The Views of Sir Sean Connery on his native land
as presented in ‘Being a Scot’ by Sean Connery and Murray Grigor
published by Wiedenfield & Nicolson, London, 2008
For the many fans and admirers of Sir Sean Connery, he has opened his heart and given us the benefit of his life experience and long support for Scotland, in an excellent book he wrote with Scottish film producer Professor Murray Grigor. Beautifully illustrated, and written in attractive prose, the volume will warm the hearts and stir the interest of many, and especially of Scots at home and abroad.
Being a Scot covers Scotland’s history, culture, literature, art, architecture, politics, sport, and industry, in a comprehensive and professional manner. Throughout the publication, Sir Sean reveals his deep interest and respect for all things Scottish. He treats prominent Scots from early times to the present with understanding and respect, despite whatever failings they may have had. In the historical and cultural accounts, there are a number of fascinating insights and explanations that will be new to most readers.
Those who may have been misled by politically-motivated criticism of Sir Sean will be pleasantly surprised to learn of the enormous amount of good work he has done over the years, donations made, (and tax paid), which exposes the lie of the silly propaganda that has been spouted on occasions.
The following is a summary of Sir Sean’s views on a range of subjects :
Independence
First Stirrings of Nationalism
“I am for a Scotland that makes her own decisions, a sovereign state that that will be a voice in Europe and around the world. I would also like to banish all aspects of feudality in Scotland”. Sir Sean Connery in Being a Scot.
It is interesting that threats to the Scottish fishing industry, (which were to prove horribly true), were among the concerns that drew Sean to the need for Scotland to be fully self-governing. In 1978 when he learnt that Edward Heath’s Government had traded the extinction of the fishing industry in order to facilitate Britain’s entry into the then Common Market, he was convinced that Scotland would always be treated shabbily until she managed her own affairs.
Sir Connery had become interested in Scottish politics in 1967 when Winnie Ewing was campaigning for the Scottish National Party in the Hamilton by-election. Against formidable odds in a seat where Labour had gotten 71.2 per cent of the vote in the previous general election, Winnie won a spectacular victory. Yet when she arrived in Edinburgh, Westminster MPs treated her horribly.
One of Connery’s major concerns for Scotland is its industrial demise since the war, under successive Westminster governments, and the takeover of most of the promising Scottish companies by foreign firms. While Westminster shrugs its shoulders or sheds a crocodile tear, Sean has spared no effort in seeking to encourage and support Scots industry. He quotes Joyce MacMillan, with reference to Scottish newspapers, “Essentially the levels of return on capital being sought are not compatible with good ethical and professional practice in journalism, or with the proper representation of Scotland as a community. Politicians need to act to ensure that our toothless competition and takeover legislation has some real meaning, and that media corporations are compelled to honour the undertakings they give.”
The co-author of Being a Scot”, Murray Grigor, relates a story that expresses Sean’s patriotism beautifully. When he was asked by the New Museum of Scotland to present a favourite object for its contemporary gallery, Sean chose a facsimile of The Declaration of Arbroath. On the eve of the Devolution Referendum, Connery had quoted from that 1320 manifesto of Scottish independence, with great effect. But when the parchment arrived at the Museum, it had been slipped inside a milk bottle. That, says Grigor, was a celebration of his loyalties, a touching memory of his milk-delivering early years, and a doorstep reminder to be read by tomorrow’s politicians.
The Unequal Partnership
Connery describes the attitude of the English establishment to Scotland since the Treaty of Union in 1707. England considered itself to be Britain. In his mother’s time the rail timetables referred to Scotland as ‘North Britain’. But was there ever a ‘South Britain’ ? It was only recently that the North British Hotel in Edinburgh was renamed ‘The Balmoral’. Could any hotel in London be named ‘The South British Hotel’ ? This inequality of attitude irritated young Sean.
The biggest resource that Scotland was denied control of by its more powerful partner was undoubtedly North Sea oil. Sir Sean speculates on the prosperity Scotland would have enjoyed had it retained control of its own oil reserves. In the nineteenth century we had used our abundant coal to engineer inventions for export to the world. Yet our oil reserves were sold off as our industries were allowed to die. He recalls that in 1975 Dennis Healey, the then Labour Chancellor, downplayed the vast oil profits gushing in from the North Sea. He feared Scots would demand independence, and so would plunge the rest of Britain into bankruptcy. To get a picture of what we lost, Connery suggests we should look at what Norway achieved with her oil policies in the same period.
Drawing together Scotland’s mistreatment during the Highland Clearances, its great need for land reform, with huge estates kept for the pleasure of a few, and the denial of national benefit from its oil resource, Sean recalls a remarkable play by John McGrath, - The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil. As Sir Sean describes it, McGrath’s theatre company would take over a Highland village hall to stage the play, then would invite the whole audience to reel and sing in a joyful ceilidh well into the night, celebrating despite the national injustices.
Devolution and Holyrood
The Royal High School building on Carlton Hill opposite old St Andrews House, was the publicly preferred site for Scotland’s new Parliament. But Donald Dewar disliked its association with the nationalist movement and refused to consider it. Sir Sean criticised that act of unionist prejudice as strongly as any others. However, in his own remarkably magnanimous way he dropped his displeasure, forgave Donald Dewar, and proceeded to give encouragement for the new Holyrood building. He was thrilled with what Catalan architect Enric Miralles achieved in the complex of buildings at the end of the Royal Mile. The cost over-runs did not dampen Connery’s enthusiasm. He points out that unlike the cost over-runs of Tony Blair’s vacuous Millennium Dome, Holyrood had a happy ending. Regarding its cost he said that the £ 400 million is a mere ten per cent of the £ 4,000 million it will cost to half decommission the fast breeder nuclear reactor at Dounreay.
Despite their displeasure at Sean’s support for the independence movement, the London government were not averse to asking for his help, as when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown invited him to Chequers to get his public support for the devolution referendum plan that September. Connery’s judgment was that Scottish devolution was just an irritating irrelevance for Tony Blair. It was Cherie who took him aside and said, “Now you really will go to Scotland and campaign, won’t you ?” Sean found it quite insulting, but in the end he went. One result was a photo opportunity of him with Gordon Brown on the Firth of Forth with the cantilevers of the Forth Road Bridge behind them. Gordon had the decency to send him a thank you card. He never heard a word back from Cherie or Tony Blair.
Political Parties and Personalities
The political heroes Connery pays tribute to include Keir Hardie a poor boy from a mining community in Ayrshire who became the first Labour Member of Parliament; and the illustrious Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, an intrepid adventurer from Glasgow who became a radical Liberal MP and went on to co-found both the Scottish Labour Party, and the National Party of Scotland with seemingly opposed personalities as the Duke of Montrose and the poet Hugh MacDiarmid. Connery relates how Keir Hardie and Cunninghame Graham had their portraits emblazoned on the Scottish Labour membership cards. Under Hardie’s picture was the slogan “No Monopoly”. Graham, - descended from kings, - had “No Privilege” under his portrait. Sir Sean comments, - “Now, - there was a true socialist, unlike Tony Blair.”
UK governments since the 1950’s are criticised by Connery for their lack of vision, their undermining of industry and innovation, and their often foolish investments in misguided projects. As an example, he praises the efforts of old Labour in Attlee’s government, and Herbert Morrison’s promotion of the Festival of Britain, and its marvellous Dome of Discovery. This is contrasted with Morrison’s grandson Peter Mandelson’s vacuous Millennium Dome, - all puff and no content. In an austere post war period the Dome of Discovery was constructed for £ 11 million. In an age of affluence, the Millennium Dome cost over one billion pounds. Sir Sean says that the one worth saving was summarily destroyed by Churchill’s vengeful incoming Tory government. The other was a pitiable memorial to an age of excess, and has been kept going just to house blockbuster exhibitions.
Despite his cooperation with successive UK governments, including involvement in the devolution referendum at the Labour Party’s request, Connery’s nomination for a knighthood was opposed by Sam Galbraith and Donald Dewar among others. This was a bit strange as in Sean’s own words, “if anyone should vote Labour, it’s me”. So he was surprised to discover that he was nominated for the knighthood by two Conservatives, Michael Forsyth, former Secretary of State for Scotland, and Virginia Bottomley, former Secretary of State for National heritage. In 1998 a year after voters had wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of a Scottish Parliament, Peter Mandelson called Sean to explain that there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ causing the delay in his title. “What a load of old bollocks” is what SC wrote about that. He was eventually knighted by the queen in the Palace of Holyrood House in July 2000 in the long picture gallery of Scottish monarchs he had filmed 20 years earlier.
In 1995 Sir Sean deposited $ 1.2 million in a bank account and donated the monthly interest of around $ 8,000 to the Scottish National Party. The arrangement was curtailed in 2001 when new laws prohibited political parties from accepting money from people ‘not on Britain’s electoral register’.
Foundations and Charities
The Scottish International Education Trust was born in 1971 out of the collapse of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. In Being a Scot, Sir Connery relates how the idea of creating a fund to help young talents with initiative and ideas, to remain in Scotland, began during the filming of The Bowler and the Bunnet, based on the Fairfield yard which sank with its innovative working methods and productivity after it was pushed into amalgamation with the UCS by the then Conservative Government. The Editor of the Scotsman at the time, Alastair Dunnet, gave the SIET his strong support. Sir Sean donated $ 1 million (his entire fee from Diamonds are Forever), and the Trust came into being with the first Principal of Strathclyde University, Sir Samuel Curran, as Chairman, and world racing champion Jackie Stewart as Vice Chairman. Board members included Jim Houston, and Sir Ian Stewart the shipbuilder.
The Trust gives financial help to Scots men and women who show ability and promise, and wish to take their studies or professional training further, in circumstances where public funds are not available. It also supports projects which will contribute to the cultural, social, or economic well-being of Scotland, or to the improvement of the Scottish environment. Travel grants are provided by the Trust to young scientists, engineers or technologists, at the beginning of their careers, to visit laboratories, attend conferences, or present their own papers at conferences and workshops. The SIET has provided grants totalling £ 3 million to date, and spends around £ 100,000 each year on further student and project donations. Sir Sean has continued to co-fund the Trust over the past 35 years.
Connections between the United States and Scotland have been supported by Sir Sean’s honorary Chairmanship of the American Friends of Scotland charity. Tartan Day in America (2nd April) was enthusiastically supported by Connery who led the parade with massed pipe bands and near ten thousand marchers in New York, together with his wife Micheline and family members.
Scottish soldiers and their families have been a special interest of Sir Sean. He had young Connor Sinclair join him for a special showing of the play Black Watch in 2007 when the Scottish Parliament reconvened. Connor’s older brother Alister served in the Highland Regiment in Iraq, and was medically discharged after his return to Scotland. Black Watch was written by Gregory Burke. The play made a greater impression on Connery than any film at the 2006 Edinburgh Film Festival. It depicts the shattered lives of a squad of young Scots returning from Iraq’s Camp Dogwood. The intensely moving piece of ensemble theatre was crafted and directed by John Tiffany. Sir Sean wrote that it revealed the emotional erosion of young recruits lucky enough to have survived Bush and Blair’s ill-fated ‘war on terror’.
For his brief cameo role in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood Connery received $ 500,000. He donated the entire sum to the SIET and the Universities of St Andrews, Dundee, Edinburgh and Heriot-Wat. When this was announced at a press conference in Edinburgh, there were sneaky comments inferring the donation was some kind of tax dodge. The same thing happened when he sent $ 50,000 to help save the London Youth Theatre, and when he gave $ 80,000 towards a cancer-treating laser machine for a Manchester hospital. Sir Sean understandably exploded when a notorious tabloid newspaper man accused him of tax-dodging when he made the medical donation. In fact, Sean pays tax to the UK government on all income earned in Britain and to the United States on moneys earned in that country. He receives no state benefits from either land, as his permanent residence is in the Bahamas.
History
Early History
In being a Scot, Connery expands on his country’s history, delving back as far as the formation of the ancient rocks, and relating how the Scots father of modern geology, James Hutton detected in their variations the solid remains of ancient lava flows, and the fossilized ripple marks of ancient tides. He wrote a ground-breaking study ‘Theory of Earth’. Hutton also developed a theory of rain from atmospheric studies at his Berwickshire farm. Hutton famously said, “Time is to nature endless and as nothing”; and “I see no vestige of a beginning, and no prospect of an end”. Connery remarked that these words should be carved in huge letters on a cliff of Lewisian gneiss in the Hebrides, as these strata, formed 2300 million years ago, are among the oldest rocks in Europe, half the age of the earth itself.
On the origins of the Scottish people, Connery quotes from Lebor Gabala Erenn, an early Irish chronicle, ‘the Book of Invasions’. It tells how Scota, the daughter of a pharaoh, married a Babylonian called Nel. Their son Goidel Glas was expelled from Egypt around the time of the Exodus. Goidel settled in the south of Spain before reaching Ireland to become the father of all Gaels, according to the legend. There is a Scottish version of Scota and ‘Gaedel’ Glas in the Scotichronicon, a history of Scotland written in the 1440’s in Latin by Walter Bower, the Abbot Inchcom Abbey. Scota gave her name to an Ulster tribe known as Scotii by the Romans. The Scotii colonised the Western Isles and Islands where Gaelic is spoken to this day. When King Kenneth MacAlpin unified the whole country, having subdued the northern Picts, then the whole country became known as Scotland.
Connery asks the question, “who were the Picts”, - so little is known of our early ancestors. We know them, Sean relates, only from their Roman or Latin name, - ‘Picti’, or ‘painted ones’. They were referred to by variations of that in Old English, Old Norse, Old Irish, and Old Welsh. But we do not know what they called themselves. However, though their real name and language is obscure, they have left an art that is unique to Scotland. Its masterpieces are scattered across small museums, and are often inadequately displayed. Few have done more to rescue the Picts and their artefacts from the mists of fanciful folklore, says Sir Sean, than Isabel and George Henderson who have spent a lifetime connecting the scattered symbol stones with manuscripts, metalwork, and other surviving artefacts. Pictish symbol stones remain the enigma of early medieval European art. But it is an art we might eventually lose says Connery. Surely, he insists, these stones should be protected for all time, and replicas placed at their original sites.
Having portrayed him on film and screen, Sir Sean has a sympathetic picture of King MacBeth, who was quite unlike the tortured, vengeful character of Shakespeare’s play. A Moray man, MacBeth was considered a most capable and resourceful king for his time, comments Sir Sean. During his 17 year reign Scotland was largely a peaceful country. According to an Irish monk, Marianus Scotus, MacBeth made a pilgrimage to Rome where he scattered alms to the poor, like seed.
Connery spends more time analysing the life and legacy of King James the sixth of Scotland and first of England, believing as he does that “the inequalities between Scotland and England hark back to 25 July 1603 when James was crowned King James I of England”. Like most of the royal Stuarts, James believed in the divine right of kings. The English Parliament rejected James’ idea that he be called King of Great Britain, though James proclaimed himself such. And so, says Sir Sean, that’s where Scotland’s unequal partnership began.
Physically unattractive, with a very strong accent, and an over-sized tongue, James was criticised for his bisexuality, and for bringing or drawing a coterie of unwelcome Scots to the English court. He was called ‘the wisest fool in Christendom’. Yet he was well-educated, and ruled well in several respects, ending the conflict with Spain in his first year on the throne, and generally maintaining peace thereafter. He gave a royal charter to the Virginia Company which then founded the first English colony in America, and named its capital Jamestown in honour of the king. James expressed the hope that gold would be found there, but though the colony became prosperous later, it was through the ‘gold’ of tobacco that its trade flourished. This was a bit ironic as King James hated the new practice of smoking, with a vengeance.
James’ Protestant upbringing also gave him a dread of the occult, and led to him writing a book on ‘Daemonologie’ and to persecuting poor women accused of being ‘witches’ with sadistic cruelty.
However, the greatest legacy of James’ reign, says Sir Sean, was undoubtedly the translation of the Bible that bears his name. The King had told an assembly of churchmen and scholars at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 where he initiated the project, “I could never yet see a Bible well-translated”. (He had proposed it in Scotland three years before, but there were insufficient resources for the Kirk to progress the work). James’ deep knowledge of the classics, and his inquisitive turn of mind, challenged the best available linguists and writers of that day to translate the Bible into an English that could be understood by anyone who could read. After six years intense work, the translators delivered the King James Bible in 1611. Its impact on the English speaking world has been stupendous with over a billion copies printed.
The Darien Venture
The door of the seas, the key of the universe, was an Edinburgh too far, writes Sir Sean Connery of the Scots venture in Darien on the Isthmus of Panama, 1698 – 1700. It was a great idea to connect the traders of the Pacific with the Atlantic, and Scotland could have prospered in consequence. Unfortunately there were a few snags. Darien was already claimed by Spain, and England had demanded that her colonies in North America and Jamaica withhold any assistance to the Scots. A fleet of five vessels carried the would-be settlers to the colony. They were followed by four more. But by the time they arrived, the first settlers had lost 400 of their number to disease and illness, and the Spaniards were blockading the settlement by sea and by land. Caledonia was abandoned on 12 April 1700. Two thousand men, women, and children had either lost their lives, were captured and placed in Spanish prisons, or became indentured servants in the English colonies. Only 300 of the adventurers made it back to Scotland.
William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, was the chief promoter of the Darien scheme. He was to pay a heavy price for his intrepidness, losing his wife and daughter to tropical fever. The new trading colony was called Caledonia, its capital was New Edinburgh, and the embryo port was called Fort St Andrew. Connery speculates whether the venture might have succeeded had the site been properly surveyed in advance, a more sheltered harbour selected, and a healthier location chosen for the new town. But none of these things happened, time was not on the settlers side, and Spanish opposition combined with English perfidy ensured its failure.
The consequences were far reaching. Weakened and practically bankrupt, Scotland had little option but to accept the Treaty of Union on 1st May 1707. By Article XV the Company of Scotland was dissolved and the dream of a Scottish colony was finally laid to rest. The Royal Bank of Scotland was established 20 years later with half of the funds from the £ 398,000 compensation for Darien losses.
Connery made a personal trek to Panama and to the Darien peninsula to inspect the location first hand. Little remains of the settlement bar a few artefacts, broken tools, Scots coins, and clay pipes. However, the wreck of the Olive Branch, one of the relief ships, has been located. The best preserved relic is the Darien money chest, - an oak chest with a complicated lock of thirteen spring bolts which was inherited by the Bank of Scotland, and donated to the National Museum of Scotland.
Sir Sean asked his friend David Murray whether the Darien disaster engendered a national fear of risk-taking. Murray responded, “Whether Darien left a psychological scar, I’m not so sure. Scottish enterprise blossomed in the nineteenth century, but today we do seem to have a fear of risk-taking.”
Culture
Poetry and Literature
A large part of Being a Scot is devoted to the literature and poetry of Scotland, and to its diverse architecture. Sean typically takes up the cause of the Ossian poems, - Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, by James MacPherson (1736-96), an Edinburgh graduate who studied to be a minister of the kirk, but who went on to write poetry and to collect Gaelic tales, songs and poems from around his Highland home in Badenoch. These heroic tales and poems he compiled and attributed to a mystical personification of Celtic bards called Ossian.
The Ossian works captured the essence of a mystical old Scotland and its remote mountain ranges, and the ancient Gaels closeness to and reverence of nature. The volume impressed illustrious scholars, classical musicians, and a future President. Hugh Blair, the first professor of Belles Lettres and Rhetoric at Edinburgh University, and also the Minister of St Giles, wrote, “Ossian has appeared amongst us as the greatest poetic revelation of our age. His work is sublime – the echo of a noble soul.” Schubert, Brahms, and Mendelsson, were each inspired by Ossian to produce compositions on the Ossian theme. Thomas Jefferson desired to learn Gaelic to appreciate the songs in their original form. He thought “this rude bard of the north, the greatest poet that ever existed.”
However, not all literary giants were impressed. MacPherson never provided the original Gaelic versions of the work. So doubters began to suspect that Ossian was an invention of their supposed translator. Chief among the sceptics was Dr Johnson who wrote to MacPherson in scathing terms, accusing him of fakery. One result of the criticisms and accusations says Connery, is that Ossian is mostly banished in Britain to the bookshelves of irrelevant curiosities. But the mystical poet is still admired abroad. Sir Sean asserts that a strong case can be made for MacPherson as an oral archaeologist, disinterring Gaelic verses from folk memory and thus ensuring that the old language and its ancient fragments were not lost to posterity. The name of Ossian does survive in Scotland nevertheless, crystallised in place names scattered across the map of Scotland.
Connery goes on to extol the virtues of the works of leading Scots poets, particularly Robert Burns who he describes as a great lyric poet. “Robert Burns is one of the world’s greatest songwriters. He was a poet for all seasons. Burns lived and loved and wrote in the late eighteenth century, in that glorious period we now call the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a poet of the vernacular who still speaks to the heart of everyone. Burns embodied the virtues of that era of light and learning, when creative ideas flowed between the arts and sciences.”
Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson naturally feature prominently in Sir Sean’s panorama of Scottish literature. He also delves into what he calls “Scottish Gothic”, - the darker side of life and writings that are heavily associated with the underworld of unsavoury characters in Edinburgh of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Readers will be surprised to find a Scots wizard mentioned in Dante’s Inferno, and that Bram Stoker drew inspiration from Scottish castles for his Dracula set in Transylvania. Then there are the numerous dark novels like Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. These weird tales and factual accounts of murderers and grave robbers reveal a sinister side to our history. Connery also relates a horrible incident that occurred in the home of the Duke of Queensberry who was given £ 10,000 by London to encourage him to sign the Treaty of Union in 1707. Crowds outside Queensberry House, on learning of the dreadful act inside, shouted that it was God’s judgment on the Duke’s odious role in selling Scotland down the river.
Industry
Shipbuilding and Engineering
Sir Connery worked hard to support Scottish industry with men of the calibre of Sir Ian Stewart, and with the universities whose science and engineering departments sought to equip future leaders in industry and technology. He had made the film The Bowler and the Bunnet, to raise public awareness and influence politicians to reverse industrial decline on the Clyde. He also promoted the pioneering shipbuilding and innovative management style of Sir Ian Stewart.
“For well over a hundred years”, writes Sir Sean, “the workshops and shipyards of the west of Scotland led the world in ship design. He describes the Clyde as “the river of invention, - the workshop of the world”. Yet after the Second World War, governments, unions, and management, seemed increasingly locked into unsolvable conflict.” Connery relates how one week before Upper Clyde Shipbuilders went into receivership, the UCS Chairman assured him that it was going “great guns”. Jimmy Reid and the UCS workers then took over the yard and ran it extremely well for a period, buoyed with public support and fund-raising assisted by the likes of Billy Connolly. Sean is scathing on the lack of support the shipyards and the workers received from the then Prime Minister, Edward Heath.
In Being a Scot, he details Scottish involvement in the industrial revolution, and the key inventors, scientists, technologists, and industrialists who made the Clyde, and the central belt, a workshop of global significance, exporting machinery, tools, and technology to the far corners of the world. He even quotes Kipling’s M’Andrew’s Hymn, ‘for the canny Scots who manned the engines in the bowels of ships’ with lines like these, “Lord , Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream, An’ taught by time, I tak it so, - exceptin’ always Steam. From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy hand O God, - Predestination in the stride o’ yon connectin’-rod.”
As well as deploring the industrial decline and lack of support for our manufacturing and inventiveness, Connery fears for the loss of that heritage which is not being preserved. “Much of Scotland’s industrial prowess is now forgotten. Surely the greatest of the redundant steelworks and foundries could have been preserved as a glorious part of our lost heritage.” The massive Ravenscraig steelworks and Glasgow’s Saracen Foundry are relics of the industrial past that have a story to tell. While some may think preservation unimportant, Connery writes, “All I would say is just look at what has been accomplished in Germany on the Ruhr. Faced with the same collapse of its heavy industries, local enterprise there has regenerated its decaying steel mills and workshops into dazzling new entertainment venues.”
Other Subjects
Being a Scot covers a much broader scope than can be included in this brief review. Sir Sean Connery and Professor Murray Grigor deal with art, architecture, film and stage, sport, humour, and music. Those wishing to find what they declare on these other subjects must purchase a copy. They will not regret that expenditure. The book is an excellent reference work on things Scottish, and ideal for any library or coffee table in homes or organisations with an interest in Scotland.