Scottish is Best
by Ross Samson, MA hons, PhD, founder SFMA
I voted against Scottish independence in the 1979 referendum, although I had been bought a kilt three years earlier and regularly wore it. I still do (and, no, it doesn't really fit). The son of Scottish emigrants, born in California, I felt too much a citizen of a wider world to support what I saw as a backward, provincial, attitude to nationalism. My nearest family lived in Canada, Nebraska, New York, and Abu Dhabi. I was a student then. And since, I have enlarged my perceived world citizenship by living abroad: a year in France, a year in West German, half a year in East Germany. My socialist politics fostered a feeling of international solidarity and a distrust and dislike of most forms of national rivalry and confrontation. And the cry of "it's our oil" appeared pitifully small minded. It wasn't a youthful phase. For fifty years I have heartily disapproved of the Scottish Nationalist Party.But I'm fifty-one now. And although for me there has been no major-life changing event in the past year, at the last election I voted SNP. Alright, I remain a communist, New Labour sickened me and I am a tactical voter, so my vote in what promised to be a hung parliamentary election doesn't make me a convert to Alex Salmond. But all the same, I start my second half-century feeling more Scottish than ever. No, not just that, but feeling that Scottish is best.
The catalyst for this change was ineffably banal. Indeed, in time the event may prove to have been no more than a passing remark. A handful of well-known English furniture makers hit upon the idea of founding the Furniture Designer-Makers Association. Their email suggesting the creation of a new British-wide association admitted that there were a few successful and active bodies already covering parts of Britain, namely Devon, Norfolk and Scotland, but that what was really needed was representation across the whole country. If it comes to be, what would its relationship be to the Scottish Furniture Makers Association? I put it to them but got no response. As yet there is no FDMA. And if it does come into being, without boring you with the details, it seems safe to say there will be little impact on the SFMA.
The sentiments expressed by these English chaps were, in terms of general English insensitivity to Scottish feelings, fairly innocuous. And if I had perceived a genuine need for a brotherhood (for sisters are all too rare) of makers, I would have rallied to their cry for an International Brigade of chisel and plane. What rankled most was that the FDMA didn't plan to do anything apart from complain to the government and ask for money, while our Scottish band (two rifle platoons strong to continue the military metaphor) works hard to help its members by organising exhibitions, running a website, exchanging information and selling on second-hand tools, and by drinking beer. We never complain about others. (Perhaps that's just because we're too busy complaining about each other.) In short, my gripe had nothing to do with English insensitivity or Scottish independence. (Indeed, a large number of SFMA members thought it would be good to join their proposed body.) I simply believed that our association grafted and these ponces were proposing a far bigger association, but one of chatterers.
Paradoxically, the general absence of any real question of nationalism in this little affair has almost imperceptibly turned me into a patriot over the last year. Despite founding the SFMA, until last year I had never exhibited in our annual shows. (Admittedly, that could be because it was held in Edinburgh and, as a Westcoaster, I suffer from a parochial bigotry against the capital.) Worse yet, I have twice chosen to show at Cheltenham while the SFMA annual show was on. The Cheltenham show is three times the size of our Scotch exhibition and includes the most famous furniture designer makers in all Britain. Including those who proposed the FDMA. My epiphany came when the then SFMA chairman, Angus Ross, said to me that I should take part in our own annual exhibitions and thereby help our show to become the Cheltenham of the north.
He was wrong that we could ever rival the English celebration of craftsmanship and design (that's its unfortunate name: CCD). But he was right that I could help "our own" exhibition. Wasn't that why I started it in the first place? So that members could help each other? I had abandoned my comrades. But, coming back into the fold, it wasn't old marxist sentiments that predominated. Instead, it was the feeling that this motley group, which intensely irritates me, was "my own" (I grew up in Nebraska, so I can't bring myself to say "my ane").
I exhibited last year and found that almost everything about it was good. And I found that almost everything about it was familiar. And I found that almost everything about it was Scottish. The tiny number of visitors (inevitable given our meagre advertising budget) was certainly familiar and what could be more Scottish than Greyfriars Kirk and wee Bobbie? Even the Greyfriars kirkyard drunk, who visited our show every day, made me feel at home. I knew half of the exhibitors and I knew the towns or villages that others came from. "Dalmeny? Oh, there's a lovely Norman church there, isn't there?" Roland Fraser's madly artistic work included what I thought was an homage to the Orkney chair. Turns out it was the Shetland chair. Close enough to please me that I saw the cultural similarity. And I've been to both places, worked in both places. I've sat in original Orkney chairs and met a man on Orkney making them today. I also saw a visitor buy Roland's chair and was joyed. As a bitter and twisted sort of person, normally I would be envious, even secretly unhappy. This wasn't what happened in Cheltenham. I knew no one, hadn't heard of most places, including our venue. And I was envious, even secretly unhappy when others sold their work, such as the sideboard in the shape of a bridge, modelled on a famous bridge I hadn't heard of.
When I saw my furniture on Reporting Scotland's coverage of the Housing Expo in Inverness, I was elated. I had made national news! "Local news, surely", responded an English friend. For a second, I was nonplussed. Then I remembered England (and Wales and perhaps other little bits of the UK). Remembered, quite literally, for the massive southern neighbour had not impinged on my consciousness for months as I prepared for shows in Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow, despite the fact that the CCD in Cheltenham opened their doors this weekend. As this year's SFMA exhibition rolls nearer, I am certain that Scotland is best. I'm not making an objective judgement. I'm not making a subjective judgement. Scotland just is best, best for me. Just because it is where I live, where I work, where I travel and among its people are my family, my friends, my colleagues, my customers, my rivals, my enemies and its culture, its music, its art, and its history are familiar and of comfort to me. I hate shortbread and don't much like Westies. Golf and whisky are alright, as are bagpipes in moderation. Tartan is truly wonderful. But none of this will be seen at our exhibitions. And that can only make them honestly Scottish.