Sing of future glory, not the past

FORGET the snow, the ice, the knee-knocking low temperatures, suspended trains, intermittent buses, food shortages and road grit that’s as rare as 24-carat diamonds, there’s only one big story this week and it’s one that is guaranteed to generate heated debate at the very mention of it. Yes, Scottish athletes have voted Flower of Scotland to be their anthem of choice for October’s Commonwealth Games.

The games will be held in Delhi, where pavement gritters will likely be a more common sight than in Scotland, I reckon. The Indian authorities would probably be less surprised and more prepared than ours should it snow there for weeks accompanied by temperatures that hit more negatives than the average political debate.

We Scots used to have a word that described the weather conditions we have experienced since before Christmas. We simply used to call it winter.

Since we started swallowing the fanatical fatalism of the planetary doom-mongers, however, and began to believe their assertions that the period from December to March would in future consist only of mild winds and heavy rain, we have been lulled into a false sense of security. Those who said that Scotland’s ski resorts should be pulled down and that we would be growing tomatoes outdoors in the Cairngorms in January before too long should be ashamed of themselves. They should be forced to stand in the 4ft drifts in my garden wearing kilts and no underwear. That should give them a better feel for their responsibilities and cool their passions.

Still, I digress. Back to the anthem. Should any of our dedicated athletes reach the top step of the podium in Delhi – we collected 11 golds last time, including Grantown’s Craig MacLean, Aberdeen’s David Carry and Huntly’s Sheena Sharp – then the world will be treated to the sound of us Scots wondering aloud if we will ever again see the Scotland of 1314 when Robert Bruce bloodied English noses at Bannockburn.

Those were heady days, true, culminating six years later in the Declaration of Arbroath, signed in 1320. The very thought of it today is enough to have the first minister dribbling with excitement.

Roy Williamson’s plaintive song Flower of Scotland captures that mood, pining for the time when Scotland rose up and sent proud Edward’s army homeward to think again. Lucky it wasn’t travelling by rail or it would still be here waiting.

Ironically, the direct descendants of the wealthy nobles and barons who signed the Declaration of Arbroath to assert the sovereign power of the Scottish people sold up for English gold and signed the Act of Union 300 years later. Money talked just as loudly then as now.

Flower of Scotland certainly captured the nation’s spirit when belted out hoarsely by thousands of rugby fans at Murrayfield in 1990, just before Scotland tanked England 13-7 to win the Grand Slam. The song sounds particularly impressive at Murrayfield, especially before matches against the Auld Enemy, although less so at Hampden for some reason.

When played by an amateur bugle band at the wrong tempo on some sun-drenched foreign field, however, it’s as dignified as a giraffe ice-skating.

The flower is wilting. It is too nice and too musical to be a successful anthem. Like Scotland’s roads, we need some real grit to get us going.

Sadly, there’s nothing suitable to take its place. Scotland the Brave sounds like the anthem of a half-baked banana republic, more Wallace and Gromit than Wallace and Bruce, while Highland Cathedral sounds like a funeral dirge. Most other candidates, such as Scots Wha Hae, hark back to those bloodthirsty days of cross-border conflict. Is that really the best we can offer?

None of them is liable to inspire me to run, jump, throw or swim farther and faster than anyone else. Most are liable to send me, instead, to search for a deep-fried pie supper and a six-pack of cheap lager. Compare them with La Marseillaise, for example, and it’s no contest.

Scotland can surely do better than to look back 700 years for inspiration. We should organise a new anthem competition looking forward to a bright future, not dwelling on past glories.

TV can generate huge audiences for musical talent shows involving the likes of Simon Cowell, so I suggest we run our own series, along the lines of the X Factor, and showcase the creations of Scots composers and lyricists until a new anthem is chosen by public vote.

The final result will never please everyone, of course, but at least we would have made the effort and had some fun along the way. If none is satisfactory, we can head homeward to think again before the 2014 Commonwealth Games hit Glasgow.

Scotland is about much more than a wee bit hill and glen, after all.