Quote Originally Posted by Hamish
The following letter appeared in the Scottish paper, "The Sunday Post" this weekend - one week after the article featuring me and my kilts appeared in the same journal:

Kilts

Do you think it’s possible to get Englishmen to wear kilts? I reckon if some enterprising Scottish manufacturer were to sell kilts in bright colours with assorted designs of chess-board checks, polka dots, stripes, zig-zags, etc, complete with a bright red sporran, they could really catch on. Perhaps at first for wear in discos/nightclubs and then, as people became bolder, for everyday wear. It’s time to brighten up men’s fashion. Sassenach kilts could be the answer.

Ken Evans, Truro
Ham,

There could be more to this than meets the eye. The writer (Ken Evans) is from Truro in Cornwall, where certain elements within the population don’t consider themselves to be English. Cornwall is also one of only a few English counties, which have their own tartans, and where it is not uncommon to see men wearing kilts on Cornish nationalistic occasions. Ken also uses the word ‘Sassenach’, which although it is normally used by the Scots to refer to the English, is actually from a Gaelic word meaning ‘Saxon’ (in fact the Cornish have their own version of the word, ‘Sawsnek’). As no self respecting Cornishman would ever consider himself to be a Saxon, I am wandering if this is Ken’s way of having a disparaging dig at the ‘English’, by implying that the only way one would get an ‘Englishman’ into a kilt would be to turn it into some sort of pop-art disco-wear garment with bright colours, polka dots and zigzags.

Rob (a Devonian, who is always highly suspicious of Cornishmen’s motives)