THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN FOR SCOTS, by whom I mean anyone in Scotland who will vote in the September referendum to make Scotland a more or less independent nation. This leaves out many who feel thoroughly Scottish but can only vote in England, America or elsewhere. My argument is for changing a government, so I lump these with voteless children and criminals who cannot affect the result of the referendum. My definition cheerfully includes many who think themselves English but work here as hoteliers, farmers, administrators and directors of Scottish institutions; also those who live in Scotland because they have bought a pleasanter place here than they could get for the same money further south. My definition also includes a small but important group of Scots who mainly live and work elsewhere: great landowners like the Duke of ***** and Lady ***** of *****, who have homes and property in other nations but return to their ancestral home here to hold shooting parties and vote; also the seventy-one Scottish members of parliament whose working days are spent almost wholly in London so mostly live there. You may think this definition of a Scot too liberal or too narrow, but it embraces everyone north of the Tweed who has the right to vote, have a say in how Scotland is ruled, and therefore equally belongs to it. It should not matter how recently he or she arrived. The first folk here to call themselves Scots arrived from Ireland. There will be more about them when I refer to settlers and colonists.

My wife is not my severest critic (I am) but she is often severe. Though wanting an independent Scottish government as much as I do she calls this book a waste of time. Only a few of those who agree with the argument for Scots Home Rule announced on the cover may buy it (says she), none of those who disagree will, and folk without an opinion on the matter don’t read books and don’t vote. I have told her that before the general elections of 1992 and 1997 Canongate published my pamphlets called Why Scots Should Rule Scotland, and Scotland has since been presented with its own parliament, though a dependent one. She replies that my writing did not influence that, and may be wrong. The pamphlets were part of a public discussion, and if our debates, agreements and disagreements did not influence how North Britain is governed, then democracy here does not exist.

In 1951 a teacher in my secondary school called my essays on history “too personal”, because when mentioning how those commanding armies and lawyers dealt with weaker folk I sometimes called the stronger lot selfish and unfair. The teacher told me that good, impersonal historians showed no preference for any social class in the people they described. But I believe impersons do not exist. All writers have a viewpoint, and only readers who thoroughly share it think it impersonal. Anyone trying to make a political point should start with an account of themselves, thus alerting readers with different prejudices to facts the debater may suppress or exaggerate. Here goes.

In 1934 I was born in an excellent housing scheme recently built for the kind of folk Victorians called lower middle-class and Marxists petit bourgeois. Our neighbours were a postman, nurse, local newsagent and tobacconist, and printer working for one of the national newspapers then published in Glasgow. My dad, born in 1897, was receiving

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