THE UNITED KINGDOM

The Union Jack fluttering above the beach in Lyme Regis on the South Coast.

On Thursday 18^th September in the year of 2014 the Scottish people are voting for independence.

They are voting to separate themselves from the rest of the United Kingdom and go it alone as a separate political and economic entity. They could of course vote to stay as part of the United Kingdom too. However, at this moment, two days before this momentous vote, the decision of the Scottish people hangs in the balance.

The people on these islands began to appear about 500.000 years ago and then the Ice Age came and they disappeared. About 12000 BC the climate warmed up and the ice melted. People returned. They could walk here because the land that later formed the British Isles was joined to Europe by a land mass. This land bridge, called Doggerland later disappeared under rising sea levels Evidence for hunter gathering has been found in the remains of bones and in cave drawings. To hunt, especially the larger animals like mammoths, bison,elk and  aurochs, people needed to group together. At this stage only small groups would be required to hunt and trap large animals. It is easy to see how small communities probably family sized communities  needed to work together and it is easy to understand that they would form traditions within families and also pass down family stories. The seasons and the weather patterns also ruled their lives.This early instinct to form small communities and work together developed through the centuries and millennia.

We can look back at the vast expanse of the history of these islands starting from hunter gatherers and the requirements of their lifestyle  to the appearance from Europe  of people who had started to  farm and so formed static permanent communities and built houses and huts. The Neolithic period or New Stone age was the time people formed themselves into tribes and became far more powerful because of their numbers. Vast building projects like the  stone circles at Avebury and Stone Henge and giant mounds like Silbury Hill in Wiltshire , the hill forts such as the vast Maiden Castle in Dorset, used for protection from neighbouring kingdoms, were built. They required great technological ingenuity and the development of tools. The coming together of tribes into kingdoms required leaders, holy men , traditions, rituals and beliefs. They created strong powerful and increasingly wealthy communities. Later, metals began to be smelted naming the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Celtic tribes moved here from Europe in about 500 BC and brought new traditions and technologies.

The Romans invaded in 43 BC, stayed a few hundred years and built  towns and roads and then left. Invaders from Europe came,. The Angles and Saxons and they formed Kingdoms like Mercia and Wessex. These kingdoms often fought each other. The Vikings came and invaded and took their part of the country mostly in the north in an area termed The Danelaw. The Saxons fought back under Alfred the Great and stemmed  the tide of Viking authority. William the Norman invaded in 1066  and took over a country  we could recognise today as England stretching from the South coast up to Northumberland and the borders of Scotland.

Between 1282 and 1283 Edward I invaded Wales and built massive castles at Caernarvon in the north and Pembroke in the south and a whole range of other castles throughout Wales to keep it subjugated and placed it under English rule. During the 1290’s he turned his attention to Scotland. He didn’t manage to subjugate Scotland. There were defeats as well as successes but war was an expensive undertaking and Edward I had problems with taxation. His son Edward II continued the Scottish campaign but was unsuccessful too.

Scotland began its joining with the United Kingdom when Elizabeth 1 died childless and the Tudor dynasty came to an end. Her cousin, James VII of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, was invited to become King of England. He accepted and became James I of England.The crowns were united but the countries stayed separate until full union was achieved through the act of union in 1707. The forces of trade and influence within Empire brought us together. There was a need to be together for the greater good.

The Tudors had tried to subjugate and rule Ireland but had not proceeded much beyond Dublin and The Pale.After the English Civil war Cromwell sent armies to Ireland to subjugate them. The Irish had been royalist in sympathy and would have caused a problem if they were not controlled. It was a severe and brutal campaign and Cromwell is hated in Ireland to this day. Ireland's joining the union was a parallel coming together with Scotalnd. It achieved its act of union in 1800. Differing forces of religion and trade played their part. Also in both cases Scotland and Ireland were seen as routes to invasion from England's enemies. It was better for all, economically and militarily to be together.

The history of the United Kingdom, is therefore bloody and often cruel but it is also the history  of a coming together which enabled growth, industrial and agricultural revolutions, great art, music and literature.  This creative force occurred because of the forging together of four united countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland into a place that is so unique and special and has this deep shared history. It is in the gradual unifying of the whole that it has become an amazing and special place.

It is easy for nationalists in Scotland, or England, Wales and Ireland to want to separate from the others because of a deep sense of remembered hurt, pride and belief in their traditions but they are not looking at the whole picture. They are being selfish and ready to damage the whole for their narrow beliefs and so doing they are going to diminish the strength and power that comes from being together rather than apart. The British Isles, The United Kingdom, is going to be a smaller place not just in land mass if the YES vote wins on Thursday. The strength derived from being together will be weakened. We will not be quite so amazing.

Rather like those early hunter gatherers who needed each other to help bring down a woolly mammoth otherwise, as individuals they would not have been able to survive,  we all need each other now in our four countries to stay strong and grow. Within a group it is still possible to have individual traits, traditions and beliefs. Often strength and creativity is derived from the diversities within a whole. A synergy is formed. The history of our islands has been one of struggle, pain and war, but through the searing heat of that melding together it has made us unique and special.

A piper in Princes Street next to Scott's monument. I hope we can call this bit of land part of The United Kingdom come Thursday!!!!