ClanTime

History of Scotland                                           

Scotlands's Heritage To The World                      

It is believed that there are only six million Scots who live in Scotland and another fifteen million others who live in various countries throughout the World. It has also been mooted that there are over 50,000,000 people who are proud to proclaim Scottish Heritage in almost every corner of the globe.

For such a small country, bordering on the arctic circle and attached to a much more populace and aggressive neighbour, the fact that it has maintained its unique culture and individuality for over 1,000 years is a feat of extreme resilience and high commendation. The talents of subjugation and control which are the attributes of the English and that were, undoubtably, major factors in putting the ‘great’ in Great Britain, were never successful with their closest neighbours.

Centuries of invasion and unfair economic and political overbearance came close, but never quite achieved the subserviance that England desired.

Not only did Scotland achieve and maintain its individuality in the face of this relentless barrage, but it also provided the world with an extremely high percentage of many things that we accept today as basic and natural:

Tyres filled with air (Andrew Dunlop); the roads we drive them on (John Louden Macadam); the banks we love to hate (William Patterson); the TV we rely upon for news and entertainment (James Logie Baird); the phone we use to keep in contact with friends, relatives and the world (Graham Alexander Bell); antiseptic (Lister); Anaesthetics (J Y Simpson); Penicillin (Alexander Fleming); the library we borrow our books from (Allan Ramsay); the flask to keep our soup hot or our drinks cold (James Dewar); some peoples love and others hate, the Labour Party (J. Keir Hardy); the bible we read or don’t (King James); the song sung by countless millions in every nook and cranny in the world on January 1 - Auld Lang Syne (Robert Burns who gave us so much such as ‘Man’s Inhumanity to Man’ and ‘If Only Some Power Would Give Us The Power To See Ourselves As Others See us’, and a book full of equally important and famous gifts that the world just takes for granted); the postage stamp, radar, the rotary press, Encyclopaedia Britannica, J M Barrie, Sir Walter Scott, R.L. Stevenson, human anatomy and circulation, mathematics, science, architecture, and a plethora of explorers and engineers of the highest order.

Speculation as to why this abundance of intellect was generated within this small and harsh country is as wide and as varied as the landscape and its people. One obvious difference between the Scots and their neighbours is in their genetic make-up.

Throughout the history of Britain the invasions of those who would possess that green and pleasant land are numerous and varied. The Romans came, conquered and stayed for 300 years.  They married and altered the bloodline of the south Britain population but they never reached Scotland beyond the border counties and were forced to build first the Antoine Wall and then, further south when they could not hold this line against the ‘Scotii’, they built the more recognised, Hadrian’s Wall.

When the Romans’ hold on the world dissipated and the Italian soldiers became indistinguishable from the local south Britain populace, this southern part of the island was invaded, conquered and then occupied by a plethora of cultures including:
the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and then the Vikings. All of these did not penetrate much further north than the demolished Hadrian’s Wall leaving the Roman named Scotii with their own unique bloodline and heritage of Celtic and Pictish blood.

Remarkably, after 300 years of English domination and the atrocities perpetrated upon the Highlanders, the Highland Clearances in Victoria’s reign, the patriotism that penned the Declaration of Arbroath some 1,000 years ago is flourishing once again.  There are more kilts worn today than ever in Scottish history and the Scottish accent that was denigrated and scorned for centuries is now spoken by all Scots with pride and a healthy respect both for themselves and their country.

One of these 15,000 expatriate Scots, Colin Mackie, who has been an Australian for 30 years, has decided to cater for this sizable and growing market with a product he developed for his own personal use some years ago.

“I had been an active member in the Scottish National Party for a number of years before coming on a holiday to Australia some 30 years ago. The SNP symbol is the St Andrews Cross linked at the bottom which then resembles Scotland’s national plant, the Scottish Thistle. I always liked this but I decided to stick with the more distinctive St Andrews Cross, known as the Saltire, and commissioned a ring to be made to my design. It was magnificent”, relates Colin.

“So many people asked where they could buy one and I would take some orders to have them made specifically for each customer. A friend of many years, Tony (Mac) Bloom, was looking for some small business venture to get into and we decided to make the fabulous Satire ring available to a wider market. We formed ClanTime and designed a few other rings based upon the same exceptionally high quality of craftsmanship and utilising a variety of gems and gold colours and weights. We now have an exclusive range of modern heirlooms from a modest $1,000 dollars up to the magnificent white and blue tanzanite version at approximately $10,000.”

The jewellery is both exquisite and unique and anyone claiming Scottish heritage must be impressed and put the ownership of a modern heirloom Saltire Scottish Ring at the top of their ‘Must Have’ list.

Colin S.L.Mackie

ClanTime

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