Fiona McCade: Scots have love-hate thing with success

For instance, you might think that after working hard to earn around £8 million, Scotland’s latest musical export, Susan Boyle, would aspire to more than a new hairdo and a trip to Primark. You might be wrong, though.

Boyle has just given an interview to The Big Issue in which she showed them around her gleaming, new, custom-built, £300,000 house. So far, so starry, but in fact this was less Hello! than goodbye. Boyle has lived in “The Posh House”, as she calls it with self-effacing awkwardness, for barely a year, but she says she’s not comfortable there. So she’s giving it to her family and moving back one whole mile to her previous home – the ex-council semi where she grew up.

From what I’ve seen of Susan Boyle, she seems like a quite fragile personality, and so I can easily imagine her feeling more secure in familiar surroundings. There’s also no doubt that she can do what she likes with her money and she’s obviously hugely generous, but I still can’t get my head around how someone can be uncomfortable with something lovely that they purposely created for themselves and to their personal specifications.

After all, it’s not like she moved to Los Angeles, is it? She’s still only a short walk from “home”. Same people, same surroundings, practically the same address; just bigger rooms and more hanging space for the gold discs. What’s not to like?

“Why,” I wondered aloud to my saturnine friend from Alloa, “Can’t she simply enjoy the good life? Why can’t she wholeheartedly embrace what she’s earned?”

“Because,” he replied, “She’s Scottish.”

It’s a convincing theory. Scots can certainly be dismissive of people who are ostentatiously successful. Sean Connery still gets stick for living in sunnier climes, as though he should resign himself to a lifetime of vitamin D deficiency in the name of solidarity with the masses.

One of Billy Connolly’s homes is a castle, but even though it’s in Scotland, and probably leaks, some people still see him as a traitor to his working-class roots. Whenever someone Scottish makes it in the world, there’s always a honeymoon period, when we all bask in the reflected glory – “Look, they’re one of us. The pride of Scotland!” – but when they inevitably start looking like they’re having a genuinely good time, it’s suddenly: “Where y’ off tae ye ugly sumph? Too guid for us, are ye?”

What worries me about SuBo is that she might be leaving her lovely, big house not because she really wants to, but because she fears our resentment.

Feeling embarrassed about outgrowing your origins isn’t exclusively Scottish, of course. Multi-millionairess Jennifer Lopez sang that although she’d “make the money, get the mansion,” she’d always “bring [her] homies” with her – but nobody believed it. In America, they prefer their success big, fat and unapologetic. Here, we like our celebrities humble, and I think this is what has scared Boyle from properly enjoying her rightful rewards. If JLo thought she could kid us she was still Jenny from the block, it must be very tempting for Boyle to reassure us that she’s still Suzie from the scheme.

But she’s not; she’s an internationally celebrated recording star, so why can’t she relax and relish her good fortune, while still being a good, working-class Scot? Surely it’s possible to be Scottish, famous and happy, all at the same time? Isn’t it?

Although Boyle’s family must be thrilled at getting The Posh House, they should do a kind of Good Will Hunting-style intervention and tell her: “Look, don’t take this the wrong way but in 20 years, if you’re still livin’ in a semi, we’ll f****n’ kill ya. You’re sittin’ on a winnin’ lottery ticket and you’re too much of a p***y to cash it in, and that’s b******t. It’d be an insult to us if you’re still here in 20 years.”

Or, to avoid the expletives, how about: “Susan, we love you, so just enjoy yourself. Because you’re worth it.”