Martin Hannan: Tattoo deserves spirited defence

The police searching for those miscreants who recently made off with the steel girders for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo's new stands are looking for scrap metal thieves and not what you might call Tattoo-haters - after all, the steel was not marked with anything to indicate it was earmarked for the Esplanade.

Yet the fact that the steel has gone perhaps gave some quiet satisfaction to those people who do not like the Tattoo. For instance, there are those who cannot stand the disruption it brings all around the Castle summer.

There are others who, in the words of one contributor in a recent edition of the Sunday Herald, accuse the Tattoo of "cartoons of Scottishness" and "boys' own militarism" before adding that "at the heart of the thing are the rituals that have arisen from centuries of young people killing and being killed. We are invited to take pride in that, and to enjoy the grand tunes."

The writer added: "As a native of the city, I hold the thing to be an embarrassment . . . it invites us to sentimentalise a miserable tradition of enlistment, conscription and sacrifice."

The columnist concerned is an old pal, Ian Bell, who I consider to be one of the finest journalists in modern Scotland. I agree with him on many things, and I still cannot recall the magnificent piece he wrote in The Scotsman on the day after the Dunblane massacre without a lump welling in my throat.

On this occasion, however, he has got things spectacularly wrong. In his anti-militaristic verbal onslaught - I almost used the word crusade but he would have been first to jump on the irony - Ian just goes too far.

What attracted his spleen was new producer Brigadier David Allfrey's pledge to introduce more cultural diversity and more "arts" into the Tattoo. You might have thought that would please Mr Bell, but dismissing the Tattoo as "propaganda" which "allows neither doubt nor dissent", he goes on to say that "in Scotland's case, irrespective of foreign participants, it presumes to misrepresent an entire country's history".

He concludes: "Unless the brigadier is advertising the massed drummers of the Stop The War coalition, you can call me a conscientious objector."

Forgive me, I have neither the stylishness nor erudition of Ian Bell, and hesitate to conjure up a reply. But I have to say that I do know a pile of misinformed out-of-date leftist claptrap when I see it.

Ian rather gives the game away when he writes: "I haven't attended it voluntarily since I was a child. As a young journalist I was dispatched to 'review' the latest offering with a stern warning that mockery was not required."

That indicates Tattoo non-attendance of many years, maybe even decades, which means Ian has missed in recent years those well-known standard-bearers for militarism the Kevock Choir and the Tattoo Highland Dancers - hardy annuals on the Esplanade - as well as the Imps motorcycle display team (2010); the She Huo Cultural Act of Xi'an in China, the Royal Corps of Musicians of Tonga, and the Burns 250th anniversary tribute (2009); the South East Missouri University Golden Eagles Marching Band (2008); the Taipei First Girls Senior High School Honour Guard and Drum Corps (2007) and the decidedly unmilitary and quite brilliant Top Secret Drum Corps of Switzerland who have been back twice by popular demand since their debut in 2003.

I could go further back to 1996 and a Tattoo virtually given over to commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of Robert Burns, or as long ago as 1980 and the Big Brown Music Machine, the California State University Long Beach marching band. In short, for a Military Tattoo, they sure accommodate a lot of material which is nothing to do with soldiering.

Yes, its core is still the massed military bands from many countries, and the massed pipes - which increasingly feature non-military bands - never fail to thrill the spectators. That's what the largely foreign audience comes for, and like it or not, martial music and a military history is part of the Scottish experience. You could no more deny that than deny Bannockburn ever took place.

I have attended 20 out of the past 25 Tattoos. Never once have I seen or heard participants advertising recruitment to the services, though there is sometimes a recruitment vehicle around. Never once have I seen any sort of glorification of war or conflict, and always, but always, great reverence is paid to the dead of every war, no matter their homeland. Without ignoring conflict - who could? - it is the non-killing, non-war aspects of the military which the Tattoo celebrates.

The Tattoo, unlike the Royal Tournament in London, has survived because it is at heart a great show which portrays colourful Scottish traditions yet has slowly and successfully introduced acts from around the world to make the spectacle even better. The various producers - all of them army officers - down the years got it right by subtly changing the show away from overtly excessive militarism, and hopefully Brig Allfrey can continue that concept with new ideas.

Meanwhile, I suspect Ian and I will have to agree to disagree after discussing the matter over a "girders". That's vodka and Irn-Bru, not the steel variety.