Distant drums

Alan Philips (Perspective, 10 March) induces me to mention that Scottish connections to Crimea include the drum beating, with accompanying pipe tune, The Point of War, used to wake soldiers from Scotland in the Crimean War in the 19th century.

The end of that drum beating sounds to me (as a drummer) the same as the beginning of that for The Scots March, first played at the siege of Tantallon Castle in 1527 then used to identify Scottish troops in Europe until the Union of Scotland with England.

Anyway, justice might suggest giving Crimea back to the Crimean Tartars.

It was their home until the 1940s when Stalin expelled them and replaced them with Russians.

Some were allowed back in the 1960s. Probably the best we can hope for now is that it stays an autonomous republic within the Ukraine.

David Stevenson

Blacket Place

Edinburgh