Reasons to be proud to be Scottish

[graham_s]

BTW, who wrote "Peter Pan"?

J.M. Barrie.

He lived in a little village a few miles from where I live. I've been to his house (where the original "wendy house" is to be found)

[Ancienne Alliance]

J.M. Barrie.

He lived in a little village a few miles from where I live. I've been to his house (where the original "wendy house" is to be found)

Here, Here ! Another good reason to be proud !
...and another wonderful place to visit in Scotland.



Thank you,


Robert

[Carolina Kiltman]

J.M. Barrie.

He lived in a little village a few miles from where I live. I've been to his house (where the original "wendy house" is to be found)

I might add that Barry also invented the name "Wendy" for the character in his play. . . . how many baby girls have been named Wendy since then?

[thanmuwa]

... speaking on the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland

Afraid I can't give you that one . It was a guy called Meucci.

There are plenty of other Scots in the history of the sciences, William Thomson, (Lord Kelvin), Alexander Wilson (Wilson cloud chamber), Robert Brown (of Brownian motion fame ) to name but a few.

The use of asepsis in medicine was pioneered by Lister in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary (although Lister was English) and Ian Donald is credited as the originator of diagnostic ultrasound, again here in Glasgow. Glasgow Royal Infirmary is both a beautiful building and awe-inspiring due to the amount of pioneering in medicine that took place within it's walls.

And don't forget there would be rich people milling about everywhere, getting in everyone else's way, if the Scots hadn't invented golf!

[Phil]

Afraid I can't give you that one . It was a guy called Meucci.

Well - if the Guardian says so then it must be true. It wouldn't surprise me as Scots have made good one way or another around the world. Look at Andrew Carnegie from Dunfermline. How many places have libraries and halls funded by him? Or Jardine, Mathieson although they do say that was on the back of the opium trade. Only the other night I watched a programme about the Clan Grant and how they made a fortune from slavery on their plantations in Jamaica. It seems that Grant is about the most common name in the Jamaica telephone book! So not things to be too proud about. The Grant clan chief even betrayed his clansmen who had fought on the Jacobite side with Bonnie Prince Charlie. They were sent into slavery in the West Indies as a result. I'm not sure about golf though. Didn't I read recently that the Chinese are claiming to have invented that?

[thanmuwa]

I'm not sure about golf though. Didn't I read recently that the Chinese are claiming to have invented that?

This is something you see every so often, and I would class it in with the claim that whiskey was invented in Italy etc etc.

The rules of golf (and, let's face it, the rules are what make any game what it is) are clearly from Scotland. A game similar to golf may well be played in China, but it's not golf. Hitting a stone with a stick is a game that has been invented in many places, along with kicking a pig's bladder about and then picking it up and running with it .

And while distilling was clearly brought to Ireland and not invented there, and distilled liquids have been called Aqua Vitae or the equivalent for a long time, it is really only when it was called uisce beatha that it became whiskey .

[arrg-isle]

And don't forget there would be rich people milling about everywhere, getting in everyone else's way, if the Scots hadn't invented golf!

Not to mention physicians on duty on Wednesday afternoons!

[McELT]

...on a tarmac road surface originated by John Macadam from Ayr, Scotland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7748533.stm

Here in western Pennsylvania (where Carnegie grew his empire), we called a paved road surface "macadam". However, we pronounced it "ma cad um" as opposed to "mac adam", which obscured its origins as the name of the inventor.

[WARPIPER]

Great stuff, and I am sure the list could be expanded quite a bit.

[PiobBear]

After piping a wedding last year, an elderly woman came up to me, and told of how her family had escaped Poland in '38 a step ahead of the Nazis, and had been resettled in Glasgow, with only the shirts on their backs and speaking only Polish. Despite rationing and wartime shortages, the people of Scotland shared what little they had with them, and made them welcome in a foreign land. Her mother had admonished her, as she has her daughters and grand-daughters, to always tell this story to their children, and impress upon them the debt their family will always owe to the kindness of the people of Scotland.

A good St. Andrew's Day to one and all.