Letter: Scots back UK

Clearly, the lack of support for the separatists at the general election has been stirring the nationalist writing circle. Hell hath no fury like a separatist scorned!

In that vein, clearly, Dr David Purves (Letters, 19 May) is living proof that Brigadoon really did exist. He maintains that he had never heard of the United Kingdom until he reached adulthood and that no-one where he was brought up regarded themselves as "Britons".

I wonder what sort of scientific survey he carried out at that age, lost in the mists of time, to prove this contentious point?

Certainly, from my own experiences in the early 1960s, people in Scotland were much more inclined to regard themselves as "British" at that time than English people were.

Perhaps, in the solitary corner of the Borders where Dr Purves was brought up, time stood still and the local people awoke for one day every century, which might have explained the otherwise inexplicable ignorance they seem to have had of their own place in the scheme of things.

When he attempts to criticise the UK for being a "conglomerate which is neither a country, a nation nor a community", Dr Purves should consider the history of Scotland's many historical parts that were Scots, Pictish, Brythonic, Anglish and Norse (and, in the case of the Picts, subdivided at that) and of the diverse peoples who have settled here over the centuries before he starts casting stones.

The recent general election shows that the SNP were resoundingly defeated by the various unionist parties, which simply affirms the majority of Scots being happy to be British.

ANDREW HN GRAY

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh