Over the Border
Scotland : A Description of Scotland and Scottish Life. Edited by Henry W., Meikle. (Nelson. 15s.)
To judge from difficulties already experienced in booking seats for the major events of the International Festival, Edinburgh, this August and September is going to be full of visitors who, though they have come primarily for Schnabel, the Glyndbourne Opera, the Old Vic Company or the Vienna Philharmonic, are likely to be curious about the setting for this feast of music and drama. Is this indeed, they may wonder, another capital of Europe which has been somehow overlooked? Are these pipes and tartans mere catchpenny trimmings, or symbolic of a fundamental difference between these people and the English? Are these types met in Princes Street, in teashops, trams and buses, moulded by different forces, ruled by different conventions and inspired by different passions? What is Scotland like?
To such queries this compendium would provide most of the answers. Consisting of thirty-two chapters, each written by an acknowledged authority (the historiographer in Scotland on history, the Secretary of the Carnegie Trust on education, the Director of the National Gallery on art, the Registrar-General on population, a K.C. on the legal system, and so on), it is not the sort of book to be read straight through, except possibly by an avid child ; but it does present, with the help of its hundred splendid photographs, a vivid and detailed picture of Scotland today. The emphasis is on facts and information. We learn that four-fifths of the population live in the midland belt, that the average January temperature of the Outer Hebrides is 4e F. (higher than Bordeaux), that the alpine rock-cress grows on the wet ledges of the Coolins and nowhere else, that Edinburgh is the second largest brewing centre in the United Kingdom, that there are 18,000 Jews in Glasgow, that a typical pre-war breakfast in a Scottish country house consisted of porridge and cream, kippers, finnan haddies or grilled trout, bacon with eggs, kidneys or mushrooms, toast, floury baps, white or biirley bannocks and crisp oatcakes, butter, honey and marmalade. (But most of the information is easier to believe than this.) The writers are proud of their country and anxious to show it off ; but the keynote is realistic. Scottish ski-ing conditions can be good, but "can never be relied on " ; the hope for Scottish music lies in more direct contact with international art ; and there is no attempt to work up the picturesque and quaint elements unduly. The Leith Burry Man and the Shetland festival of Up-Helly-a' are described, but sheepdog trials, football matches, the Highland and Agricultural Show and the Perth- cattle-sales are also given their due place as outlets for the Scotsman's need of communal excitement and ceremonial release. Some of the chapters, as that on social and industrial welfare, are all bleak and bare fact ; those on art and architecture are brief histories ; in others, as those on music and literature, a more critical standpoint is taken. What the survey does not convey (and perhaps did not set out to convey) is a sense of those qualities in Scottish life that do not give themselves to measure- ment and enumeration—the " feel " of life in the Highlands, for instance, or in the West End of Glasgow ; the renewed sense of self- confidence up and down the country. Bur, to return to our foreign visitor, whether from England or Europe, he will form his own impression of these things ; and this book provides him with the facts
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