Anthem choices
No-one is defending the behaviour of drunken oafs abusing Eddie Jones, but I for one am not “disgusted and embarrassed” like Richard Lyon (Letters, 9 March) and certainly not “ashamed to be Scottish”, which we have heard ad nauseam from those suffering, most likely, from the ‘Scottish Cringe’.
I understand, in any case, that Mr Jones was abused by English fans later that week, but get over it – many of us heard far worse from No supporters in the run-up to the independence referendum, and Laura Kuenssberg, Nicola Sturgeon and other prominent Scots receive far viler abuse every week.
I do agree, however, with Mr Lyon that the dirge Flower of Scotland is not our national anthem and unsuitable to be so (“...wee bit hill and glen...”!). Unfortunately, the Scottish Government will be in no hurry to choose a new one as the process will be acrimonious, hijacked by the red-top press and resulting in some Lauderish drivel involving Jock, Grannies or But-and-bens being chosen as “the People’s Choice”.
In any case,we have a marvellous anthem – Scots Wha Hae played con brio is magnificent. As for it’s harking back to battles and strife, a great many national anthems do just that, and there is some evidence that the melody was played at Bannockburn. With words by our great national poet how could any contender as anthem have nobler credentials?
DAVID ROCHE Conachar Court, Perth
I agree totally with Richard Lyon about Flower of Scotland, which he sees as a lament and I regard as a dirge. I would disagree with him as to God Save the Queen being the English anthem. It is our anthem too.
Playing different anthems never happened when I was a boy, because they just played “the” national anthem to which we could all lend our voices and all stand shoulderto-shoulder.
Clearly, to remove the unnecessary and totally artificial division that taking away our national anthem from our team has caused, we have two choices as I see it. One is that we revert to singing “the” national anthem, or, two, we use a new one. How about that old Scots-penned national favourite Rule Britannia?
ANDREW H N GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh