This is Linlithgow and as New Year breaks in
2022 there s a rammy brewing in this town. So who is the black bitch of Linlithgow and
why is everybody talking about her? 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.
This video is going to be unusual for me Normally I talk about history and try and
humanise it with a modern-day context. Today I want to take current events and place
them in an historical context and the two little islands
in Linlithgow Loch here are part of it. You see they weren t always islands.
Many, many, many, many years ago they were crannogs.
Crannogs were large wooden round houses built on wooden platforms out on the water of a loch.
Until recently you could visit an archaeological reconstruction on
Loch Tay, but sadly it burned down in 2021. The thing is that all crannogs come to the end
of their useful life at some point, and when they re abandoned the second law
of thermodynamics well it does what it does. Decay means that they collapse in on themselves
and form a mound of trunks, logs and branches in the loch.
Gradually it silts up, seeds take root and eventually you get a little island , just
like the two in the loch behind me. So these little islands haven t always been there,
but they have been there since before today s story.
Another thing that seems like it s been with us forever is crime
and back in the depths of time there was a bloke in Linlithgow who was convicted of theft.
I don t know his name. Let s call him Nick.
Now back in those days punishments were harsh and Nick was sentenced to death by starvation.
He was to be put on one of the islands and left to die a long, slow and grim death.
As the days and weeks went by it became apparent that Nick was no less sprightly than
he had been when they d put him out there, so the authorities watched the island and
one night they saw the reason for Nick s continued wellbeing.
You see Nick had a dog. It was a clever, loyal,
loving and resourceful dog and every night under the cover of darkness
the dog would swim out to his master and take him food, thus sustaining him through his ordeal.
Of course, straight away the dog was arrested. It was questioned , but didn t talk.
I mean it was clever and resourceful, but let s not take the piss.
Now the dog was tried and convicted for aiding a criminal
and the dog was sentenced to death by starvation on the other crannog island.
Right now in Hartlepool there are folks laughing at the stupidity of people in Linlithgow.
They re saying: We would have hung the dog. If you don t know the story of the Hartlepool
Monkey hangers then get somebody to start an England History Tours channel.
They ll tell you.
Now, if you re like my wife and daughter, you ve listened to that story and you re thinking:
Oh the poor dog. If you re like my mate Gary you re saying:
What type of dug was it? Look Gary, this was centuries
ago I had to make up the name of the guy. How would I know what type of dug it was?
Well the reason I d know what type of dug it was is because, from as early as 1296
when brave, loyal William Wallace was fighting people trying to
impose themselves from the south the people of Linlithgow chose this
clever, loyal, loving and resourceful dog as the symbol of their town.
This Greyfriar s Bobby of West Lothian is on the Linlithgow coat of arms,
is on the badge of the school. There s even a statue here in the street.
It was black, it was female, and it was a whippet.
It s the reason that people born in Linlithgow can proudly call themselves
black bitches. Mary Queen of Scots is a Black Bitch.
Former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond is a Black Bitch.
Scotty from Star Trek is a black bitch. Now, if you re thinking: Hold on,
Scotty from Star Trek isn t real. Let me remind you that you were quite happy
with a medieval whippet making pack lunches and crossing a loch in a pair of speedos.
Whether or not the black bitch in the Linlithgow coat of arms is an animal from
legend rather than history, it s part of the heritage, culture and character of the town.
There s even a pub in the town called: The Black Bitch. in memory of the courageous, loyal dog.
And whilst we re here, if you want to buy me a dram, a pint
or a coffee to help support the channel you can click the link in the description
and make a donation at Buy Me A Coffee to help with the cost of making these videos.
Now I said the pub s called the Black Bitch. It s recently been bought by a company from
Suffolk, called Greene King, who say it can no longer be called The Black Bitch...
because it s racist. That s right. The Company CEO, who,
in a wonderful stoke of irony, is called Nick said that people don t feel welcome
visiting a pub with that name. But Nick, you know the name refers to a dug.
The picture on the wall outside is a dug. It s not Dianne Abbot.
If it was I d be the first person down here banging a drum.
There s a woman, born of a West Indian working family in London: dad a welder and mum a nurse,
who must have fought all sorts of opposition and hurdles to get into and graduate from Cambridge,
become one of the first group of black MPs to the house of commons and,
in spite of those achievements, to this day receives continual
abuse and racist tropes of stupidity the world is full of racism that makes no mention
of colour, but you know what s implied. Fighting those racist slurs
is something I d support you in Nick but the name of this pub isn t racist,
and has nothing to do with race. But it turns out it s worse than I thought.
This Suffolk company say that, they ve been discussing this for months.
It turns they know the history behind the pubs name,
They know that the name of the pub s not a racial slur
but they re still going to change the name of The Black Bitch
to the Black Hound What?
It s still black! and how is hound helping?
How many times have you heard teenage boys or blokeish men referring to a woman as a hound?
I know I have. But apparently this name
change is the only thing that ll hold back the goose-stepping hordes of Linlithgow
marching down the High St in a wave of Arian glory
It does the very opposite! It gives radge right wing,
racist little Englanders an excuse to complain about political correctness gone mad ,
Because, and I m going to say something I have never ever said in my life before
This is political correctness gone mad.
It manufactures a racist intent that was never there in the first place.
It s a dug! a female dug.
and it brings black and white together it s a greyhound
Now I know there are whippet enthusiasts and greyhound fanciers raging in the comments section
that a greyhound s not a whippet, but it was worth it for the joke.
The point is they tell me the people of Linlithgow
or the black bitches as they re known are proud of that name.
Mary Queen of Scots, Alex Salmond, Scotty from Star trek.
A woman a man and an imaginary character with the world s shittest Scottish accent
are all proud black bitches and none of them are black!
And what makes the original black bitch black.. the colour of its hair.
Maybe instead of changing the name of the pub we just shave the dug.
Or maybe we change the name of the pub to The Hairy Bitch
of course you can t do that because that might offend women in Kirkcaldy
and yes it s a joke. I have no idea if the women
of Kirkcaldy are statistically any hairier than the women in Boness
Boness is the next town, which panders to local rivalry
Kirkcaldy just sounded better and there s a chance that people outside
Scotland may have heard of Kirkcaldy . The home of Adam Smith,
author of the Wealth of Nations, the 18th century philosophical treatise
that revolutionised our understanding of economics by the detailed analysis
of the trade of leg waxing products in the Fife In various videos that I ve made I ve talked about
women s equality, AND racial fairness. There are women and people of colour
in the UK today who suffer the effects of irrational racism.
I ve given an example. It seems to me that it s a hangover
from the whole trans-Atlantic slave thing, and for the microcosm of radge white folk who
get upset at the very mention of trans-Atlantic slavery,
as a descendant of British people on the one hand and West African survivors
on the other, who knows but that my ancestors were baddies on two continents.
It s not our fault . so long as we behave right today.
What about the new owners of the Black Bitch?
Greene Taverns were established in Suffolk in 1799 by businessman Benjamin Greene
Twenty years later he acquired control of plantations in the West Indies.
Ten years after that he also acquired the Bury and Suffolk Herald newspaper
and used it to campaign against both the Reform Bill and the Slavery Abolition Bill.
It seems Greene liked slavery, but hated democracy.
Having campaigned against the abolition of slavery,
when it was finally abolished, he made a claim of 4 033 15 7 d
as compensation for the loss of services of his two hundred and thirty one slaves.
Now, around eighteen months ago Greene King decided that it should make
contributions to ethnic minority charities in lieu of the past indiscretions of their
founder, and that s all very well. It may even be well intentioned
rather than just corporateh PR but if they re genuinely committed to a campaign
of changing names who s racist overtones cause upset, maybe they need to look closer to home.
because keeping the corporate name and identity of a slave driver and anti-abolitionist
whilst coming up here and wiping out cultural history of a town
isn t quite the way to go about it.
Benjamin Greene elitist slaver and campaigner against democracy?
I don t think people would feel comfortable visiting a pub associated with that name.
Why not change the company name and leave the wee Lithgae dug alone.
The one good thing that s come out of this,
is that we ve all learned how Linlithgow got it s coat of arms.
There s a really interesting video about a less controversial part of Linlithgow history coming
up on screen now.
Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.