Cultural roots

WITH regard to the article and comment on your features pages (“All the world’s a stage”, 13 September), may I make yet another plea for regular broadcasting slots on television and radio, on Scottish channels, where contemporary literature in Scotland can be heard.

This should reflect its variety in language, style and relation to “folk, work, place” as suggested by Patrick Geddes. Preferably the contemporary should be matched with examples from the past on each programme.

Until this happens all the “investment” in directors, institutions and companies for the arts is fruitless. It is the regular osmosis of hearing and understanding our own culture that is needed in our society. Culture means cultivation. Cultivation means deep, hands-on knowledge of the soil, the climate, the roots, the connections. This means knowing, and even suffering, rather than “loving travelling around”, “loving to live in Scotland”, phrases familiar mainly to the blossoms focused on overseas marketing rather than cultural development.

Tessa Ransford

Royal Park Terrace

Edinburgh