Patriots' games

ONE of the more striking aspects of the Scottish cringe is that many infected by it are completely unaware of their affliction.

This becomes obvious whenever there is a call for us to officially adopt a Scottish national anthem (Letters, 13 January).

Our athletes have set the hare running again by choosing, by a very wide margin, to compete at the Commonwealth Games to the encouraging strains of Flower of Scotland – a choice which I'm sure would have been replicated just as markedly had the general public been asked.

Cue the timid brigade. We shouldn't entertain it. It's a "dirge". It's "anti English". Actually it is neither. It's an attractive song and it's pro-Scottish and it is certainly anti-Unionist. But it is no more anti-English than Trafalgar Day is anti-French or honouring the Battle of Britain is anti-German.

But we have myriad of suggestions put before us of inoffensive wee tunes and anodyne words for an anthem.

We already have a national anthem as far as I'm concerned, Scots Wha Hae, the Burns piece you never hear at the tomfoolery of Burns suppers, and it covers the same sort of ground as Flower of Scotland. It's about a small army of a small nation facing an invading army three times its size and securing by blood and courage a victory which sent the invader homewards to think again.

DAVID McEWAN HILL

Tom Nan Ragh

Dalinlongart, Argyll