Travels in Scotland,

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

Travels in Scotland,

(By a Londc W HEN Englishmen visited the Scots in the old days they met so many wonders that they wrote books and called them “Travels in Scotland,” so implying a spice of adventure, or even of romance. A Scotsman, revisiting his native land after some years’ .absence, gees so many changes, encounters so many little surprises, that he may also think of himself as a traveller in Scotland. The great change is the sweeping of the “North Countree” in the modern world, and so the decline of what used to be obstinate racial characteristics. The Scots hills still shoot towards. Heaven, and the heather on them is as red and glorious as ever, this September Sunday. B.ut somehow the native returned sees a flattened-out Scotland, as if it had been rolled smooth, like an Oxford College lawn. Old friends left in the old places say to you: “Yes, we are being Anglicised, what with the_ London morning papers here at breakfast time, the names of our Sc’ottish railways lost in organisations with their headquarters in London, and the rejoicing cinema and its pictures everywhere.” There is truth in that, but it is not Scotland being Anglicised so much as Scotland being modernised, for this is a universal mass age. , A New Generation. One found a certain quiet resentment of it among Scotsmen and Scotswomen old enough to belong to the last generation. There it is, however, and' the young Scots generation take it for granted and probably get a better time out of it than they would have had a quarter of a century ago. Call at some small inn, in some rural.valley, and you most likely get “preserved cream" with your tea; certainly cakes from a bakery in the nearest town. Almost gone is the delicious tea with home-made scones, homemade jam, home-made butter, and only the tea got from the outside world. Scots teas and Scots breakfasts are still worth having, but their ancient delectability is not what it was. How can it be if the young folk hurry from their work to the cinema and are con-tent-when it is over with a cold supper of “tinned goods”? It was a restless, devil-take-the-hind-most social Scotland that one discovered on Sundays, instead of the aforetime restful Sunday Scotland. Motor-buses are on every road, even that line one from Perthshire, up Glenshee, by the Devil’s Elbow, and down Deeside. The foot-driven bicycle remains more plentiful than in England', and the “pillion girl” is, therefore, less in evidence, because she prefers a motor-cycle. Everybody gets about somehow, and there need be no grumble about that even if it lands you among a Glasgow mob, “where Veneker in silver breaks." The real complaint is that, gaining perhaps materially, Scotland is a 1:1 lie in danger of “losing its full Scots *oul, .though to it the new war shrine at Edinburgh Castle is a testimony of surpassing beauty,

Return of the Native; What He Sees.

Canny Soots. Golf knits the land from the Solway "• to John O’Groats, and a wonderful thing it is in the life of the country, because it helps to keep it human and democratic. Your true Scot resents golf on a luxury basis, and he very definitely resents the element of luxurious hotel-living, which has got into the “Scotch season.” But, Scotslike, he is logical, and he says, “Well, it’s the way of the world, and probably it will give way to some other simpler way of the world.” The Scots mentality continues among the young folk, notwithstanding the cosmopolitan “movie" and other things, and a ghillie, met on a fishing day, made this clear in his conversation. “Oh, aye, maybe!” He was taking time to think a questioh over, or he had thought it over; but would not commit himself one way or another. He was a good-looking fellow, and therefore it was natural to rally him- about the lassies. “Oh, aye, sometimes,” was his answer, and it left you wondering, as any person who puts a too curious question should be left. The Threepenny Bit. The original Scots humour must change, with a changing time, because it is a thing of circumstance, as we are all creatures of circumstance. But Scots humour persists, and, as always, it finds two main texts—in religion, supposed to he innate in the people, and in money, about which they are supposed to be “grippy,” though nowhere does it flow in hospitality more generously than beyond the Tweed. North, as southland here, there has been an odd plague of three-penny-bits, which can be associated with religion because they are traditional coins for the church plate on Sundays. Also, they answer well for “sma’ tips,” and a full experience of this led the waiters in a famous hotel in Scotland to organise a defence. They decided to put all the threepenny-bits given them into what may be called a dead chest; that is to say, stop them circulating, until they could bank them in London against big money, and thus lessen the plague of. “sma’ tips.” They counted without some Scot, who, hearing of this, got a thousand pounds’ worth of “three-penny-bits” out of ids hank and sent them circulating as fast as possible. Stream of Change. Stands Scotland where it did? No nation does. None of us do. The world is not built to stand still, but sometimes old good things and old good characteristics pass away in the moving, growing stream of change, and there, perhaps, most Scotsmen, seeing Scotland to-day, will have certain lamentations for the Scotland of yesterday. Out of that we may see political developments, for one heard heralds and omens; but not just yet, because'the time is not ripe and a merely had Scottish “season” will not ripen it.