Fife (Platform of Partnership)
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S3M-2609, in the name of Christopher Harvie, on the kingdom of Fife and Fife in the world—a platform of partnership.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament greets the Year of Homecoming and envisages the pioneering of a "platform of partnership" using the Kingdom of Fife as a trial project involving the creation of worldwide internet links between places with Fife names, affected by Fifers or twinned with Fife communities and involving schools, churches, community groups and associations, and hopes that the resumption of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge ferry can make this virtual bond a real one.
I thank the members who signed the motion and allowed the debate to take place. We talk a lot about the Scottish diaspora, and I will suggest a simple but effective means of activating it. A virtual kingdom in a virtual world can pioneer a platform of partnership by creating worldwide internet links between places with Fife names, affected by Fifers or twinned with Fife communities and involving schools, churches, community groups and associations. In Fife, such a partnership would aim to celebrate the resumption next spring of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge ferry, making a virtual bond a real one. However, it could also be a trial run for a Scotland-wide project to coincide with the year of homecoming and the Burns 250th anniversary in 2009. It is informal, low cost and can be finessed as expertise in handling the data accumulates.
A quick glance at Philip's "Atlas of the World" and a map of Saskatchewan in Canada revealed the town of Cupar. The website of the town—www.townofcupar.com—showed Dysart to the east and Markinch to the west. There is St Andrews in New Brunswick and there are dozens of Springfields in the USA, so let us extend a big, yellow, four-fingered hand to Homer, Madge, Groundskeeper Willie and, of course, C Montgomery Burns, who is 100 years old and counting.
As far as Scottish names more widely are concerned, there are Hamiltons galore. In the USA, many of them commemorate the drafter of the constitution, Alexander Hamilton, but there are also the Mackenzie River, Bryce canyon, Murchison falls and Port Chalmers. There are distant places made famous by Scots, such as Stevenson's Samoa; the Juan Fernandez island of Alexander Selkirk of Largo, alias Robinson Crusoe; and David Livingstone's Victoria Falls. There are also great Scots-built industrial monuments: the Buda to Pest suspension bridge, which literally united a country, was built by the engineer Adam Clark in the 1850s; Vienna's Prater wheel, which looks as if it was built from bits that were left over from the Forth bridge, was built by William Arrol in the 1890s; San Francisco's cable-cars were built by Andrew Hallidie; and the Delta Queen—the last Mississippi steamboat, which was built by Fairfield in 1926—is still paddling, although we had better be clever about that, because the authorities want to remove it on health and safety grounds.
There are great Europeans of Scots descent—Marshal Keith in Germany, Marshal Macdonald in France, Edvard Grieg, Immanuel Kant and Mikhail Lermontov. There are also incomers who have altered Scotland—Wheatleys and Macllvanneys from Ireland; Contis, Coias and Paolozzis from Italy—and a tradition of Commonwealth statesmen and women, either Scots or influenced by Scotland, from Canada's Sir John Macdonald to Tanzania's Julius Nyerere.
Aside from places that have links, there are other links along which partnerships can run. In Fife alone, they run from Saint Margaret—who was born in Hungary and was one of the few saints to be a mother, as my wife used to remind me—to Jennie Lee, the wife of Aneurin Bevan and founder of the Open University. We can trace the influence worldwide of John Knox, Charles I, James Wilson—one of the Scots signatories of the US declaration of independence—and James Lorimer, or Professor Lorimer of Kellie castle, who first proposed a European federation in 1884. Politicians range from red Willie Gallacher to the Scottish Parliament's first Presiding Officer, David Steel.
Fife towns are twinned. For example, Glenrothes is twinned with Swabian Böblingen, which seems to have started an epidemic of pipe bands in the outlying areas of Stuttgart. I think that there are now three at least in that district
Fifers have travelled: Sir Patrick Spens "tae Noroway ower the faem"; and McDougall Stuart across Australia. Two Anstruther clipper captains, Rodger of the Taeping and Keay of the Ariel, raced each other, practically within eyesight of each other, from Fuzhou to London bridge, taking 83 days. Sir Sandford Fleming, of Kirkcaldy, as engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, invented international time zones—so now members know.
Finally, to bring us back to the non-virtual connections, there are our trading partners: places such as Amsterdam, Bergen, Bruges, Rotterdam, Veere in Zeeland, and Zeebrugge.
All those to whom I have referred have left their imprint on Fife and Scotland, and worldwide: from Adam Smith of Kirkcaldy to Andrew Carnegie of Dunfermline. Linking such themes virtually would give all of us, especially the young—those children of three whom Groucho Marx commended when he said, "A child of three could do it. Bring me a child of three"—the chance to reach out from the local to the global in the spirit of the Scots internationalist and social reformer, Patrick Geddes, whose first great town-planning project was in Dunfermline.
It is important for the project to gain cross-party support. It is ecumenical and will not cost much, and it will prove that there is more to globalisation than financial prizes. The initial impetus could be quite informal: contacting local web pages and, through them, primary and secondary schools, town and county councils, churches, and philanthropical and international organisations, and just letting the thing snowball from there. It could, as my friend Pat Kane says, go viral.
I would be keen to set things in motion in Fife. Members may have folk in their own constituencies or region who could take an interest and the initiative in such virtual partnerships. Homecoming 2009 could benefit from intensified links, as could tourism. Goodness only knows where the Scottish economy will be by then.
All this could and ought to further what Adam Smith called sympathy: trust and fellow feeling as a learned drive. That was never more important than it is in today's economic turbulence. What is the alternative? The Fifer for whom the storm was too great comes to mind:
"Half-ower, half-ower to Aberdour,
Tis fifty fathoms deep;
An there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi the Scots lords at his feet!"
I welcome this debate and congratulate Chris Harvie, a good son of Lanarkshire, on lodging his motion to give Fifers the opportunity to showcase the many attractions of our native kingdom. My own east neuk connections go back to 1747 at least, and I am proud that Fife has led the rest of Scotland in many fields of endeavour.
I keep telling people that while Edinburgh was still a rickle of mud huts beside a swamp under the castle hill, St Andrews was already the ecclesiastical capital of the nation. When Kenneth MacAlpin emerged from the mists of history to unite the Scots, he did so from a stronghold not very far from St Andrews.
Chris Harvie's list of great Fifers was fairly inclusive. He referred to Professor Lorimer and David Steel, but I submit that they would normally be associated with Edinburgh and the Borders respectively, rather than with the kingdom. However, Malcolm Canmore certainly had his royal residence in Pittencrieff gardens in Dunfermline, and Robert the Bruce was crowned in St Andrews and held his first Parliament there in 1309. It is no wonder that Fife has always been known as a kingdom.
We have seen many political giants from Fife. There is our illustrious current Prime Minister, who is a son of Kirkcaldy, and the Balfours from Markinch, who produced a Prime Minister of a different view. Of course, as Chris Harvie mentioned, there was Jennie Lee, from Lochgelly, and there is former First Minister Henry McLeish, from Kennoway. Good Fifers, all.
As most Liberals are aware, the house where Jo Grimond was born in St Andrews was owned by the family of Bob Boothby, who may have represented Buchan at Westminster but was always proud of his Fife roots. Fife has produced great thinkers, such as Adam Smith—he will probably be birling in his grave in the Canongate kirkyard this week, of all weeks—and great architects, such as the Adam brothers from Kirkcaldy, who designed the best bits of Edinburgh.
The University of St Andrews, which is Scotland's oldest university and is currently ranked fifth best in the United Kingdom, produced two of the signatories to the American declaration of independence, as well as—incidentally—the inventor of logarithms. Hopefully, the kingdom's links with the United States will be strengthened by the arrival from Harvard of Dr Louise Richardson, who, as the university's new principal, will be the first woman ever to run a Scottish university.
In the shape of Andrew Carnegie from Dunfermline, Fife taught the world how to make money and then, in one of the greatest displays of philanthropy that the world has ever seen, how to give it all away again. We produced the greatest Scottish footballer of my lifetime in the shape of Jim Baxter from Hill of Beath and, from the same mining village, Donald Findlay, who is arguably the doyen of Scottish criminal defence counsels. In the great herring days, Pittenweem gave the world the fifie class of fishing boats and revolutionised the industry from Shetland to Yarmouth. Fife is still producing world-ranking writers, artists and pop stars, such as Ian Rankin, Jack Vettriano and KT Tunstall.
Enough, already. Divided historically from the rest of Scotland by great firths to the north and south, Fifers were always hard-headed and contermacious—hence the line about it taking a lang spoon to sup wi a Fifer—but, perhaps paradoxically, Fife became a microcosm of the nation itself. Like Scotland, the kingdom's greatest export has always been its people and their talents.
There is much to applaud in Chris Harvie's motion. Fife and Fifers must play a major role in next year's year of homecoming celebrations. Where better to celebrate St Andrew's day than St Andrews? Golf is one of the main pillars that attract overseas visitors to my home town, and I congratulate the organisers of the local festival in the home of golf who have recently secured funding from the Government for this year's St Andrew's day celebrations.
Fife has excellent links with many communities around the world. Kirkcaldy is twinned with Ingolstadt and Glenrothes with Böblingen, both of which are in Germany, a country with which I believe that Christopher Harvie has some passing connection. The link between Dunfermline and Trondheim in Norway, which was established more than 60 years ago, is the oldest twinning arrangement in Europe and possibly the world. I know that other such linkages are in prospect, and Chris Harvie's suggestion that there could be worldwide internet links between places with names that originated in Fife is an imaginative one.
I fully support Chris Harvie's sentiment on the revival of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge ferry, a service that is invaluable to Fife's passenger and trading links with the continent. My one tiny reservation about his motion's envisaging of
"a ‘platform of partnership' using the Kingdom of Fife as a trial project"
is that we might be too far down the road for that to play a meaningful part in next year's celebrations. However, if Chris Harvie knows something that I do not about the willingness of his ministerial colleagues, even at this late stage, to designate Fife in that way and to provide the necessary funding for the trial project, he will, of course, have the full support of this Fifer.
I congratulate Christopher Harvie on securing this evening's members' business debate and giving us all the opportunity to talk about the virtues and merits of Fife. Professor Harvie's motives in pushing for Fife to have a prominent role in the forthcoming year of homecoming are to be commended, and I am sure that Fife is well placed to be at the centre of events. Like many Scots, Fifers have made their mark around the world, and the homecoming will give us all an opportunity to reflect on those achievements.
I look forward to the minister's reply to Professor Harvie on the proposal that Fife should be a trial project for worldwide internet links. I would be supportive of any project that raised Fife's international profile, but would want to be reassured that any such project that was pursued could deliver high returns, culturally and socially.
Even before the internet, Fife had a long tradition of twinning and cultural partnerships, one of the longest standing of which is Dunfermline's relationship with Trondheim in Norway. That is an interesting example, as it reflects the progress that has been made in the relationships that are established. From being a fairly municipal partnership that existed mainly between councils, Dunfermline's relationship with Trondheim has recently been recommitted to and has grown into a much more community-focused and inclusive partnership.
Since 1996, Fife has taken a much more community-driven approach to twinning and has placed a focus on developing relationships—it is almost a process of dating for a few years before rings are exchanged. Fife has active associations that manage such relationships. As well as economic strengths between towns and villages, the prevalence of beer festivals in Fife seems to owe something to our European twins.
Kirkcaldy has a long-standing relationship with Ingolstadt, which recently led to brass and oompah bands celebrating Ingolstadt's 1,200th birthday at Beveridge park. Glenrothes is twinned with Böblingen—I am sure that Christopher Harvie will correct my pronunciation. It is a vibrant partnership that involves cultural, social, economic, educational, sporting and tourist engagement, although I imagine that Böblingen has a quieter month ahead of it than Glenrothes does.
Compatibility is a key factor in many relationships, and it is increasingly recognised as the bedrock of a successful twinning. In that context, I would have reservations about the internet—that often impersonal tool. I am not sure whether the internet is the best place to foster twins that have long-term prospects. Also, it takes time to develop a twinning between towns and villages, and the timescales to meet the year of homecoming are too sharp to allow any meaningful bonds to develop.
The idea of twinning towns that share a name may be limited. Although Dunfermline may be overwhelmed by suitors, I cannot find an equivalent for Kelty, my home town; Burntisland, my adopted town; or Methil, where my office is—though if they exist, I am sure I will be corrected. For a successful link to be established, there has to be interest and commitment from both partners, and we cannot be sure that Dunfermline, Illinois would embrace the project in the way that we would like. The point is that there needs to be interest on both sides. The outside world needs to want this level of engagement with Fife. Although I hope that the year of homecoming will successfully focus the world's eye on Scotland, interest needs to come originally from communities.
The key for me is the level of engagement and inclusiveness of the project. Unfortunately, there appear to be new barriers to this, particularly for children and young people. The lack of a foreign language, and the barriers that are presented by the necessary but often onerous child protection tests and disclosures, make successful school exchanges difficult and present new challenges in ensuring that twinning is carried on to the next generation.
The motion mentions the Rosyth ferry. We all know how important the ferry is, and I am concerned that the gap in the service is threatening not only the economic links but the cultural links that have developed over the years. I, along with others, am disappointed that there had to be a gap and I am perhaps less concerned about the virtual bond that can be created than I am about trying to hasten the return of the ferry, to recreate the bond that was there. I urge the Government to do all that it can to return the service as soon as possible.
I thank Chris Harvie for securing this debate, through which many of us will show the significant role that Fife has played, plays and will continue to play in the world. Dunfermline and west Fife—my constituency and my home—have a proud history of engagement and successful working relationships with continents, countries and communities far and wide. From the old port of Culross and its ancient links with Europe, to the more modern twinning links with Norway, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and—more recently—America, Dunfermline plays a significant role in Fife and the world.
It is important to remember that Dunfermline was—for many of us it still is—the most important city in Scotland. Long before Edinburgh became Scotland's capital city, built on its international trade through the port of Leith, Dunfermline was Scotland's capital city with international links through its port of Culross. Dunfermline and west Fife were exporting and developing international trade long before Edinburgh even thought about it.
St Mungo, the man who is famed as Glasgow's patron saint, was born in Culross. He practised his religion in Fife long before Glasgow was a significant place in Scotland. Although that fine city was built on trade and industry from the 17th to the 20th centuries, Fifers were doing similar things from the fifth and sixth centuries. We are still doing so today, with the port of Rosyth providing many of Scotland's international links.
Andrew Carnegie and Admiral Thomas Cochrane are two of the world's most distinguished men from west Fife's history. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, and Cochrane spent much of his early life in Culross. Both conquered the world in their particular fields: Carnegie was known as "the King of Steel" and was probably the greatest entrepreneur and philanthropist; and Cochrane was arguably the world's most famous sailor—apart from or, perhaps, as well known as—Nelson. Both men demonstrated the quality of being important and successful, while remaining distinguished and respected while they lived and well after their deaths. That quality is something that the First Minister himself is desperately trying to achieve today. If only he came from Fife, he might just have a chance.
Dunfermline has several official twinning links in Europe and the United States. The oldest link is with Trondheim, which is the third-largest city in Norway. That link has existed informally for more than 1,000 years; it is reputed to be the oldest link between two places in the world—another first for Dunfermline. It comes on top of the links that we have through the Carnegie connection with New York and Pittsburgh. This year, Pittsburgh celebrates 250 years since Fort Pitt was established, named after William Pitt the Younger. It was established and named by the famous general and Scotsman, General John Forbes, who was born in 1707. Where was he born? Yes, you have guessed correctly—it was on the Pittencrieff estate in Dunfermline. The same estate was bought nearly a century later by Andrew Carnegie and gifted to the people of Dunfermline as a fabulous park—a wonderful place that people still can and should visit.
Chris Harvie's motion speaks of a trial project. I am happy to go along with that, but the idea of a platform of partnership is already deeply embedded in the collective soul of west Fife's population. We have a proud history of forming relationships all round the globe, which we have built on in recent years.
I have demonstrated that Dunfermline and west Fife are not only world-class destinations, but world-class exporters of intelligent, sophisticated and hugely successful people. Fife—in particular, Dunfermline—is singularly placed and experienced to give guidance on Mr Harvie's project. I wish him success in the future with it.
I congratulate Christopher Harvie on securing the debate. I have a personal interest to declare in that my father spent his formative years in Kirkcaldy. I therefore have empathy with the idea of activating the real and proxy Fife diaspora.
The idea of the naming convention is pretty clever because it would enable us to get towns, villages and districts involved. The family names would also enable us to make affinity links and to get people to invite their relatives back by e-mail, phone and Basildon Bond. Fife also has the fantastic facility of the affinity Fifers—the people who play golf. We have just come back from broadcasting Sean Connery's latest video—in which we combined the year of homecoming and golf—when we went over to the Ryder cup. It went down wonderfully well, and we should be getting more copies of it fired out.
I am reminded of an idea that has been expressed by a guy called Joel Kotkin, who wrote an interesting book called "Tribes". His suggestion—his byline—is that, in the future there will be no more Japan, just Japanese, because of the ability of the internet to connect us all. What I like about Chris Harvie's approach is that it would bring in the proxy Fifers—people who live in foreign parts in a Fife-named town that will forever be Fife. The celebrations for the year of homecoming could, therefore, be augmented by the project. I like the link that Chris Harvie has made with the resumption of the Rosyth to Zeebrugge ferry. That is important, and all the French and Belgian folk who do not yet know that they are proxy Fifers will soon get the message.
It is important that there is real momentum for the year of homecoming. It is a great facility that we have had in the pipeline, which can come into play now. It has been supported enthusiastically by ministers, particularly the First Minister, at a time when tourism might face a more challenging year ahead. We have an opportunity, with this truly national celebration, to get out there and persuade many people who do not yet know it that they have a common heritage—a common lineage, whether through ancestral Scots or affinity Scots—and to strengthen that relationship by inviting them to the biggest reunion that there has ever been on the planet.
When I was the Deputy Minister for Justice, one of the things that I was most proud to promote was the fact that Scotland was one of the first countries to have computerised registers of deaths, births and marriages, and the link to the register of sasines. I therefore make the suggestion—it may have been taken up already—that what the motion proposes should be a pilot project for establishing linkages to Fife. If someone is undertaking a genealogical search—something that is now very popular—and they come up with a Fife name, a link is provided to Fife and all the wealth of history that Christopher Harvie has talked about. That would enhance the whole thing.
I thank Richard Simpson for that intervention. The key point that Christopher Harvie is making is about the potential of the project to go viral. The great backbone of our aspiration in that respect is the "Scotland's People" website, which gives us everything that we have heard about in an electronic format that makes it much more accessible and really gives people the chance to connect with Scotland in a very much more material way. I expect the project to evolve, and I hope that we will see Pat Kane and 5.1 million others in and out of Fife help us to take it viral.
Meanwhile, some practical things are on the go. We are running initiatives in Canada, one of which is a photographic exhibition that creates connections by showing photographs from places in Canada and Scotland that have the same name. That sort of work emphasises commonalities between people but also allows us to accentuate and celebrate our differences. It gives people a chance to understand what links them and it educates many of our young people. Recently, it has been identified that some of the Scots in Canada in the early years were bilingual, not in Gaelic and English but in Gaelic and French. Those early years are now being celebrated and connections are being made. One of the pairings that has been made in the photographic exhibition is the one between Kincardine in Fife and Kincardine in Ontario. There are lots of opportunities beyond that.
I was quite taken with what was said about General Forbes. I reckon that he might not have been telling the whole truth when he said that Pittsburgh was named after Lord Pitt and that, perhaps, it was named after Pittencrieff. I therefore suggest that Chris Harvie add Pittsburgh to his list so that that connection is firmly in place.
We have got some real momentum behind the year of homecoming. The attitude that people of a North American persuasion have when they get the message about the year of homecoming is absolute enthusiasm. Last week, we ran an event in Louisville and Chicago that demonstrated some extremely tight working on the part of team Scotland. EventScotland, VisitScotland, Scottish Development International and Scottish Enterprise presented Scotland to a galaxy of people from across the United States of America and got them excited about the idea. Following our speeches—which, I assure members, were pretty crisp and well organised—we showed the Sean Connery video that I mentioned earlier, which worked well. After that, we had the masterstroke of all masterstrokes: a young band from Tiree, called Skerryvore, who played three numbers. The second song was a remake of Dougie MacLean's classic, "Caledonia", which the Tennant's advert was based on years ago. We had people of a certain age in the audience—some of whom were expats—and they really made the connection. When the song was sung by a young 21-year-old with wonderful clarity, it was accessible to not only people of a Scottish persuasion but anyone with even a fundamental grasp of English. The impact of the song on our guests, some of whom are reconnecting with Scotland after many years, was fantastic. I am thinking, in particular, of Peter Robertson, the vice-chairman of Chevron, who has been away for 25 years. I have to say that there was a rheumy-eyed look to his face as that song finished.
The idea of homecoming is quite magical, and Professor Harvie's idea would augment it. It will go viral, with or without Pat Kane's support, although I know that we will have his support. The challenge in the years to come is to find ways to perpetuate homecoming and make it perennial. That will happen in Fife: I hope it also happens across the rest of Scotland.
Meeting closed at 17:33.