What’s on Electric Scotland?

I often get emails from people saying they wished that I could profile some aspect or other about Scotland and the Scots and I find myself replying that if you go to this page url you’ll find information is already on the site.

This being the case I thought in this issue I would try to tell you a little of what you can find on Electric Scotland that isn’t immediately obvious and hopefully with most of you having Internet access you’ll enjoy exploring some of our hidden gems.

Information on Highland Regiments is often requested and we do in fact have a whole section devoted to them which you’ll find in our “History” section. Just look for “Scottish Regiments” and in there you’ll find considerable information on The Black Watch, The Fraser Highlanders, The Gordon Highlanders, The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, The Ross-Shire Buffs, The Argyle & Southern Highlanders and many more. Some of the accounts are large enough to be a whole book in their own right.

As a complete contrast I often speak with parents and grand-parents with young children who like to read them a story at bedtime. Often they are amazed that we carry over 600 children’s stories and hundreds of nursery rhymes on the site.  Just two areas to explore are within the “Kids” section where you’ll find “Children’s Stories” and in that section you’ll find over 500 stories suitable for younger children and most have a Scottish theme to them. Margo Fallis wrote these for the site and as she was a teacher of young children she knows what to write about that will interest them.

Also in the “Kids” section you’ll find “Charlotte Bleh’s Collection” where she has hundreds of wee old Scottish nursery rhymes and other poems. She wrote these for her children and grand-children and has kindly shared them with us for the enjoyment of all. I might add that she also wrote a really interesting account of her trip back to Dundee with her children when she returned to bury her mother’s ashes in her old home town. You can read that account under our “Travel” section where you’ll find “Charlotte's Visit home to Scotland” and that makes a really good read.

Our national poet Robert Burns is famous throughout the world but often people don’t understand some of the words he uses in his poems and songs. Well “The Flag” section holds a huge collection of real audio recordings in the “Scots Language”. So by visiting this section you can listen and read over a thousand words in the Scots language of his day as well as listen to many poems and stories. You’ll also find a complete Burns supper recorded as well as special audio tributes to Tartan Day that they’ve done for the past four years.

Looking for books to read well just go to our “Books” section and you’ll find “Read Scottish Books Online” and in there you’ll find many books that we’ve OCR’d onto the site for you to read. We usually split books into chapters so you can read them a bit at a time.  There are many history books in this section but also some lighter reading such as “A Doctor of the Old School”, “Corporal Cameron” and in “Wilson’s Border Tales” you’ll find loads of short stories about Scotland and the Scottish Borders”.

Nothing on the TV tonight that you want to watch?  Well how about sitting down to do the odd jigsaw puzzle or two or three?  You’ll find a great collection of them to play within our “Games” section under what else but “Jigsaws Puzzles”. As you scroll down the page you might also notice our very popular “Dress the Chief” game where you can select three different backgrounds and then build a picture with the Chief and his family. For those wanting to learn a wee bit about business our “Lemonade Stand” is also very popular as you try to make lots of money from selling lemonade.

Ever felt like writing a poem or short story?  Well lots of our visitors have already done so and they share their talent by sending them in to us to include on the site within our “Poetry & Stories” section. And on this theme if you go to our “World” section and select “America” and then “American History on Electric Scotland” and then “Donna Flood's Stories” you’ll find an amazing collection of her poetry and stories. In there you’ll find recipes, stories about pets, native Indian lore and loads more.  Donna has just had her first book published and you can see her picture and the press release on her page.

Also within this section you’ll find a bible story by Francis Kerr Young which was also recorded by Peter D Wright of the Scots Independent Newspaper. You’ll find this under the “Poetry & Stories” section, “Poems by Francis Kerr Young” and in there select “Grandfather tells the children the story of the Great Flood” and you might want to share this one with your local minister as you can both read and listen to it and it might be a great one for Sunday School.

Should you be going to a party or having to give a wee talk then we have a great wee “Humour” section where you can pick up the odd wee one liner or joke that might go down well. In there you’ll also find links to “Check out Ranald's Collection of Sayings and Verses” where Ranald McIntyre from Scotland has posted his own collection of wee sayings that he’s gathered over his many years.  At the bottom of the “Humour” section you’ll see a link to “See also the Scots Independent's "Scot Wit" page” where they have many wee Scottish humour stories in text but all with a real audio link so you can listen to them being told in a rich Scottish accent.

Should you enjoy listening to Scottish music then when you visit our “Music” section you’ll find a link “Listen to Scottish Community Radio from Australia” where you can listen to over a hundred half hour shows recorded by Jock Dundee at his weekly Scottish radio program at Triple U radio station in Australia.

And to finish there is of course the Family Tree Newspaper under it’s own section “Family Tree” where you can read each edition of the paper along with lots of additional stories. In there for example we hold “Newsletters” where we post many clan society newsletters. You’ll also find a link “Welcome to Moultrie, Georgia” inside of which you’ll find some excellent Southern History of the county at “Beth's Weekly Moultrie Observer Column” and some great Southern humour under “Mo Hawg”.

The above is all really just the tip of the iceberg. When I’m invited to give an introduction to Electric Scotland it takes me around 2 hours to properly introduce all that is available on the site. So hopefully some of what I’ve introduced you to above will spark some interest and if it does then please go to http://www.electricscotland.com with this paper beside you and have a wee visit to check it all out.  Perhaps worth having a mug of coffee or tea besides you as you might be awhile!

To finish I might just add that if you’d like to hear more about the site you can always book a cabin on the “Kilts in the Wind” Cruise which is a weeks cruise sailing from New York to Nova Scotia, September 18 – 25, 2004, where both myself and Beth Gay along with others will be giving talks. You can get more details on the cruise at http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/canada.htm