ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

While 2019 may not have brought Alan Cochrane much to smile about, he is positive that the new decade will see plenty of opportunity for celebration

Alan Cochrane looks forward to 2020, filled with commemorative events and celebrations

Now that 2019 – regarded by a great many people as an annus horribilus – has gone, few will lament its passing. Other than my achieving a significant but not entirely welcome birthday milestone, 2019 was a truly desperate year, at least in my opinion. It all boiled down to Brexit, but not just because most of Scotland voted for Remain back in 2016.

No, it was because the argument about how we were to honour that referendum result caused a virtual shutdown of government. Not only that, but the shenanigans which accompanied the resulting political stalemate made this country and its supposed mature democracy a global laughing stock.

There’s no need for this column to remind readers of all that happened last year except to say that new Prime Minister Boris Johnson has a helluva job on his hands to unite a divided UK – bruised and battered in much of Scotland and other Remain-backing areas, but euphoric in large parts of England.

However, I reckon there are some notable anniversaries looming in 2020 which will remind us what a brilliant country this is – both Scotland and Britain. First up we’ll have the 700th anniversary of Scotland’s Declaration of Independence at Arbroath.

And while I’m certain there might be malcontents who’d wish to make modern-day political capital out of it, I’m also certain that most Scots will cherish the event as a signal moment in this country’s history which makes the hugely subsequent successful 300-year Union of Scotland and England all the more remarkable.

But coming much closer to today, 2020 will enable us also to celebrate several of what the likes of Winston Churchill like to term Britain’s ‘finest hours’. It is the 80th anniversary, for instance, of Dunkirk which by any standard was a humiliating defeat but which nevertheless saw some 300,000 British troops rescued from the clutches of the German Army by that incredible armada of small ships.

For those who lived through it, whether servicemen or civilians, 1940 had many dark days. With Britain standing alone against the might of Hitler’s Germany, and with all of Europe conquered, our plight may well have appeared hopeless. But with the benefit of the intervening decades, it is clear that 1940 saw Britain – and that wonderful generation – at its best.

That fact is well worth celebrating, as will be the other anniversary that falls in late summer and early autumn this year. It may well be eight decades since those brave young men – the Gallant Few – won the Battle of Britain and saw off the threat of invasion but their memory lives on.

Together with the ‘miracle’ of Dunkirk, those pilots in their Spitfires and Hurricanes paved the way for ultimate victory five years later. I make no apology for hoping that Britons – as well as their allies – can find time to mark those incredibly important events this year.

Moreover, there is another 80th anniversary that should be commemorated this year – a much more tragic tale but one which combines all the heroism and fortitude that helped Britain triumph in the Second World War.

I’m referring here to the capture of the entire 51st Highland Division at St Valery en Caux, a couple of weeks after Dunkirk, an event that affected huge sections of the Scottish population. Thousands of ‘Jocks’ were marched off into five long years of captivity, an event that is to my mind, shamefully, largely unknown to most Scots.

With some friends I visited St Valery last autumn and one group who do remember the sacrifice of the 51st are the residents of that beautiful wee seaside town. They also remember that it was the re-formed 51st which liberated them from the Germans after D-Day four and a half years later.

There was said to be ‘great jubilation’ among the locals when freed by the Jocks, so much so that my friends and I are thinking of paying a return visit in September.

I think it might be an idea to wear our kilts. What do you think?

“2020 will enable us also to celebrate several of Britain’s ‘finest hours’