Robert Burns, Marching Pipe bands, rustic homesteads
emigrant ships... What s left of Scottish history?
If you re interested in the people places and events in Scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen.
In the meantime, let me tell you a story. What does Scottish history mean to you?
Is it something you live or a lapel badge you wear?
Does it even impact your life... and what gives you the right to wear it?
Do you cherry pick? Is your version the same as mine?
What was the high point of Scottish history and culture?
Is your history really just modern politics?
...and what s left of Scottish history If ever there was a video with an
opportunity to heir your views in the comments section this is the one.
I m in Dunedin, on New Zealand s South Island. It s the Edinburgh of the South they say,
with statue of Burns, Princess St, George St, Hanover St, Fredrick St,
you d be forgiven for thinking you were in the New Town,
as you walk past a Scottish shop selling tartan and clan badges and the likes.
Their most celebrated museum tells the story of the Settlers.
Scots pioneers who were so desperate to set up a Presbyterian utopia
that they left a country full of Presbyterians and crossed an ocean to
a place where people ate Presbyterians. They were led by one Thomas Burns...
the nephew of the bard who s statue decorates the town square.
School children here are taught of their Scots heritage and the settlers
who came and built Dun Edin... that New Edinburgh of the south.
The names and faces of their founders can be seen in this room....
and Thomas Burns who led them
They came in cramped ships laden with a cargo of hope.
They settled and built humble dwellings like this one,
and as they built new lives they brought the history, culture and values of Scotland.
So no surprise that Dunedin is the home of New Zealand s first university,
the rugby team is called the Highlanders,
there s an annual Burns supper and folk get married in kilts hired from the Scottish shop.
But these days they do speak funny,
and when I was in the Scottish shop Erin the lovely Kiwi Irish woman pointed out a problem...
There s no annual celebration of these founders...
but it s worse than that. ...and they play cricket!
In fact Dunedin is the only place in the world I ve ever gone to watch a cricket match.
You see it wasn t just Scots who settled here. It s a melange.
There WERE English as well... And, of course,
the place wasn t empty when we arrived. Now over the last 150 years others have come.
Europeans, South Sea Islanders, Chinese. New Zealand has Chinese language TV stations.
Whilst people will still be able to tell you about the Scottish foundation;
layer upon layer has been laid on top. They tell me that some in Dunedin are starting
to use Oati Poati, the Maori name...
the foundation layer that was there before the Scots arrived.
So, when everything else has been layered on top what s left of Scottish history?
Robert Burns, bagpipes and tartan. One Lowland, the others Highland.
Ironically, melded together by Sir Walter Scott in a post Culloden attempt to whitewash
part of Scotland s history.
Across the Tasman sea Australia doesn t have anywhere quite like Dunedin,
but in a previous video in Western Australia we
ve already seen the Scottish tint in the town of Perth.
In New south Wales there s the impact of Lachlan MacQuarrie.
I ll visit Tasmania to tell you about Scottish history there, and of course
I ll be visiting a mass Highland gathering in McLean.
Scots in Australia may seem more dispersed, but after the layers and mixing since convicts
and gaolers what s left of Scottish history. Tartan and bagpipes and Auld Lang Syne?
USA is a country I ve never visited, but the comments section of my video Why Scottish
and American People See History Differently? Tell of descendants of Scots with a desire to
understand what ancestors went through in getting there.
More than that, in a country where they re the mixed mutts of multicultural migrants
there s a longing for belonging. Clan seems inordinately important in
a way that we in Scotland find strange... maybe because they already have a state,
but seek something else more specific. Yet clans didn t just share a name,
but a community and the land on which they lived, a military and governance structure.
If you re dispersed throughout the world... can you really be a clan?
Those with a heritage in the Appellation mountains tell their own particular story
and a huge number comment on their heritage as Scotch Irish... or Ulster Scots
as we d say in Scotland. In its formation the US
benefitted from the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinking on the founders,
but Caledonia also provided inspiration for Klu Klux Klan and Confederate flag,
A pal of mine once told me about a Burns supper he was invited to in the states
It started with pipers leading in a covered table wheeled to the front for a young girl
to burst out with a tada
from the world s biggest tartan shortbread tin. When my stunned Scottish pal asked what
that was about he was told: That s the Haggis Lassie.
From the time that General Grant read Robert Burns to his troops,
layers had been laid upon the elements of a Burns supper.
And after layer upon diverging layer and hundreds of years of global migration have been laid,
what s left from Scottish history?
Surely Canada can give us the answer.
After all, it was the Canadians that invented Tartan day.
If I had a pound for every time somebody told me that the Canadians are more
Scottish than the Scots... I d invest it prudently along
with a canny eye on expenses... Many a mikle maks a muckle
Like the Americans Canadians seem to hark back to Clan...
and talk about layers upon the original Scottish foundation...
with their checked shirts, smelling of fish and beaver, not sure whether they
re Scottish, French or first nations. They re like human duck billed platypus.
There s nothing that illustrates their divergence from Scotland as much as the word moose.
A Scotsman hears moose and he sets a trap with cheese.
A Canadian hears moose and he puts on a condom. I can t understand it.
There are several videos on this channel about Canadian Scots,
but after layer upon layer of indigenous, and Scots, Irish and English,
French and others on top... what s left of Sottish history
Dunedin s Scottish shop reminds me of many in Edinburgh.
Clan tartans and ties and brooches and kilt pins...
and sometimes all that seems left when people come in and identify their Scottish origin
are ancestral names. Is Scottish history something YOU LIVE,
or a lapel badge you wear? Folks in a multicultural New World look
for a home and a history and an identity, and I can understand that...
One of the things that I often do as a Scottish tour guide
is take people to locations that their ancestors belonged.
Of course, since then folks like me have been born.... a Ghanaian Scot.
Many others have come from Pakistan, India Jew and Ukraine
...as the Proclaimer s song Scotland s Story mentions.
Huge numbers have come from England.
Even in my own lifetime there have been many layers added.
So folks are coming from a multicultural New World
to the old country which is itself now a multicultural world.
You see when clearance, or hardship, or criminal conviction or desire for opportunity beckoned...
even for those who stayed, things changed...
So how much should we preserve? What parts of it should we preserve?
When I hear my kids, so much of culture today comes back across the Atlantic
or from the Antipodes. How many people in Scotland today
use the Aussie expression No worries.
So after the layers are laid like cultural lasagne,
what s left of Scottish history? Is it just tartan, Burns and bagpipes...
The Proclaimers and Chewin the Fat... Manran and Kevin Bridges?
We bemoan tartan shortbread tin history, but that s often what folks click on...
So what is our heritage that we share across the world and what do we do to pass it on?
At the start I asked what was the high point of Scottish history...
It seems to me it might have been the court of James IV...
and yes, there were black folks at his court too you know...
High Scots literature and a king who spoke Gaelic as well as Scots...
since then there s been inexorable Anglicisation...
and even this man s words are misunderstood. Now for those whose ideas of Scottish
history are a monochrome obsession of pro-Union or pro Nationalist sentiment
let s remember that James IV stood for Scottish nationhood
and died for his alliance with continental Europe...,
but he also married into and signed a treaty of perpetual peace with the English.
Co-operation and submission aren t the same...
no matter what side of the debate might you re on.
...but here's what really matters. There are branches of the tree
of Scottish life that have grown in many directions all over the world.
On each branch, layers of immigration, or union, politics and perceptions
leaves left multicoloured like autumn.
But autumn s beauty all too quickly turns to bleak winter.
Treasure Scotland s history and culture. Read it, watch it,
listen to it, understand it... and pass it on...
and yes it will change but don t let it die. It s more than a name... and a clan broach
For a deeper dive into what is Scottish history and identity
there s a video coming up on screen now. Help support the channel by clicking top
right to become a Patreon member, or buy me a coffee in the description below
In the meantime Lang may yer lum reek