Undiscovered Scotland

 

"To See Ourselves: A Personal History of Scotland Since 1950" by Alistair Moffat is a wonderful evocation of a changing Scotland over the past 75 years. The book is "A Personal History" because 1950 was the year in which the author was born and this is the story of his Scotland, a potted biography that takes personal events and themes and extends them outwards into the country at large in order to explore wider issues across Scotland.

The author starts with housing, with tenements and prefabs and high rise flats. We then move on to education, both as it applied to Alistair Moffat himself and to Scots in general. The implications of the coming of television, and the broadening of horizons that it brought with it are explored; and the slow decline of the hold of religion on Scots. The author then turns to Scots' aspirations for better things, to the author's early work experience delivering papers and in retail; to pubs and licensing laws; university life; the role of women in Scottish society; and the development of the debate around evolution and independence.

As a reader who first came to Scotland in 1975, before visiting ever more frequently until I moved here for good in 2000, "To See Ourselves" provides a compelling account of a story I dropped into mid way through. It provides fascinating insights that will appeal to everyone who enjoys today's Scotland and wonders how we've got to where we are.

The publisher's description gives another view of the book: "Since 1945 the world has changed at breakneck speed, and life in post-war Scotland is now entirely different from what it was like when Alistair Moffat grew up in the quiet Border town of Kelso in the 1950s. At that time the rhythms and practicalities of daily life which had remained constant for many generations were about to change in the most unimaginable ways."

"This is a book about these changes – many of which have been dizzying and disorientating – and how they have affected each and every one of us in all parts of the country. The main themes, such as housing, healthcare, sport, the media, the arts and entertainment, urban and country life, our relationship with the environment, politics, religion and education, are all viewed through the lens of personal experience. Alistair’s own recollections of big events and small, together with other eyewitness accounts, bring these decades alive in a way that no ordinary history can with a directness and poignancy that underlines how much has been gained – and how much lost."