Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland

Another eminently readable work by this author, this time returning to his own homeland, Scotland, whose history, Ascherson says is like a ”huge, reeking tip of unsorted rubbish across which scavengers wander, pulling off interesting fragments which might fetch a price or come in handy”.

This is not a formal “history” of Scotland, no chronologic exploring of kings or themes, more an exploration of that mysterious “Scottishness” and the fierce pride and sense of place that finally led to the enactment of a British Home Rule law that created a Scottish Parliament so that “this proud country could rule its own affairs”. Ascherson does not venture too deeply into how much this ambition has been achieved or how it could be show more supported without the overall security and infrastructure of a parent – plus of course, like the creation of all of the new wave of “independent” countries from regional aspirations, just a little more taxes. Politically active always in the pursuit of Scotland’s “fredome” Ascherson credits two events for the final concession from Westminster – the Scots youth fascination with Mel Gibson's populist portrayal of William Wallace in “Braveheart” -” a hairy Hollywood distortion” and the death of Princess Diana. The crisis of the monarchy in England after this death led to a surprising resurging of ENGLISH nationalism. This, Ascherson argues, engendered a sympathy for Scotland’s (and Welsh) autonomy, causing a turn-over of the long, political denial that finally led to the granting of some measure of the equally long-held need for independence.

The voices of the stones the author hears are from rocks, mounts, monuments and walls of the Scottish landscapes, rocks, he says, that are as open to the Scots as the “throat of singing birds”. That land is so hard and scarred by man that “Scotland is like 'a poor woman with little flesh between her skin and bones' who carries the scars of many years' use.

Och aye, but she’s bonny still. show less

This not a history of Scotland, although an awareness of its past runs through it. The author considers how the history, landscape and culture have mingled to created the modern nation.

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