COUNTRY ROADS

Good fortune enabled me to enjoy numerous foreign holidays; at first those involved school trips to Paris and Greece, inter-railing to Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris, dawdling around the Prado with interludes in tapas bars of Madrid, Parisien cafes, promenades of La Place du Tertre, observations of the man feeding sparrows at Montmartre, singing to Jimmy Barnes at the Rocks in Sydney, marvelling at boat people in Aberdeen harbour, Hong Kong. The sights, smells, laughs and excitement unforgettably precious especially so experiencing the impact of flash floods in Singapore, the dreadful upheaval of the former Yugoslavia and noting dramatic change in Malta.

More recently there’s Cyprus, motorhoming through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. We sang Fernando sporting bandanas in the Pyrenees and  belted out wild ballads in the Falls and the hills of Donegal. Thankfully these escapades aren’t captured for sharing on social media.

Soon I realised that in addition to enjoying food, drink and local craic nuances separate us in Scotland from foreign friends. Once seen it can’t be forgotten or ignored. National anthems and quiet confidence brought by asserting of recognition as an independent nation speak volumes.

The bucket list includes Norway, though that’ll likely involve rage surrounding an oil fund and the prosperity of a country so similar and yet so different from ours today, Cuba for the romance  of a strawberry daiquiri and those cars, Algeria to check out the pipeline my Dad built in the mid 60s, and curiosity as to why a desert becomes prosperous and a wealthy resource-rich country like Scotland  can become a desert;  New Zealand for the haka and because I do need to know whether it’s the Scotland of the southern hemisphere. Friends who emigrated there, to Australia and to Canada represent the modern version of a centuries old need to leave home for fortune.

I’ve cried at war memorials and battlefields in France and Belgium, saluted commemorations for the French Resistance, listened to the little birds tweet, flying through the poppies growing in La Baie de la Somme, and in a few short seconds imagined the final thunderous heartbeats of those Willie MacBrides who gave their lives for ours. 

A friend introduced me to the Barrakka in Malta, pointing to where the Maltese waved goodbye to the British fleet on independence; a different pair of friends, one a lawyer and the other a barrister and former diplomat, took me on a tour of the Four Courts in Dublin, They showed the bullet holes of the Rising and spoke with pride of regaining their country’s independence. Other friends in France sang La Marseillaise with obvious self belief – that belief which comes from expressing and understanding sovereignty.

Scotland is nothing if not international; my cousin from Fife has a first class honours degree from St Andrews; he taught at La Sorbonne in Paris, where he was respected and valued, but couldn’t get a job in Scotland. When my Dad returned from a successful career as an engineer in Algeria he was banished to the dole until setting up his own business; today we note that care homes and the Scottish Prison Service recruit from west Africa. We’ve seen this week that tankers of oil are leaving Grangemouth for China to be refined. Westminster intends to sponsor football, not oil refining, in Grangemouth. As those arrangements are negotiated, workers are leaving, accepting contracts to work in the Middle East where they’ll earn more in a couple of years than they would in a decade here in Scotland. Brain drain and scorched earth. Not for the first time.

If sleepwalking continues, Scotland risks becoming the only first world oil producing country without its own refinery as England, a minor player, has five, and plans to expand those. Scotland’s contribution to the funds going to Ukraine’s war effort is countless millions – more than enough to provide free school meals for all, remove the impact of the winter fuel payment restriction and the two child rape clause. 

All my daft wee travels taught me is this – independent countries write their own rules; people who value their country’s independence tend to spend their time doing their best to make their world a better place; they’re far more likely to succeed without vested interests to hobble them. Colonies don’t do so well, Scotland is one of the last. I look forward to the Independent Republic of Scotland without delay. Then Scots can meander a path of peace, equality and hope. Without WMDs on our lochs and with hope in our hearts. #TheDreamShallNeverDie.