Nicola Sturgeon upholding the rules

We’ve moved so many times that home is where we make it, really.

SueDonim

Oh, my boys didn’t lie down under it, Callistemon! In fact, my oldest still has the same tight circle of friends he had when he started senior school over 30 years ago, some of whom are ardent SNP supporters, even though he’s lived in the US for nearly twenty years.

Sadly, not all Scots are as open-minded as his friends.

Mine have too, despite the fact that they arrived in Wales with London accents. It was tough for the older ones at first, but Wales will always be home for them now wherever they are in the world.

Which nations do like being patronised?

What an arrogant twit he was Elegran. Bet you were so relieved to hear that Edinburgh was "up and coming" weren't you!

Watch out! Deep-fried Mars Bar meme at two o'clock!

I have noticed that Scots in general don't like to be patronised, and a certain type of visiting Englishman (it is usually a man) tends to talk down to the natives.

I remember, too, being in a hotel in the Western Isles and having to share our breakfast table each morning with a Londoner someone who compared everything unfavourably with London. He had been to the Trossachs because he had heard how wonderful it was around there, but didn't think much of it - Aberfeldy was just a little town with nothing happening. When he learnt we were from Edinburgh, he kindly told us it was coming up in the world and might soon count for something. How to make friends and influence people!

I have lived in Scotland for over 50 years, and have never found that anyone resented me. My small brother was bullied at primary school - but that was by someone who bullied any quiet lad who seemed "posher" than him, and equated an English accent with poshness. This boy was also half German (in the 1950s) and perhaps he had received treatment from his peers that made him quick to dish out the same. Bullying is infectious.

Furret

*But really, there's no "festering resentment*

You clearly don’t know some of the people I do then. And before you simply dismiss this as an example of ‘befuddled’ thinking you might want to consider, yet again, you do not speak for everyone and your attempt to dismiss these feeling, or your refusal to accept them, may in fact show that you do not have your finger on the pulse as much as you seem to think.

Fair enough, as you have pointed out, I don't know everyone in Scotland.

I appreciate the apologies, thank you, but don’t worry, there’s no need to apologise for something you personally haven’t done!

LadyHonoria I’ll have to disagree with the idea that it’s just a child’s view of outsiders. Children take their cues from their parents and one only has to think of the ‘Anyone but the English’ attitude in sport to see the thinking of many.

I never though you Scots hated ordinary English people, just that you resented the Westminster establishment. I would hate for Scotland to break away from the union to become independent, but I can totally understand why you might want to.
I will quote David Bowie and say "Scotland don't leave us!"

SueDonim: I'm sorry your boys have had a bad experience in Scottish schools. I don't think that's a Scottish-English thing, I think it's a more general childish response to outsiders.

If its any consolation I was put through hell at the age of 11, just by moving from the Wirral to Hertfordshire.

Axe to -grind- - it's been that kind of a day

Assuming you’re a woman, Alegrias, that was weird to call you Jock!

Yes, I'm a woman SD ? I think they thought it was funny.

Maybe I was the first Scot they'd met. It wasn't yesterday. ?

As an English-born person living in Glasgow I can say in all honesty that I have not experienced a shred of hostility towards me as an English person, and I feel welcomed as an honorary Glaswegian and as a Scot because I have chosen to live here. It's not English people that are resented, it's the English establishment that treats Scotland as an afterthought. It's not until you've lived here for a wee while that you start realising all the little differences that make Scotland seem much less like a northern extension of England with some cultural quirks and more like a quite different country. You also realise how little you, as a person raised and educated in England, know about Scotland and Scottish history. I think we did Mary Queen of Scots in school history, and Bannockburn, but apart from that nothing about Scotland before 1707. Agincourt? Scotland was on the French side but you wouldn't know it. Macbeth? A wonderful play but historically a load of bollocks and a libel against one of the more benevolent Kings of Scots. There all the little unthinking slights too: the BBC weatherman coming on the radio yesterday saying how wild and stormy it was (in London maybe, in Glasgow it was a lovely crisp autumn day). And the mass-produced Thank You NHS stickers with the -English- NHS logo on it. NHS Scotland is separate and slightly older than the English NHS. And Boris on the news every night talking about Covid, over which he has no jurisdiction in Scotland.

Scots have no axe to grind with English people any more than they have with, say, Swedish people (the Lord Provost of Glasgow until quite recently was a Swede). They just feel neglected and taken for granted by the English establishment.

Scots have no axe to grub

SD may I apologise for my fellow Scots who made you and your family unwelcome. Like any culture it is often the less educated, less well off or parochial who can take out their resentment on incomers.

Oh, my boys didn’t lie down under it, Callistemon! In fact, my oldest still has the same tight circle of friends he had when he started senior school over 30 years ago, some of whom are ardent SNP supporters, even though he’s lived in the US for nearly twenty years.

Sadly, not all Scots are as open-minded as his friends.

Actually SD that was what I was wondering. That might explain a lot.

But really, there's no "festering resentment

You clearly don’t know some of the people I do then. And before you simply dismiss this as an example of ‘befuddled’ thinking you might want to consider, yet again, you do not speak for everyone and your attempt to dismiss these feeling, or your refusal to accept them, may in fact show that you do not have your finger on the pulse as much as you seem to think.

Assuming you’re a woman, Alegrias, that was weird to call you Jock! I wouldn’t like it either but I don’t think there’s an equivalence between a Scot in England and vice versa. As a child in England, to me Scotland & the Scots always seemed well-regarded, with their thinkers, their writers, their engineers and architects, a people to be admired. I had a book with a picture of the Forth Bridge in it which I looked at time & again, fascinated at the endless repainting it needed back then and wanting to see it for myself. It seemed a glorious thing.

It was a shock to come to Scotland and, once my boys began school, find that some people resented us enough to make our lives miserable when we ourselves had done nothing to them.

I should also add, my daughter is now working in N. England and curiously, every single Scot she has come across, and there are quite a few, has immediately identified her as coming from Scotland as soon as she speaks.

I too have been in situations where anti-English sentiment has been expressed but then people have turned to me and said the equivalent of ‘But you’re alright.’
The same has been said to me in Wales. But apparently I was ok, she liked me ??????????????
That was until England beat Wales at rugby that weekend.
My children were bullied at school or ignored when we first moved here but they stood up for themselves and integrated well.

People often say it without thought.

That breaks my heart SueDonim. My English born, English-accented husband suffered the same in the seventies and eighties. There are, unfortunately, places where the 21st century still has to arrive. I wouldn't try to say it doesn't happen because, obviously it has happened to you.

With my Scots accent I used to get called "Jock" a lot when I worked in the Midlands. But I didn't think they all hated me.

You're quite right Furret, I can't talk for every single Scot. I'm sure that there are some benighted people out there who still believe that all we need to do is get out from under the English yoke and all will be fine.

But really, there's no "festering resentment". We're not all about to come rampaging through the Lake District with our claymores drawn. Most of us who support independence are quite open about not wanting to be part of the Union any more, we don't blame the other members, its just that the Union doesn't work for us any more. Its been nice, but its time to go.

And really, really, I can't say this enough. The Referendum didn't rouse any anti-English sentiment, except among those who were a bit befuddled by the modern world anyway. It made a lot of people realise that we can define ourselves as Scots without having to blame any other nation for our situation.

If only that were true, about Scots not hating the English. My boys are now in their 40’s and they were seen as being English and bullied for it throughout the 80’s and 90’s. The schools’ responses were to shrug their shoulders as though they deserved it.

My daughters haven’t suffered so much at school, probably because we now live in a more diverse, less parochial area which voted no in 2014, but my youngest in her studies as a medical student in Scotland constantly had to defend herself as to where she is from, because she doesn’t have a Scottish accent. Being asked ten times a day where you’re from, followed up by ‘No, but where are you really from?’ is racism.

I too have been in situations where anti-English sentiment has been expressed but then people have turned to me and said the equivalent of ‘But you’re alright.’

Racism has always been a part of our experience of Scotland. It doesn’t do to think it doesn’t exist. Despite that, I love where I live right now and my heart lifts at the sight of home whenever we drive north over the border.

You can’t say that because there are some in Scotland who do. Yes, you are probably correct inasmuch as some are anchored in past grievances, as I said in my post. And please don’t shout.

You cannot speak for all Scots. Even though the majority don’t actually hate the English per se, there is quite a lot of resentment festering.

Furret the last independence referendum only roused anti-English feelings in those who didn't really understand what was going on and who haven't moved on from the past. I'll put this bit in capitals:

WE DON'T HATE THE ENGLISH!