Kenneth Roy
How to airbrush a living hero

What makes news? For most of Wednesday, the second most important item on BBC Scotland's website (only the pre-Budget report was considered more important) concerned the resignation of its own weather forecaster, Heather Reid. Atholl Duncan, the head of news and current affairs, said she had become a 'national institution' and added: 'The Scottish weather forecast may never be the same again'. It was explained that Ms Reid was known as 'Heather the Weather', that her last television appearance would be three days before Christmas, and that she would be remembered for her catchphrase 'Hello there'. The item rambled on in this extraordinary fashion for 300 words and, unless I was missing something, seemed devoid of irony. The fact that the departure of a weather forecaster was the second most important thing happening in Scotland as the first decade of devolution drew to a close may have been irony enough.
     If Heather the Weather qualifies as news, what qualifies as history? I have been watching the latest, perhaps the last, episode of the BBC's 'History of Scotland' series presented by Neil Oliver, which took us all the way to the dawn of Thatcherism, when Neil was 12 years old, and then sketchily filled in the rest. An epilogue might just be possible, bringing us bang up to date with Heather's valedictory 'Hello there', its greater significance discussed by Mr Oliver in his usual emphatic style, as he marches up and down the banks of the Clyde musing on the death of the Scottish weather forecast as we have known it.
     As someone who has been alive for quite a bit of the period covered by the programme, I found the episode eerily fascinating. My goodness, wasn't Jim Sillars (Friend of the Scottish Review) a handsome chap in his revolutionary youth? How lanky was Donald Dewar. Winnie Ewing signalling to her supporters to be silent until the Hamilton result was declared – dear Winnie, imperious from the first.
     Closer to home for me, did anyone ever look and sound more like a headmaster than Willie Ross? 'A fiercesome sight,' Mr Oliver declared. 'Even Harold Wilson was intimidated by him.' Except I'm not persuaded that the great smoker ever was. Didn't HW nickname Willie 'Old Basso Profundo'? He may have been more amused than intimidated by the Kilmarnock dominie. Like so much else in the programme, the nuance wasn't quite right. The 1979 referendum, which I remember arousing many passions, was written off as having 'failed' because it was so half-hearted; I can only say that it didn't feel like that at the time.
     Surprisingly, an impressive chunk of 20th-century Scotland seems to have revolved around C M Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid), who dominated the early part of the programme. Another fiercesome sight, certainly in his younger firebrand days, but why drag up Grieve's brief flirtation with fascism? Many of his political utterances were provocative to the point of loopy – inconsistent flyting by someone in love with words and ideas. A wild boy, a considerable artist, with the formidable Valda for a wife, sweet in his old age, but that is about as far as it goes; the projection of Grieve as a pivotal figure in Scotland's public life, influencing the course of the century, was a little eccentric. George MacLeod did more to touch the lives of ordinary Scots with his practical work in Govan and Iona with the unemployed.
     The loss of balance created by the over-emphasis on Grieve and the Scottish literary renaissance was emphasised by the cursory treatment of one of the great symbolic acts of the century, again Govan-inspired, the occupation of the shipyards of the Upper Clyde by the workers, in defence both of their own jobs and of their industry. Did I call it cursory? It was done and dusted in 52 seconds.
     So little understood was this event by those who advised the presenter that it was described as a sit-in. It was never remotely that. Nor was it ever called a sit-in. It was a work-in with all that term implies – not a sitting down and doing nothing but a standing up and doing everything, fulfilling the order book, building the ships, keeping the books, being responsible about it, being responsible for it, until the government finally capitulated. It was heroic. It was inspirational. It moved the world. But I believe that it had a more profound historical significance. It marked the end of the Scottish working class as a phenomenon and a power. After UCS, all energy was spent. We can now see that this was the last hurrah.
     How could you compile a history of the Scotland of my lifetime, show us the unprepossessing street in Montrose in which C M Grieve once lived, and yet not mention Jimmy Reid? How could you fail to show so much as a glimpse of his 'Nae bevvy' rallying call? Here was a man – I refer to him in the past tense as a historical figure, although he is still alive – who personified so many of the better qualities of the Scots with his warmth and passion, his reverence for the written word and his oratorical genius, his humour and humanity. How could you describe what he did as a mere sit-in?
     You get a higher standard of accuracy in the average weather forecast – or did until that other Reid, Heather the Weather, decided to hang up her brolly.