A rather well written piece of history and none of it can I or will I dispute other than to say, the focus on what the great and the powerful did and said or how they might vote in this referendum of ours is all well and good, but where are the millions of ordinary people in this tale? The only look in they get is to claim that [f]or millions of Scots this will be a reason to rejoice; for even more millions, on both sides of the Tweed, a moment of incredulous sorrow at the loss of our common home. The trouble with the historical view of the UK is that it focusses on the big things; the triumphs, the leaders, the philosophers, the thinkers, the kings and the king makers. Rarely does it give much voice to the people further down the pile who did the working, the fighting and the dying. Scotlands people benefited from the Union through the Industrial Revolution which put the likes of Glasgow on the map as a great centre of engineering. Some of these benefits came in the form of slum living, poverty, disease, over-work and the loss of their previous lives lived throughout the country of Scotland as landlords removed people from the lands and replaced them with sheep, deer, grouse and big houses. How would they have voted on this Union if given the chance? I rejoice in Scotlands rich heritage of great thinkers, inventors, scientists and engineers but their achievements often came about through the sweat of ordinary people and they should be remembered too.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 08:03:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015