Duncan Harley

James Graham 1st Marquis of Montrose was born in 1612, probably on the High Street site now occupied by the local Job Centre Plus in the Angus town of Montrose.  He was one of the first to to sign  the National Covenant at Edinburgh on 28 February 1638. Outlining radical demands for change in Scotland’s governance, the Covenant led to a bloody civil war and would ultimately lead James Graham to the gallows. Following his sacking of Aberdeen in 1644, a portion of his army, led by Alexander Irvine of Drum, entered Montrose’s hometown with the intention of seizing the town’s two brass cannon.   Meeting local opposition, the Marquis’s troops destroyed the artillery pieces and plundered the town, before withdrawing north for fear of a counter-attack. In 1645, the Aberdeenshire town of Alford played host to what was perhaps the Marquis of Montrose’s easiest victory. After his defeat of Sir John Hurry’s forces, at Auldearn, in early May 1645, Montrose had confronted a ...

Today brings news that the Scottish Government has rejected the advice of its own planning reporter and turned down a proposal by Mexican multi-national conglomerate Cemex to extend an existing aggregate quarry on land bordering the UNESCO listed Falls of Clyde upstream from New Lanark. New Lanark is best known as the site of a social experiment set up by Robert Owen.  Owen, a mill-owner come social reformer, had seen first hand the results of the abuse of the labour force in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and formed the opinion that better conditions would improve production as well as improving the lives of the workers in the cotton mills. Robert Owen's big view was that a “permanent cause of distress was to be found in the competition of human labour with machinery and that the only effective remedy was the united action of men and the subordination of machinery.” Between 1799 and 1813 he improved the lot of the workforce at New Lanark. He introdu...

As the Scottish National Party publicly bicker amongst themselves over who said what to who in the muddle over the sexual harassment allegations against a former First Minister, I have to wonder if the independence movement is heading towards an inglorious end. Many Scots had high hopes when in far off 1967 a bi-election in Hamilton saw a so-called safe Labour seat swing to the SNP in a landslide victory which saw the party take around 46% of the vote over Labour’s 41%. As a new-voter in those heady days, I well recall the scene when Winnie Ewing emerged from the counting office – in the assembly hall of St John's Grammar School – to loud applause. Widely heralded as a watershed in Scottish politics, the Hamilton victory spawned a new pride. Not only had a woman emerged as a voice for Scotland – remember, these were the days of the male-dominated Scottish Office stranglehold on everything north of the border – but a measure of Saltire seemed at least possible. Then came...

Reviewed by Duncan Harley Layla is a splendidly timeless song penned by Eric Clapton and co-songwriter Jim Gordon of Derek and the Dominos fame. Inspired by an Arabian love story – Layla and Majnun – Clapton’s song made 27 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time and won a Grammy in 1993. Clapton was of course in love with Patti Boyd – the wife of his friend George Harrison. Clapton and Boyd would eventually marry for a few years and Layla – the song not the lady – would become ranked amongst the greatest rock songs of all time. They all remained friends. In fact - and stick with this - Harrison attended the Clapton and Boyd wedding and gave his blessing to the unlikely pair. Lyrics include the immortal lines: ‘Let's make the best of the situation Before I finally go insane.’ And now, some decades after the release of Clapton’s Layla, North-east author Judy Mackie, inspired perhaps by the lyrics, has penned   a novel deeply rooted in those far-o...

The four-star Maryculter House Hotel was today the venue for the Scottish Samurai Awards. Scotland and Japan have long enjoyed both trade and cultural links – well for just around 150 years in truth. Japan sent many students to the UK between the late Edo period (1603-1867) and the early Meiji period (1868-1912) in order to explore and import Western technology and the various international trade exhibitions of the 19 th and early 20 th Century provided useful platforms for the sharing of both scientific and aesthetic ideas. Cities such as Glasgow and Aberdeen provided ripe-pickings for the aspiring technologists and alongside acquisition of new skill-sets the two nations exchanged cultural and artistic aesthetics which continue to create broad-ripples to this day. Japan, of course, had participated in the second Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901. The Japan Pavilion was located near the main exhibition hall at Kelvingrove and there is a likelihood that Renni...