Joan McAlpine: David Cameron needs a history lesson, but so do we

Published on Tuesday 21 February 2012 02:52

The Prime Minister’s attempt to bond with Scots contained some glaring omissions, but how well do we know our own stories, asks Joan McAlpine

David Cameron may rejoice in a surname that’s as Scottish as white heather, but sadly it does not bring him luck in the country of his ancestor. First he got his Burns pronunciation woefully wrong attempting “Tae a Moose” in the Commons. Then a photo-opportunity at a Quaker oats factory in Fife went down like a bowl of lumpy porridge. Mr Cameron was seated next to a worker who looked like he’d rather be sifting through a barrel of rotten mackerel.

After the grim breakfast, he tried to praise us, but succeeded in omitting half the population. “Your heroes are our heroes,” he said. But that’s just what they were – heroes. Not a heroine among them. Mr Cameron’s tartan-carpeted hall of fame is as exclusively masculine as an Eton yearbook. It was noticed.

But are we Scots any better at celebrating women’s achievements? How long does it take most of us to name a national heroine who is not either Mary Queen of Scots or Flora MacDonald? So perhaps it is time we did, not to spare Davd Cameron’s blushes, but our own.

The Prime Minister’s list included Liam Tasker, the dog handler from the Royal Army Veterinary Corps who was killed in Afghanistan last year after he had saved many lives. Lance Corporal Tasker is a worthy hero. Let us also honour Linda Norgrove, another humanitarian who died in Afghanistan where she was an aid worker in charge of road building and irrigation schemes, retraining fighters and opium farmers. She was a true peace-builder.

Jane Haining was a wartime heroine from an earlier era, murdered in Auschwitz in 1944 because she refused to desert the children in her care. Haining, daughter of a Dumfriesshire farmer, was matron of the Jewish Mission girls’ home in Budapest, where her charges were mainly orphans, both Jewish and Christian. She is one of a number of Scottish women to have perished in the Nazi death camps. Another was Aberdonian Mary Young who was part of the French resistance in Paris, assisting with radio transmissions and helping escaped prisoners. She died in Ravensbrück in 1945.

Mission and medical work motivated many. Elsie Inglis, one of the first women to gain a medical degree, devoted her life to improving the care of women and children. She died during the First World War in 1917 after her work to establish field hospitals in France, Greece and Serbia destroyed her own health.

Mary Slessor is more famous in Nigeria than she is here. The Dundonian, who went to work in mills at 11, became a missionary in 1876. In Calabar, Nigeria she founded schools and settlements and rescued twins who in one particular tribe were considered evil and killed at birth.

Scots more than made up the ranks of the anti-slavery campaigners and suffragettes. Helen Crawfurd, 1877-1954, daughter of a Gorbals baker, was imprisoned five times and on hunger strike on three occasions when she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union. She is the forgotten female face of Red Clydeside, organising rent strikes against rapacious landlords which mobilised hundreds of women. Let’s hear it for Helen.

Mr Cameron praised Labour politicians Keir Hardie, John Smith and Donald Dewar. Perhaps Winnie Ewing, “Madame Ecosse”, was omitted because she is very much alive. Or perhaps the spirit of consensus did not extend to the nationalist movement…

He did mention scientists and innovators such as James Watt. To this category we must add Mary Somerville, the science writer and polymath born in Jedburgh in 1780. Laplace, “the French Newton”, said she was one of the few people to understand his work. She is one of a long line who eventually paved the way for Einstein and has a lunar crater, as well as an Oxford college, named after her.

Most of our great men owe a huge debt to women whose exploits were never recorded or recognised. We all recognise the support Jean Armour gave Robert Burns, along with his various muses from Highland Mary to Clarinda. But what of the mothers, grandmothers, cousins and aunts whose stories and songs he collected? What of the women who helped make his name, such as Elizabeth Cunningham, Countess of Glencairn, an Ayrshire fiddler’s daughter who married well, bought 124 copies of his book and introduced him to influential people?

Burns was not the only folklorist determined to rescue and preserve his country’s culture after the union. We know of course about the efforts of Hogg and Scott, but why not more recognition for Lady Nairne, another contemporary and assiduous composer and collector of Jacobite songs? And why do more Jacobite songs not feature Lady Ann Mackintosh, “the beautiful rebel” who led her clansmen into battle, although her husband preferred the Hanoverians?

Women were also fighters during the Wars of Independence. Isobel of Fife, Countess of Buchan, came from a family with the right to crown the kings of Scotland. In 1306 she crowned Bruce at Scone in defiance of her husband. She was captured at Tain with Bruce’s wife Elizabeth de Burgh, his daughter Marjory and his sister Christian. They were exchanged for prisoners after Bannockburn in 1314, although Isobel was never released. But the experience did not dampen the spirit of Christian, who later held the castle of Kildrummy for her second husband against the English. Lady Agnes Dunbar – “Black Agnes” – performed a similar feat, holding out in her East Lothian castle for months against battering rams, catapults firing rocks, and traitors.

“From the record of Scottish heroines, none can presume to erase her,” said Scott. Unfortunately, it is not just Black Agnes whose story is forgotten, perhaps because we now depend on film and television to tell our stories. But how much more gripping would they be with these feisty women celebrated on screen?

• Joan McAlpine is an SNP MSP for the South of Scotland

Comments

There are 41 comments to this article

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 3

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next >
• Show all

41

Tartancult

Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 09:20 PM

churl·ish    [chur-lish] Show IPA adjective 1. like a churl; boorish; rude: churlish behavior. 2. of a churl; peasantlike. 3. niggardly; mean. 4. difficult to work or deal with, as soil QED, allymax

• Report Unsuitable

40

neoloon

Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 01:18 PM

The ignorance and arrogance of Mr Cameron was there for all to see and hear last Thursday. David Cameron: All top hat and no idea.

• Report Unsuitable

39

allymax

Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 04:29 AM

Scots, 'churlish' ? ......Now I know you don't know what you're talking about.

• Report Unsuitable

38

Tartancult

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 11:25 PM

But that's only because you've never been able to understand the Scots ------------------------------- au contraire, dear hert, I truly understand the Scots which is why I must advise that independence (and I am wholly ambivalent on the question) will not change the demeanour, attitude and churlish behaviour of the Scots - even though many appear to believe that the day after independence, everyone will wake up cheery, smiling and optimistic.

• Report Unsuitable

37

allymax

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 11:04 PM

#34&36, you used the word 'archetypal'; either you don't know what it means, or you are being facetious. ...i dunno, you tell us!.......... If you are using the term 'archetypal' as in the Jungian ideal, that which memories, experience and nuance is handed down through the collective unconscious, then you don't know what you're talking about. ......If you are using the word 'archetypal' as a description of a social collective trait or behaviour, then you are being facetious; facetious because Scots, poor Scots in particular, have every right to be, and feel, aggrieved by the way they have had to endure and suffer under Westminster rule for the last 300 years. Scotland has been stolen, pillaged, raped, murdered, and colonised by Westminster; wouldn't you look upon the 'man-in-charge', O'l Calamity, of that very representation of horrendous suffering of Scots with derision and disgust too ? .........TC, I know all about how cruel Scots can be, but that must be taken into consideration of what they've\we've suffered. Of all the places I've been, and all the people I've met, I can honestly say the Scots are by-far the most honest, sincere, and morally-honourable; and I know what I'm talking about. ...................................................................................................................................... Frankly, the description from Joan is more 'politically correct than meets the eye! "Mr Cameron was seated next to a worker who looked like he’d rather be sifting through a barrel of rotten mackerel." .......O'l Calamity, considering what he said later that day, about the massacre of the Scots Highlands, and the Scots Lowlands, I'm surprised he got out of Scotland with his shirt still on his back!

• Report Unsuitable

36

Tartancult

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 09:34 PM

But that's only because you've never been able to understand the Scots ---------------------- au contraire, dear heart, I understand Scots - and obviously better than you do - which is why I say what I say. Scots are typified by that man above, bitter, angry and resentful. I wish you well with independence - but do not under any circumstances believe that just because you are independent that your manner, your demeanour, your attitude to yourselves and the world at large will change. I wish it would but based on what I read here, such a shift is impossible.

• Report Unsuitable

35

SiônJones

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 08:54 PM

Comment removed by moderator

34

Tartancult

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 06:36 PM

#33 But that's only because you've never been able to understand the Scots" --------------Au contraire dear heart, it is because I DO understand the Scots that I say these things. I moved from Scotland as soon as I realised that in spite of my best efforts, Scotland would forever remain a dreary dull place inhabited by bitter people (not all, but many) who are simply forestalling more bitterness by clinging to the hope that independence will somehow change THEIR attitudes. I am wholly ambivalent when it comes to independence, I will not be there to see it and it will have no impact on me but you, on the other hand, need to embrace reality - independence will not make you a happier nation, just a separate one.

• Report Unsuitable

33

allymax

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 03:15 AM

But that's only because you've never been able to understand the Scots, #32. ........Why is it, the more you demean us, the more we resist you, and in-deed, turn to independence?

• Report Unsuitable

32

Tartancult

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 11:50 PM

"Mr Cameron was seated next to a worker who looked like he’d rather be sifting through a barrel of rotten mackerel." -------------- He, the 'worker' looks an archetypal Scot to me.

• Report Unsuitable

31

Vote 'NO'

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 11:39 PM

Lectures from one of Salmond's toadies. This clown needs a lesson in what is, and what isn't, Scottish.

• Report Unsuitable

30

lebanon

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 09:31 PM

what is the different between Joan McAlpine the columnist and a political propaganda writer - no, I dont know either

• Report Unsuitable

29

Alex Mac LA

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 07:52 PM

Lady Macintosh allowed the Cheif of Clan MacGillivray to do the fighting for her,he is buried at Culloden

• Report Unsuitable

28

allymax

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 06:44 PM

Yeh, I was going to post early last night, but I wanted to see how your piece would be received by the baying cringers, and the rabinous 'ex' colleagues; thought you'd get crucified Joan, but hey, that's the Scottish cringe, mixed wi' the unionist green-eyed slaberous monster, huvvin a last wee pop afore ye go. .....And the worst thing is, your piece isn't even rad' fem', nor anti-men!...........Anyway, I think your piece has the right sentiment, and will be better received away from your 'ex' colleagues. .......Moreover, I see what you are trying to do, and I agree with your 'encouragement' of the Scots female vote; if anybody can bring the women of Scotland round to voting Yes at the independence referendum, it is you Joan. Good luck, and good health, Joan; allymax. ..............BTW, Scots women should rightly be lauded with more recognition throughout our history; my Scottish heroine, is my mum; Mary-Ann Bruce.

• Report Unsuitable

27

Anagach

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 05:53 PM

Nice article Joan. Guess the boys just dont get it.

• Report Unsuitable

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 3

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next >
• Show all

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.