and subsequently in Cheshire and Staffordshire. Farmers, reputedly with Norse breeding. That is the Anglo bit of me, able to feel the warm comfort of Vaughan Williams, Shakespeare and Blake’s Jerusalem (although not the Fat Les version).
Perhaps these ancestors were taught to fear marauding Scots, who stole their cattle in the dark of stormy nights, although apparently, the Jacobites of the 45 were given (or took) shelter in the family home near Manchester on their way to (or from) Derby. Centuries later, a kilt was found in a priest hole behind some panelling; it decomposed to dust upon discovery.
The union of these Northern English to Northern Scots was brought about by my parents, only children of their respective clans, almost middle aged already, looking for simple companionship.
I am the alloy that was forged.
November 4th, 2009 - No offence
My quest throws up an interesting anecdote: during a sociable chat with a stranger in a pub, a man is told: “I hate you English bastards, . . . . no offence!” Bigotry neatly splices who you are from what you are and sees no damage done. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance; a defence mechanism, apparently.
November 30th, 2009 - London Tartan
An answer to my quest. On St Andrew’s Day, an invitation is sent to Londoners to design their own unique tartan; just for them.
Bid to make London Tartan begins
It may be a rather cliche’d way of embracing the Anglo-Scot, but probably no more so than the bizarre frolics of Tartan Days in New York, Sydney, Wellington and Hong Kong.
Meanwhile the Scottish Government is preparing to take responsibility for its own funding, replacing the annual begging bowl to Westminster with a tax power that would raise the money at home. This at least gives the chance to slacken dependence a little more. A less dependent nation can express itself in a more adult way, perhaps.
Of course, money and tweed are mere symbols; the deep psychology of suspicion and “otherness” will not be broken by a couple of gestures. However, as I sign off from my Homecoming quest, it is with a small measure of optimism that the Anglo-Scot may have a legitimate place in the future of international relations.