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As the Scots Independent
celebrates its 80th birthday I thought I'd include a few articles from
this issue for you to read here. Around six years ago as I was building
the Electric Scotland web site I was keen to try and get some regular
articles about the Scotland of today and contacted all the Scottish
newspapers and political parties. Out of all of them only the Scots
Independent Newspaper was interesting in doing something on the web. When
I asked who bank rolled them they all fell about laughing :-) You
see it is truly an independent organization and at the time I think they
only had around £3,000 in the bank and all of their staff were volunteers.
Well together we created
The Flag in the Wind
which now has more online readers than the newspaper does and has created
not only an increasing interest in nationalism but has also contributed
hugely to the cultural side of Scotland. Peter Wright, the then chairman
of the newspaper, took great interest in the cultural section and from him
and his wife Marilyn they have produced an outstanding audio treat of
thousands of Scottish words and poems. Every week you also get his
recipes, Scots Wit, Famous Quotations, poems and the Scots language. Jim
Lynch, board member of the newspaper and currently the editor took great
interest in the Political section and really made it his own by adding not
only commentary on things to do with Independence but also created the
Synopsis section and Foot in the Mouth Notes. Over time Jim
managed to bring on others to help with the weekly newsletter with Richard
Thompson, Allison Hunter, Ian Goldie being the first to join in but
now also Donald Bain. This ensures we get a cross section of views.
Today Peter's daughter
Tricia has taken over from myself in the publishing of each weeks issue
and a grand job she is doing. From time to time we also get one or other
of Peter's grand-daughters helping out as well :-)
Kenneth Fee, the then
editor of the newspaper, was very helpful in guiding us on layout. Kenneth
is an old time editor and thus the paper was put together by pasting it
up. He was a bit suspicious of all this new online technology but his wife
Margery undertook to handle the emails :-)
The newspaper is a separate
publication from "The Flag" and I for one would love to see these issues
going on line as there are many interesting articles in it and it really
is a great read each month. You might want to subscribe to it and if so
Click here if you
wish to subscribe to the newspaper by credit card.
Since 1983 the SI has
honoured a Scot each year with an award named after the late W Oliver
Brown who over many decades contributed a pithy column which was the first
item read by many SI devotees. The "Oliver"
was first awarded to the author and climber Tom Weir and is now regarded
as the Scottish equivalent of the "Brits" so-called honours list. The roll
call of winners indeed does read as a list of outstanding Scots.
Over the years Electric
Scotland has been the happy recipient of a number of publications for our
pages including
Scotland - A Concise History
which is an excellent concise history of Scotland coming from one of
Scotland's most respected historians, James Halliday, who is now the
current chairman of the newspaper. 'A masterly summary of our national
story by an impeccable authority', - The Scots Magazine.
And so one way or another
the Scots Independent has done a great job in promoting the cause of Scots
Independence for 80 years and we'd like to wish them a very Happy
Birthday!
Alastair McIntyre
ElectricScotland.com
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