Letter: Union blues

Iain Hall (Letters, 28 March) is to be congratulated on being wise to my little bit of tail tweaking (Letters, 26 March). However, his rather vitriolic (and deliberate?) misrepresentation of all I said is to be deplored.

I noted that many brilliant Scots took advantage of the opportunities offered by the union to the extent that there is a plausible claim to be made that Scotland invented the modern world. Does that assertion really denigrate the Scottish people?

I did not say that 18,000 people were summarily executed by the (Scottish) Government. That was the ballpark figure I gave for the total deaths, with no judgment made against any party, resulting from the religious problems of the 17th century.

Admittedly this is a figure from (a somewhat failing) memory and may be a little overstated but it is not "a laughable exaggeration". Almost every town and village in south-west Scotland has a Martyrs' Memorial; the one for the little community of Dalgarnoc alone has 57 names on it so maybe it is Mr Hall's figure of 100 in total which is a little understated.

"The monarchy in London" is a rather disingenuous expression, referring as it does to Charles II who was of course first brought back from exile and crowned by the Scots.

I don't know what on earth unionism or King William's government has to do with what I said about the Darien scheme (the Spaniards were just as much involved in its failure). It happened, it failed and was a financial disaster for Scotland coming on top of that caused mainly by the aforementioned religious problems and the two combined were a major factor in the formation of the UK.

I certainly did not say that "Scotland was… waiting to be saved by its benevolent big neighbour". I was, however, suggesting that the union turned out to be of great benefit to all the countries involved - anyone who denies this is living in cloud cuckoo-land.

Why, it's still even of benefit to the "it wiznae me" adherents in Scotland, who can blame all their problems on "the Westminster government". They do this in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well you know, so why leave the club?

(Dr) A McCormick

Kirklands Road

Terregles, Dumfries