Mistaken beliefs

Ms A Halley (Letters, same edition) may have used her passport while flying within the UK but that was not mandatory.

Passengers are required to produce photographic proof of identity before boarding an aircraft, not specifically a passport. The passport is simply often the easiest and less ambiguous document to produce the the ground staff.

The selective facts being used to convince the general public of how wonderful “freedom” is going to be in an independent Scotland is depressing and worrying.

Ms Halley confuses security with passport control.

A J Park

Glenmount Place

Ayr

It’s not often I take issue with Allan Massie (Perspective, 22 February), but:

1. The current Queen Elizabeth is a Stuart as well as a Hanoverian for the simple reason that George I of the House of Hanover was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James VI and I.

2. Whatever Paul Scott may have remarked, the 19th century was not the only period in which breaking away from the Union was unthinkable for Scotland.

It was unthinkable from 1914 to 1945 … and probably beyond (and for many of us it still is).

Alasdair Drysdale

Jedburgh

Borders

All this talk of needing fancy Scottish passports is rubbish.

I’m sure the procedure for crossing the border with England and the Western Isles could be boiled down to an ink-stamped blue cross on the back of your hand, similar to what we used to get from doormen at country dances in the 1960s.

For those going south, it could have the words “Haste Ye Back, Comrade”. For those coming back, it might say “Have you brought back anything nice to declare?”

On the way past the catapult toting mini-kilted guards you will have a glimpse of the new Salmond-Hadrian wall made from thousands of burned out wind turbines laid end to end with gaps to let the sheep and pensioners through.

Other gaps will be filled with divots and thatched over for context.

One day hopefully we might all laugh at this curious episode in history when a very special type of madness took us over.

John Addison

Midlothian Innovation Centre

Roslin, Midlothian

James McLean, (Letters, 22 February) is wrong in stating that Hungary is outwith the Schengen area, in which internal border controls have been abolished. Hungary, which joined the European Union in 2004, has been within the Schengen area since 2007.

Tom Drysdale

Honorary Consul for Hungary

Dirleton

East Lothian