Gone to Iceland

Lesley Riddoch (“Options for a North Atlantic Scotland”, Perspective, 13 November) emphasises our links to Norway and Iceland. It is surprising that so close to Remembrance Sunday she makes no reference to such Second World War events as the Shetland Bus and our military occupation of Iceland. It is thought that memories of the German occupation of Norway played a part in the first referendum in Norway which rejected joining the EU. Norway was, of course, a foundation member of Nato.

The implication in her article that Norway’s population is proportionally larger than Highland Scotland is plain wrong geographically. And in the 19th century emigration and the resulting decline in Norway’ s population was a big political issue. Hundreds of thousands of poor peasants left their marginal holdings – and leprosy – for North America. Special boat-trains for them were run from Hull and Newcastle to Liverpool every spring. I still have a vivid memory of arriving in Madison, Wisconsin, and seeing on the way from the airport a medical establishment with a big sign outside identifying it as “The Quisling Clinic”.