Scotland

Now that I shall be commanding a Scottish battalion, I should like you to send me a copy in one volume of Burns. I will soothe and cheer their spirits by quotations from it. I shall have to be careful not to drop into a mimicry of their accent! You know I am a great admirer of that race. A wife, a constituency, and now a regiment attest the sincerity of my choice!

1916, 3 January, Belgium. (OB, CV3/2, 1354.)

WSC to his wife.

I have myself some ties with Scotland which are to me of great significance—ties precious and lasting. First of all, I decided to be born on St. Andrew’s Day—and it was to Scotland I went to find my wife, who is deeply grieved not to be here today through temporary indisposition. I commanded a Scottish battalion of the famous 21st Regiment for five months in the line in France in the last war. I sat for fifteen years as the representative of “Bonnie Dundee,” and I might be sitting for it still if the matter had rested entirely with me.

1942, 12 October. Usher Hall, Edinburgh.

(End, 237.)

My faith in the free peoples of the British Isles and in Northern Ireland is strong. I do not believe that we are at the end of all our glories, and it is in the struggle to prevent such a catastrophe that all the sanity, wisdom and steadfast tenacity of the Scottish race must be engaged.

1951, 18 May, Glasgow. (Stemming, 87.)