Quest on to find the highlights of history

azzuri · Quest on to find the highlights of history

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Quest on to find the highlights of history

By Kirsty Taylor

SOME of Scotland’s top historians will clash in a “battle of the intellects” when they select the top 10 events that shaped our nation this St Andrew’s Day in a new series for BBC Scotland.

The ambitious four-part series Scotland’s History: The Top 10 will air on BBC2 Scotland during November. The public will soon be asked to nominate 30 historically significant events they would like to see included in the first three half-hour programmes. Production company Caledonia TV will announce details of an internet poll in coming weeks.

Each of the first three shows will cover 10 key historical topics – from Burns to Bannockburn and trade unions to the Treaty of Union – with every candidate championed by experts passionate about their subject.

The series will be presented by Neil Oliver of BBC2’s Men In A Trench and Coast.

The final hour-long programme, to be broadcast on November 30, will feature the winning top 10 topics, as selected by a panel of history professionals headed by Professor Tom Devine of Edinburgh University. Viewers will also get the chance to vote in a poll to choose the public’s number one.

Caledonia TV’s managing director Seona Robertson said she hoped the series would spark a national debate.

“The series will bring the TV treatment of Scottish history bang up to date – with lively, passionate experts arguing their cases for the most essential topics in Scotland’s past. We hope it will really capture the national imagination, and spark off fierce debate in the nation’s pubs,” she said

Devine said he hoped it would trigger a thirst among the public for more knowledge about their country’s past.

He said: “The series will be a great way to focus public enthusiasm for Scottish history. I hope it will encourage Scots to engage with our nation’s past, and emphasise our need to put the learning and teaching of Scottish history at the top of the cultural agenda.”

As panel chairman, Devine will have the casting vote. He said he expected the final debate to be a “battle of the intellects”, with a simultaneous mass public debate.

“It will be fascinating to see what the audience will respond with. There is a great hunger at the moment for investigating the way we have come to be who we are. We are in the middle of a political and social transformation – development in Scottish identity and awareness over the last quarter of a century and political engagement through devolution have meant that people have a much greater interest in knowing about the past.”

In anticipation of the series, the Sunday Herald last night asked a selection of academics and politicians to name the most significant events in Scottish history. Most focused on episodes that had dramatically altered the country for years to come.

Allan Macinnes, professor of history at Aberdeen University, who will sit on the final judging panel, predicted the wars of independence, the Reformation and the Treaty of Union for the top three, but said the winners would depend on how well the advocate for each event fought its cause on TV.

He said: “People could nominate anything from the national covenant of 1638 to the battle of Culloden. On one level this is just a bit of fun but it will educate and inform as well as entertain. You will always find that people have a keen interest in the history of this country.”

Devine suggested industrialisation as well as the Empire and emigration as hot topics. He also put forward events from the wars of independence through to the Act of Union, and the more recent resurgence of nationalism seen in the run-up to devolution.

The SNP’s leader in Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon, also favoured a contemporary event. She said: “My favourite moment in Scottish history is very recent – the first sitting of the Scottish parliament in 1999 when Winnie Ewing declared that ‘The Scottish parliament adjourned in 1707 is hereby reconvened’. That was the moment that Scotland took the first step in our journey back to being a proud, confident, independent nation.”

Sarah Boyack, Labour MSP for Edinburgh Central chose when the Scottish parliament’s referendum was announced, saying: “The vote made the establishment of the Scottish parliament unstoppable, demonstrating the settled will of the Scottish people.”

Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Tories, preferred to earmark the signing of the national covenant in 1638.

“This was a people’s protest against the autocratic rule of Charles I. The Covenanters themselves might not have been the most tolerant of people but they expressed the wishes of the vast bulk of Scots, and their success was a vital step towards an eventual parliamentary democracy.”

Professor Richard Findlay of the University of Strathclyde maintained that the 1707 Treaty of Union had made the biggest change to Scottish history.

“The Union still determines the political structure in which we all live. For that reason the Union still has relevance – it is still the political determiner for significant things like going to war and arms policy.”

Trevor Royle, historian and associate editor of the Sunday Herald, agreed, saying: “Bringing Scotland into the British union allowed Scotland to take part in the Hanoverian wealth that followed in the 18th century. It allowed Scotland to be part of the British Empire and then take part in the industrial revolution.”

But it was the wars of independence, argued Stirling University historian and author Fiona Watson, that fundamentally altered Scotland’s identity, impacting on the country’s relations with England ever since. She said: “Scotland was much more Celtic and Gaelic as a result. As a mediaeval historian I am always surprised by the lack of self-belief in our Scottishness now. The Scottish kings probably believed they were bigger players in mediaeval Europe than they actually were!”

Historian Michael Fry suggested the first Scottish settlement in Nova Scotia in 1623. He said: “It saved Scotland from parochialism. Although the British Empire didn’t exist, it prepared the way for Scotland’s participation in the British Empire and made the country a world player instead of a parochial wee place.”

Dr Jenny Wormald, of the University of Edinburgh, fought the corner for the Reformation, in which Presbyterian minister John Knox played a large role.

“This was a huge event for people in a time when people did not welcome change as we do today,” she said. “It caused religious division and gave rise to things that are still with us. For example, it created a church that did not officially celebrate Christmas until 1958.”

The period also formed Scotland’s education system, Wormald pointed out. “In the 1590s Scotland had five universities to England’s two.”

Education will be central to the series as historians anticipate the Scottish public engaging with the events that have shaped today’s nation.

Devine, who has spoken vociferously in recent months against the dilution of history teaching, said the series would demonstrate the strength of appetite among people for learning more history.

“My feeling is that the Scottish people, not through any fault of their own, but because of the curriculum in schools, are poorly educated on their national history. The vast majority of pupils come out of school not knowing anything, or worse, knowing myths and half-truths,” he said.

Ewan Angus, BBC Scotland’s commissioning editor for TV, said the series would be educational, but fun.

“It’s a good way to raise awareness of Scottish history and to generate debate around it in a form that has a serious purpose, but also leaves room for fun. The more people who engage with it, the better it will be,” he said.

30 July 2006

Blackadder

For me, the most important even in Scots History was the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 ...

http://www.constitution.org/scot/arbroath.htm

... and the words ... "as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom ... for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Okay ... nowadays you can put aside "English rule" if you're so inclined ... and make that "foreign rule" ... And that still leaves us with one of the most important sentences ever put to paper in the history of Mankind.

It should be printed on every Scottish banknote and imprinted on every Scottish consciousness ... because our forefathers gave the world something to fight for ... the FREEDOM to make their own choices. Of course, the signatories weren't thinking that far ahead ... but it's what they said and how we practice it that makes it worth its weight in Adamantium or Promethium.

It's probable America's Founding Fathers knew of the Declaration and modelled their Constitution after it. Certainly the UNO Declaration of Human Rights takes the sentiment of the Declaration of Arbroath to its logical conclusion.

That's just one reason why Scots have a long, proud, rich heritage ... and we as a people are proud of our roots.

IF Convenor

Eh?

That Stephen Fry hasn't a clue what he's talking about (no change there). Scotland a parochial wee place? Crap! Scotland had well-established trading links all over Europe long before anyone thought of colonising the New World. Small countries have to trade and look outwards to survive.

Parochial, my airse.

IF Convenor

p.s. "Stephen" Fry was a deliberate mistake... a little reference to the Blackadder theme which seems to have taken over this place in my absence.

Blackadder

IF Convener wrote:
".... a little reference to the Blackadder theme which seems to have taken over this place in my absence."

Taken over???? Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Your reign of terror is over!!! Now mine can begin!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

garye

IF Convenor

Read the post right after the one you quoted.

Blackadder

The boy's a fool!