Dear James McAvoy
I read with interest your comments in The Scotsman at the weekend. It’s a fair point you make about their being no movies dealing with the Highland Clearances. Hard to believe isn’t it? It’s one of the most significant landmarks in Scottish history, with no shortage of heartbreak and drama, but no one has yet dramatised it for the big screen. How could that be?
Don’t think this is an accident or an oversight because it’s not. I was brought up in the town of Thurso, less than thirty miles from the worst of the Strathnaver Clearances, but the subject was never mentioned at school. Yet there were kids in our school whose grandparents had listened to tales told by their older relatives who themselves were cleared off the land. This wasn’t ancient history to us. But it was a history too shameful to mention.
There is a wealth of stories from Scottish history crying out to get made into films but few of them ever do. It’s as if Wallace, Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, Rob Roy and Bonnie Prince Charlie are the sum total of our history. Kings, queens and battles. Same as it ever was.
Period dramas are the stock-in-trade of English cinema and television. There have been hundreds of them, some based on historical events, others on the classics of English literature. They flood onto our screens – and by our I mean Scotland’s – on a regular basis. I’m not complaining about this. My mother enjoys them so why not.
But where are the corresponding period dramas from Scottish history? Where are the great movies set during the time of the Reformation, the Covenanters, the massacre of Glencoe, the Darien Expedition, the Act of Union, the hounding of the Jacobites, the Scottish Enlightenment, the trial of Thomas Muir, the massacre of Tranent, the Radical Uprising of 1820, the Highland Land League, the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian slums of Glasgow, or, as you say, the Highland Clearances?
The same applies to historical bio-pics. The lives of Robert Ferguson, Robert Burns, John Murdoch, Mary Ann Somerville, David Hume, Thomas Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, RB Cunninghame Graham, or at the start of the twentieth century – Ethel Moorhead, John MacLean or John Logie Baird – were full of passion, high drama and incident. But where are the movies?
If you, or anyone else involved in cinema, are serious about making a film set during the Highland Clearances can I take the liberty of pointing you in the direction of a story that has been screaming out to be filmed since it was first published in 1968.
It has no parts for good-looking young actors like yourself. There’s no parts either for gorgeous young women in buxom push-up bras. It may cover the same period in time but Pride and Prejudice it is not.
The central character is an old woman, poor and frail, nearing the end of her days, who lives on her own. She’s worked hard all her life for little material gain. She has little education, nor much knowledge of life beyond her own small god-fearing community. (Think Breaking The Waves, except a century and a half earlier.)
What sustains her in her poverty and old age are her Calvinist beliefs. She believes her suffering will eventually end and she’ll get her reward in the afterlife. Death, she feels, can’t be that far away.
The story is set in a geographically isolated corner of Scotland once teeming with love, life and passion but subsequently ravaged, destroyed and then emptied by the Clearances. Today the same rivers run deep, fished and policed by the wealthy, but there is only the rubble of crumbling old buildings where children once played. And sheep.
The novel is called Consider The Lilies and was written by Ian Crichton Smith, one of our country’s finest poets. This magnificent book, set in the early years of the nineteenth century, has a very understated opening which in my opinion would translate beautifully to celluloid.
“Her name was Mrs Scott and she was an old woman of about seventy. She was sitting on an old chair in front of her cottage when she saw the rider.”
In the hands of a Robert Bresson or a Bill Douglas this could be transformed into high art.
Consider The Lilies is one of the great classics of Scottish literature. It is not a long novel by any standards, it’s hardly more than 140 pages. You could read it in a couple of hours. But it packs a big punch.
With the poet’s eye for detail you feel the dramatic changes sweeping through the Scottish Highlands. Ian Crichton Smith said his book wasn’t about the Highland Clearances. In the preface he writes: “This is not an historical novel. It is a fictional study of one person, an old woman who is being evicted.”
That’s the thing. Too many films want to chunter on about an issue rather than skillfully tease out an important story through characters. But you’ll learn more about what the Clearances must have felt like, by reading this novel, than through any academic treatise on the subject.
There are two main characters in the book. The old woman and her atheist neighbour, who challenges the dictats of the landlords and their factors in his own way. It is significant that Crichton Smith chooses to make the old woman his central character rather than the neighbour. The author once commented that “I do deeply think that women are stronger, more enduring than men.”
The author has done a lot of the work for you. In his deceptively simple prose, he skilfully draws you into the mind of a bewildered old woman who simply can’t understand why she should have to leave the only home she has ever lived in, the home she gave birth to her son in. Why should she drag her meagre worldly possessions for miles across the open countryside to live on a patch of barren land she has never been to before? She can’t believe that the church elders would ever permit such a thing to happen.
Old Mrs Scott can feel the ground beneath her feet shifting in more ways than one. But something magical happens. In the teeth of coercion and bribery, a frail old woman comes to commit an act of such breathtaking yet simple defiance that it is truly inspirational. She learns to say no. Isn’t that the stuff of great drama?
As the author explained: “Mrs Scott was to be broken out of her ideology to see how she could cope as a human being.” It is in her stubborn refusal to betray her friends, and in her own quiet resistance to the horrors of eviction, that her humanity burns more fiercely than all the flaming torches of her evictors.
Consider The Lilies not only sheds light on the Highland Clearances but is an invaluable piece of our cultural heritage. It deserves to be made into a top-notch movie. I’m sure once you’ve read it you’ll agree it is a source of inspiration, righteous anger against injustice, and an affirmation of dignity and basic human decency against all the odds.
I’d recommend shooting it in black-and-white, pacing it nice and slow, allowing the faces of the characters to tell the story as much as their words or actions. Think Bergman rather than Gibson. And it wouldn’t work with big name actors from the south. You’d need local actors from the Highlands with proper northern faces. And most of all, and this is absolutely vital if the film is to be a success, keep Ewan McGregor as far away from the project as possible.
I hope this has been helpful.
Yours sincerely
Kevin Williamson
Amazing that ‘Consider the Lillies’ has not yet made it onto any screen of any size. Smith’s economy of language is genius and the book as a whole is a classic. Clach air a chàrn.
Also worth consideration is Somhairle MacGill-Eathain’s Ban-Ghaidhealach/ Highland Woman.
The film ‘Seachd’ does touch upon the subject and though the part concerned short, the point of view of the indigenous Gael more than makes up for the lack of screen time.
I’m going to put Highland Woman at the top of my reading list. Good call. Ta.
I dont know Somhairle MacGill-Eathain’s Ban-Ghaidhealach/ Highland Woman. Where would I find it?
Kevin W
Bella – any collection of his poetry ought to have it (I think it’s in Dain do Eimhir), but I know for sure that it’s in An Tuil (ed. Ronnie Black) and Modern Scottish Gaelic Poetry (ed. MacAuler).
For some reason I was thinking Sorley had written a novel I didnt know about! Have copy of said poem in Douglas Dunn’s Faber anthology of 20thC Poetry.
I must admit that I first came across ‘Ban-Gaidheal’ on a photocopied sheet at a Gaelic class many years ago. However… from:
http://www.sorleymaclean.org/bardachd/b/ban_ghaidheal.htm
A Highland Woman
Hast Thou seen her, great Jew,
who art called the One Son of God?
Hast Thou seen on Thy way the like of her
labouring in the distant vineyard?
The load of fruits on her back,
a bitter sweat on brow and cheek,
and the clay basin heavy on the back
of her bent poor wretched head.
Thou hast not seen her, Son of the carpenter,
who art called the King of Glory,
among the rugged western shores
in the sweat of her food’s creel.
This Spring and last Spring
and every twenty Springs from the beginning,
she has carried the cold seaweed
for her children’s food and the castle’s reward.
And every twenty Autumns gone
she has lost the golden summer of her bloom,
and the Black Labour has ploughed the furrow
across the white smoothness of her forehead.
And Thy gentle church has spoken
about the lost state of her miserable soul,
and the unremitting toil has lowered
her body to a black peace in a grave.
And her time has gone like a black sludge
seeping through the thatch of a poor dwelling:
the hard Black Labour was her inheritance;
grey is her sleep tonight.
Ban-Ghàidheal
Am faca Tu i, Iùdhaich mhòir,
rin abrar Aon Mhac Dhè?
Am fac’ thu ’coltas air Do thriall
ri strì an fhìon-lios chèin?
An cuallach mheasan air a druim,
fallas searbh air mala is gruaidh;
’s a’ mhias chreadha trom air cùl
a cinn chrùbte bhochd thruaigh.
Chan fhaca Tu i, Mhic an t-saoir,
rin abrar Rìgh na Glòir,
am measg nan cladach carrach siar,
fo fhallas cliabh a lòin.
An t-earrach seo agus seo chaidh
’s gach fichead earrach bhon an tùs,
tharraing ise ’n fheamainn fhuar
chum biadh a cloinne ’s duais an tùir.
’S gach fichead foghar tha air triall
chaill i samhradh buidh nam blàth;
is threabh an dubh-chosnadh an clais
tarsainn mìnead ghil a clàir.
Agus labhair T’ eaglais chaomh
mu staid chaillte a h-anama thruaigh;
agus leag an cosnadh dian
a corp gu sàmhchair dhuibh an uaigh.
Is thriall a tìm mar shnighe dubh
a’ drùdhadh tughaidh fàrdaich bochd;
mheal ise an dubh-chosnadh cruaidh;
is glas a cadal suain a-nochd.
You seem to have inadvertently composed a stellar piece of literary criticism Kevin. I must confess that I have not read ‘Consider the Lillies’ but I now intend to do so.
‘Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle’ touches upon the clearances briefly, but otherwise Scotland’s celluloid and literary canons do not afford the topic the significance it demands. Recently published books on the topic are closer to the abhorrent clearance denial of Michael Fry than the truth. They do not stress the traumatic nature of these events.
I hope your impassioned plea is answered Kevin.
PS: I am delighted to know that someone else thinks that Ewan MacGregor was a piss poor Renton as well.
Thanks for the feedback Andy. Agree with you on Michael Fry’s pathetic attempts to draw attention to himself by deny the Clearances ever happened. And of coruse as a ruse to get more media work it succeeded admirably.
Kevin W
“Massacre at seven oaks” is also a worthy read as it deals with the Selkirk settlers . Thes were the peolpe who once were the victims of the clearances -arrived in Thompson Man. walked 600-800 miles the fort Dear, thos who survived became known as th Selkirk settlers or cheap labour for Lord Selkirk. Kenneth <ackenzie, Simon Frazer, and William Macgillivray hired the local Matee to kill of the settlers as the were spoiling the trapping grounds around the Red river. I know this is a very short bit of info but the book is a good read.
Bergman rather than Gibson…which Gibson do you mean, surely not William Gibson?
The longer I live in Australia the clearer I see similarities between the the clearances of the Aboriginal nations and the Clearances in Scotland. Maybe it does need a film(s) to at last talk about the Scottish experience; if I can reduce the suffering of the Gael and the Caledonians to an experience, sorry for that. The aboriginal peoples of Australia suffer from high unemployment, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and poor health with low life expectancy rates compared to the whites. The majority have lost their lands; those who still live on their traditional lands are at last able to retrieve them from the State without any clear indications yet that the retrieval of title to their lands makes any difference to their sad lives. There are an increasing number of films about the current day Aborigines and their plight. These are not blockbusters but are made in most part by the children of the dispossesed. So maybe there is some sign of a resurgent pride in being an Aborigine. They were so long conditioned to believe they were somehow less than the Anglo Saxons in intelligence and industry. As were the Scots. The dispossession of our lands still resonates in our psyche today in many ways.
We whom Scotland mourn in drink and verse,
Lamenting exile in our hearts
Now in this great southland
With bitter irony,
Practise savage England’s arts
No herding of cattle to the high summers shieling,
Or a silver harvest from the sea loch’s deep,
But burn the thatch, tear down the roof tree,
Scatter the tribes,
And run the sheep.
Drew – There are parallels indeed between the fates of the Highlanders and the Aboriginal people. Some would say this is trivialising the plight of the Aborigines and yes it was far worse there. But the boats full of displaced Highlanders to America and Canada were death ships. Their land was stolen, homes destroyed. And after Culloden a culture was suppressed and outlawed and opponents of the Hanoverian regime were hunted down like dogs. The comparisons are legitimate.
Kevin W
What poet are you quoting there Drew?
This is a fascinating post, especially from an English perspective. I too would like to read Crichton Smith’s book.
There’s another angle on this though, in which the division is not English/Scottish but Establishment history/grassroots history. It may be more fruitful.
You talk of the English period dramas flooding our screens – but these are mostly, in fact, American funded or led, drawing on a chocolate box version of a safe English past. Jane Austen sells because Jane Austen concentrates on the manners of the people living in the big houses and not where their money comes from.
The fact is, there are no films dealing with difficult parts of English history either. Take the equivalent to the clearances – the English Inclosures. The industrial revolution – and arguably capitalism itself – could not have happened without the mass dispossession of England’s rural population, and the theft of their land was every bit as heartbreaking as that of the destruction of the Highlanders. Did I learn about this at school? I did not. I’ve seen no films about it either.
Perhaps concentrating on the theft of land will give us the truth about this. The modern world has been built on the mass theft, by force, of land from people, from the Highlands to John Clare’s Essex to the Punjab and Zululand. That’s the dirty little secret which the filmmakers won’t touch. It’s not about the Scots or the Aborigines being seen as inferior to ‘the Anglo Saxons’ (themselves dispossessed of their lands by the Normans, though that’s another story.) It’s about ordinary people everywhere being considered inferior to industry and profit.
Thanks Paul. No doubt we are all done a dis-service by an official British (State) narrative of history.
Murdo MacDonald (Prof Scottish Art History, Dundee) does a good line in mislaid history – history which is just ignored because its ‘deemed unimportant’.
I suppose the issue some might have with your assertion of ‘equivalence’ between clearances and inclosures is that the former took part as part of a systematic oppression of
highland culture – combining banning of music, language and clothes that reflected this. There is no equivalent for that in English history as legislated by the British State, nor could there be.
English cultural hegemony persists today – our culture is anglified. There is no doubt that we (Scots) should stand shoulder to shoulder with other people to retrieve a social and political history together – and, as you say, ‘concentrating on the theft of the land will give us the truth about this’. But analsyis of the role of the British State, and the power relations it represents is also key.
Of course the Clearances and the Inclosures were different things, and there is an obvious anti-clan cultural element going on in the former (pushed, of course, by lowland Scots as well as English landowners).
But the root of both of these processes is economic: land is stolen from poor rural people and enclosed for profit. That’s what happened to the English peasantry from the 16th century onward, and it’s what happened during the Clearances too. In both cases, the processes were legislated for by the British state, and when necessary backed up by the military of that state. The Clearances had the added patina of a poisonous racism towards the Gaels on top of all this, and political motives for wanting to eliminate the clans.
What I would like to avoid is a simplistic analysis in which ‘the English’ dispossess ‘the Scots.’ Most of ‘the English’ were themselves dispossessed by the same forces – and often the very same people – responsible for the Clearances. I don’t want to deny the obvious cultural/national issues around them, but it’s important not to be simplistic.
As for England – there is actually a clear equivalent of the cultural suppression of the clearances by the British state, it’s just much earlier . Our dispossession started in 1066, with mass theft of land by foreign invaders and the systematic suppression of culture and language. English architecture was torn down en masse and replaced with its Norman equivalent, and for 300 years the rulers did not even speak the language of their subjects. Edward I – your bete noir up there – was French, not English. He’d already got us under the Royal thumb when he came for you.
All of this is part of a much wider tale of the theft of land, inheritance and culture of the people of these islands by the state and its corporate arms.
Paul – I have to confess I know very little about the English Inclosures. Which is scandalous yes and may confirm your points. They certainly werent covered by Simon Schama’s History of Britain… Where would be a good place to start reading?
There’s a few salient points worth making here about the role of “the English”. This is never about national prejudices. Clearances from land were an international phenomena and were a class thing as you say not a national thing.
That said, in our own case, it was mainly rich English landowners who cleared the Highlands (ably assisted by Scottish lairds and clan chiefs). And it was almost exclusively wealthy English holiday-makers who turned the Highlands into a place to shoot deer, pheasants, and fish salmon. They came up to 19th C Scotland and early 20th C Scotland in trains the length of Princes Street and killed everything they saw. English guns killed all the top predators such as wolves, wildcats, birds of prey, and then the deer and sheep – with only man as predators – ate all the tree saplings and plants. Result: calamity, deforestation and even more acidic soil. The picturesque Highlands you see today is a barren man-made wildersness which could have been the bread basket of Scotland.
I’m all for reversing this, by the way, taxing all land in Scotland by the acre, including all unused land or land set aside for gaming, and repopulating the Highlands. Rich absentee landlords are the scourge of Scotland. Including the absentee owners of the Balmoral Estate.
Secondly – and this is the main thrust of the article – Scottish culture has been marginalised, ignored and considered inferior or just not as important as the neighbouring country’s culture. Its a subject that sets my teeth on edge. But its not always conscious. Often it is through a complete lack of interest. Film in particular suffers institutionally more than any of the other arts. And film is arguably the most important arts medium involved in the transmission of ideas from one culture to another.
Scotland is ‘the other’ and our cultural endeavours are of as much interest in parts of London or Oxbridge as culture from say Iceland or Norway (both of whom produce wonderful art, film, poetry and literature.) Recognising this is an important step in the process of renaisance and rebirth.
Kevin W
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the reply. Here’s a good historical summary of the English enclosure movement, with a little bit of stuff about the Clearances too:
http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain
The Land magazine is terrific on this stuff; Simon Fairlie is an authority. I’ll root out some books too.
I think there a few a few different issues here. One is the issue of Scottish versus English culture. This has a long history; both our nations are still struggling out from under the shadow of the British state, which for a long time was assumed to be the same thing as ‘England.’ I understand the cultural issues in Scotland – particularly in the Gaelic areas (much of the border, though, was settled by the English from the 6th century onwards, so arguably Scotland as a nation has always been at least partly English, right?)
But as an Englishman living a long way from London (I live in Cumbria) I often find that Scots confuse England as a whole with the London/SE powerhouse. You are quite right about the distance, but personally I find that Scotland is given more attention by the home counties media and political classes than, say, Cumbria or Northumberland or Lancashire or Cornwall. And arguably by the arts too. We’ve all heard of your dialect poet Rabbie Burns, but have you heard of the English equivalent, William Barnes? We saw films about Wallace and Rob Roy, but where are the films about Wat Tyler and Ned Ludd? (Robin Hood, doesn’t count, by the way, as he’s always played by an Australian
)
Much of ‘regional’ and rural England is treated as marginal by the London-focused Establishment, and this has always been the case. I’m not sure that a line can be drawn at the Scottish border. Of course, there is a line somewhere, and the campaign to eliminate the clans was a crime against humanity, with its own special characteristics. But it was part of a broader process of theft and control.
The funny thing is that if you talk to an English nationalist they will be full of complaints about how ‘the Scots’ are better off than the English at present – some of them justified. They feel that it’s the English who are ignored. I can see why this looks absurd from Scotland, but there’s some truth in it. I think this is because the real divide is between the Brit Establishment – who are mostly English – and everybody else. Everyone else feels overlooked, wherever they are
Somebody needs to write a book about the theft of the land from all of us over the centuries …
One of my fave books has always been The Silver Darlings by Neil Gunn, I always thought it would make an excellent film. While not completely dealing with the clerances it does deal with all the joys and sorrows of life in the Highlands round that time.
Yes, I do agree, we have an amazing history, and when I recount stories of Covenanters of clearnaces to English friends and family they are often fascinated. I think there is a rich seam for mining.
You’ve given me more books to add to my to read list – damn you!
As a Caithnessian I can only nod vigourously in agreement! The Silver Darlings was a book I read first at school. Highland River is another 20th C literary masterpiece. I’d need to check but I’m sure there was a dramatisation made of the Silver Darlings a long time ago, either for film or more likely for TV. There was a time in the late 60s and early 70s when Scottish theatre and Scottish TV drama was groundbreaking. Another subject perhaps!
Kevin W
Butchers Broom by same Author
There is a canonical history, just as there is a canon in classical music. Those included in the canon – Beethoven, Bach, Schubert – may be uncontroversial enough, but those excluded are often so for mere accidents of history – no-one got around to publishing their collected works or their career was eclipsed in their own time by a more eminent rival, and such other happenstances. Imagine the skewing effect if political influences had also been at work – what would we be be listening to now? Nothing but Elgar? Our history has that strange sound, selected partly by chance but mostly by political calculation. It’s why peer review is overrated as an academic filter – like propagates like.
My recommenadation for dramatisation would be John Galt’s ‘The Entail’ (with his editor’s daft ending removed). Parts are quite unbearably moving.
“Somebody needs to write a book about the theft of the land from all of us over the centuries …”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poor-Had-No-Lawyers/dp/1841589071
Yes,I’v heard of this. Sounds excellent. I wish we had an English equivalent. Maybe I need to write one …
My mother who is nearing 70 (and also, coincidentally, a Mrs Scott) was recently evicted from her south-east of England council flat as, having two bedrooms, she was deemed to be enjoying too much space. Had she stayed, she would have been given a smaller home at a higher rent (new tenancy). She has fled (home) to Scotland.
Yup.
Couldn’t agree more. As a fellow Caithnessian, I can’t help but feel disheartened by the lack of knowledge, both locally and nationally (myself included), towards the Highland Clearances. While travelling south on the A9 last summer, I decided to stop at the poorly signposted historical site of Badbea for a nose, where it turns out twelve families lived battered lives on the cliff edge for close to a century, teathering their children and animals to the ground as a result of being cleared from their homeland to make way for sheep. How they survived on such uninhabitable land is beyond me. But in comparison, to think that an oscar winning movie telling the story of the unfortunate stammer of a king exists is simply “no wise”.
Bring on McAvoy’s response.
Lisa
Lisa – there’s no much Caithness history that must be unknown to even the folk who’ve lived there all their lives. I was pleased when I found out that the top end of Princes Street (from the railways station downwards) was once called Williamson Street. This was after the doctor who innoculated over a third of the population of old Thurso against some deadly illness. This was after the Napoleonic Wars, around the same time as the Clearances. Then late in the 19thC a couple of royals deigned to set foot in the toun, and they got the street name changed. They should change it back! Aye, there’s a lot of tales worth telling in Caithness. Some enterprising person(s) could do something very creative with all of that history and culture
Kx
Thanks for an interesting and stimulating chain of discussion. @Bella, your choice of directors was interesting, Kelly Reichardt or Andrea Arnold sprung to my mind. Or Lynn Ramsey, whatever happened to her?
Her new film is about to screen at Cannes, and is in with a shout for the Palme d’Or and is called: We Need To Talk About Kevin
Kevin W.
great article –
I have been working for a number of years now with compatriots in peterborough, leeds and london – and we’ve been teasing out this commonality of the effects of tenure theft and enclosure etc. in wales scotland england and northern ireland – recently we met in stratford upon avon in ettington hall- said to be owned by some of pioneers of the above… this tension exists as in comments above – but we’ve agreed to accept
1. there is some commonality (weve all been f***ed by the same system/history)
2. there is still a persistent anglican spirituality that dominates the uk and will probably not be fully ‘seen’ by those whose ontology is baptised/shaped by it – which means that really really – hearing what the unspeakable here in scotland is saying to them might is not what they comfortable with for very long (like someone impatient with a mourner whose partner died years ago – but still feels it)
so we’ve kinda come to a working agreement- my english mates are not going to fully see what i see – and I’m not going to be able to change that – but if there is enough commonality to build solidarity out of shared suffering and hope for a different future – among folk and land and the stories that we live by here –
we’ll work together
I have to add too – that solidarity for me, is awareness of task to revive and restore relationship between folk and land here (in all- aboriginal, economic and political-senses) – also a class thing as well as NE highland/doric thing
these english mates are working class – and rage at the ‘spun hystories’ and ‘mystifying mechanisms’ that keep folks down or confused and divided (and conquered) about: the monstrous theft of land and power and ideas and ‘authority’ that belong to folk at the bottom -and long for their countrymen to recover and restore england for themselves and the amazing spectrum of folks who now live there – and could tell same stories as I – in fact we have done over a dram or two
this is where I get a bit confused sometimes – hah, sometimes I feel more solidarity with them than some scots chums who, perhaps have never been in care – or faced hunger – or been without clothes – or faced disgust, bullying or unconscious shaming tactics of the powers that be in schools, social services, institutions, shops even -day in day out, when you have no networks, no safety nets, no warmth, no family, no inner resources to draw on but the refusal to lay down and die
and shrug their shoulders when you try and articulate your frustration at his/her invisible apartheid on scottish imagination – that a few poets, artists and critical activists and thinkers – and lots of dead working class kids whispers on battlefields of two world wars and several housing estates, and prisons -kept alive in the 20th century (the latter wee fires even more unsung than the former)
so being aware of where the historical blindnesses and predispositions are in our histories is good, but also solidarity is great wherever we find it – I guess its such a rare thing I tend to treasure it
even if its a wee bit solidarity – its better than nowt -hah!
great article – some great points and comments (;-)
The Irony is that some of the dispossessed then committed similar atrocities upon the indigenous populations of their new homelands in North America.
Fantastic letter Kevin,
I’m a scottish writer currently working on a novel set in 1912 which draws together the barbarity and legacy of the Highland clearances and the scottish suffragette movement in Glasgow. After a period of family research for my dad I found that my great-great grandmother came down from Lewis to work in Glasgow speaking no english and making a life for herself here. My intention is to translate this work into a screenplay for submission to the BBC drama department. Fingers crossed it makes it to the screen sometime soon! Am sure James McAvoy would do a fantastic job in one of the roles!
Consider the Lilies is an amazing book and has been a massive inspiration for this work!