Those who have flourished through their support of the Establishment have never been slow to honour the Duke of Cumberland, commander of the British troops at Culloden, the only batle he ever won. The standard story is that he saved Britain by puting an end to an uprising of mad kilties. Generations of Scots however have remembered what actually happened and the fact that many people still think of the Union flag as Butcher Billy’s Apron is testimony to that fact.


In the past couple of decades there have been Truth and Reconciliation movements in many places and all tell the same thing – you have to face up to the realities of the past if you hope to learn from them and build a beter future. Hiding the actualities of history is working in the exact opposite direction.


In my book I have covered only a handful of periods where our history needs to be clarified but it is notable that it was only with the production of Hector MacMillan’s stunning play, The Rising, in 1973, that the tragic insurrection of 1820 became known to more than a handful of people. Likewise, the Tranent Massacre of 1797 was only writen about in 1979 and, though the Clearances are now well-known, that


Te truth is that we have been fed a sanitised, Britishised and Establishment version of who we are for far too long


it is only because of the efforts of John Prebble in the 1960s.


The truth is that we have been fed a sanitised, Britishised and Establishment version of who we are for far too long. Across the world people have been questioning the idea that history should be about Big Men doing Big Things which is what elite history wants to talk about. The old cliché that you cannot know where you’re going unless you know where you have been has never been more apposite for Scots. We live in changing times and it is of some considerable importance that we begin to create a history of our people that we can teach coming generations – one that is based on what happened, warts and all, and not on the propaganda dictates of a distant government run by a neo-con elite and their lackeys closer to hand.


July 2015 47


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