Edwin Moore - Scotland: 1000 Things You Need To Know

Scotland

Edwin Moore spent eighteen years working in non-fiction publishing. He is also the author of several books, including Lemmings Dont Leap: 180 Myths, Misconceptions and Urban Legends Exploded (2006), Brief Encounters: Meetings between (mostly) Remarkable People (2007) and the Everyman Guide to Edinburgh. He wrote obituaries for The Times (200414), tweets at EdwinMoore@GlasgowAlbum and blogs at http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.co.uk . The blog (which has become quite popular with Glaswegians home and abroad) focuses on what can be seen on walks and cycles within an ever-changing Glasgow, from the ongoing destruction of inconvenient buildings to festivals such as the Mela.

Entertaining and scholarly he writes like a Scottish Bill Bryson Dundee Courier

Moore proceeds from a sincere and controversial first principle: Scotland is really a rather pleasant and interesting place... As a work of popular scholarship its in a different league Sunday Times

Well-crafted and witty Aberdeen Press and Journal

A fascinating look at the history of Scotland ... Edwin Moore has collected a thousand important facts about this beautiful country, covering Scottish history and culture, correcting misconceptions, and examining the mysteries of haggis and bagpipes with insight, warmth and impressive attention to detail. Good Book Guide

A recipe for revealing how horribly ill informed you are about your country... Oh so addictive i-on Glasgow

Edwin celebrates all that sets us Scots as a race apart our language, law, flora, food, and of course, our people. From our poets, architects and inventors, to our artists, entertainers and fighters. But he doesnt shy away from the more unpleasant aspects of our history. Sunday Post

We think we know all about William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and the Union of the Crowns. However, according to Edwin Moore, were still in the dark about many aspects of our history and culture The Big Issue

Despite its apparently humorous format, this is a serious and extensive dictionary on all things Scottish; from Jean Redpath to Lorne sausage, from Flodden to the Corries. Is particularly good on history and minutiae. Theres a useful chapter on famous Scottish legal cases and another on literature. Excellent. Royal Scottish Legion

A real treat for the serendipitous Scotophile Reginald Hill

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2008
by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

This revised paperback edition published in Great Britain
in 2016 by Atlantic Books

Copyright Edwin Moore, 2008, 2016

The moral right of Edwin Moore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 9781782395874
E-book ISBN: 9780857899330

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
2627 Boswell Street
London WC1N 3JZ

CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE 2016 EDITION

Stands Scotland where it did? A very good question there, MacDuff, but answering it in full is mibbe a wee bit beyond the scope of this book, which has been updated to include details of both the 2015 Referendum and the 2016 Holyrood election, with other necessary amendments and revisions. Post-Referendum Scotland is a land of many opinions, and not just the simple binary one of Yes or No to independence.

Scotland has always been a contrary sort of place. Jacobite Scotland and Covenanter Scotland are both part of what we are, yet neither is to say the least quite comfortable with the other: we have democratic traditions, we also have authoritarian traditions, and time adds fresh threads to the national tartan.

We are a patchwork of peoples, beliefs and traditions: as Robert Louis Stevenson said, Scotland is indefinable ... it has no unity except upon the map. We have doom and gloom and prejudice in our national mix; we also have a heritage of Enlightenment, innovation and literature that has shaped the modern world, as I hope this book shows. And we also like to laugh from time to time, if not always at ourselves. It is a fascinating time to be a Scot. And to celebrate the Scotland of Chic Murray, Robert Adam, Billy Connolly, Lulu, Bert Jansch, Archie Gemmil, Dundee United beating Barcelona home and away, Billy McNeill, John Brown and Alex McLeish, Andy Murray, the Glasgow Boys, the Glasgow Girls, James Macmillan, Flora MacDonald, Colin Mackenzie restoring Indias Buddhist history, Robert Louis Stevenson (and Robert Stevenson), Robert Burns, the Great Highland Bagpipe, the Forth Rail Bridge, the Tay Rail Bridge, William McGonagall, the brochs, Thomas Telford, Thomas the Rhymer, Annie Lennox, Ivor Cutler, the Border Ballads, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Colin Slowcoach Campbell, Alexander Greek Thomson, David Hume, Adam Smith, George Wyllie, and the new, often unsettling voices such as the rapper Loki and the Kartel, and the geniuses behind Still Game, Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan Scotlands real heritage. Its a lot to be proud of.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must first of all thank my editor, Sarah Castleton, and my copy editor, Morag Lyall, for their intelligence, knowledge, common sense and tact. They have saved me from many pitfalls and pratfalls; thanks again, guys. The responsibility and blame for any remaining errors rest with the author, who was once (unfairly!) pilloried in the Scottish media for a book that missed out the Battle of Bannockburn. I have checked and double-checked and Bannockburn is here at least once, though no doubt other things are missing.

Many thanks also to: our eldest daughter Helen Moore for research; Alice Goldie ditto; Bruce Whyte, Morag and Alisdair Law, and Fiona Moore for Gaelic input, our youngest daughter Rowan Moore for Gaelic spelling; Jude Stewart and Alex Cochrane for useful tips; Alex Adamson of Scottish Civic Trust for advice on endangered buildings; and lastly Mike Munro, poet and patter merchant extraordinaire thanks again, Mike.

2016 Edition

Many thanks to James Nightingale, editor of this edition, for his advice and support, and to Laura Booth for proodreading the revised text.

This book is for my late brother Colin and for my sister Jean, and (again) for our late mother, who worked her socks off to feed and clothe her family and hated nobody, and who was so Scottish she was known to put her finger on the ball during televised EnglandScotland games to pull it back into the England half. It never worked, alas.

PEOPLE AND PLACES