Hamish Henderson
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S1M-2885, in the name of Cathy Peattie, on Hamish Henderson.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with regret the death of Hamish Henderson and wishes to place on record its appreciation of his lifetime devotion to international solidarity, peace and socialism, his many contributions to Scottish culture and politics, including his role in gathering traditional songs, his support for other artists and his authorship of the song that many believe should be Scotland's (inter)national anthem, The Freedom Come All Ye.
Hamish Henderson—poet, singer, folklorist and socialist—died on Friday 8 March, at the age of 82. He was an internationalist with a strong Scottish cultural identity, as shown by his most famous song "The Freedom Come All Ye". He was a political activist who supported the creation of a Scottish parliament and contributed his time and voice to causes in which he believed, such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament—for which he wrote "The Freedom Come All Ye"—and the anti-apartheid movement, whose campaigners were always pleased to hear his rendition of "Rivonia".
When he was arrested in 1974 at a British Lions boycott protest, Hamish was fined £10 and asked if he wanted to say anything. He answered by singing a chorus of "We Shall Overcome". He was a stalwart of the Scottish folk music scene for half a century and contributed greatly to the revival of Scottish traditional music. He was also a key player in the creation of the first Edinburgh people's festival, which was later reinvented as the Edinburgh fringe.
Hamish Henderson was a respected musical authority and collector of folk music. With Gaelic scholar Calum MacLean, he founded the school of Scottish studies at Edinburgh University in 1951. Like his friend Alan Lomax, who with his father John Lomax developed the archive of American folksong at the Library of Congress, Hamish set about taping singers and their songs throughout Scotland.
The collection included the songs and styles of the travelling people that Hamish would first have heard in the berry fields of Blairgowrie, which was the area where he was born. Hamish realised that other collectors had neglected those songs and styles and set about correcting that neglect, not as a curator, but as a friend. He had a commitment to the oral tradition and the way in which songs evolved to reflect the lives of the people who sing them. Unfortunately, funds were short, tapes were expensive and the recordings were not always permanent.
The obituaries spoke of a feud with Hugh MacDiarmid and his biographer, Alan Bold. Hamish and Alan were banned from Milne's Bar for fighting. Passions had run high following a disagreement in the columns of The Scotsman about Hugh MacDiarmid's attitude to poetry. The feud is often remembered, but the cause has been forgotten. I believe that that cause is significant and worth revisiting, as it tells us much about Hamish's principles and the way that they permeated all his activities.
Hamish believed that poetry was not the preserve of the intellectual few, but was for the enjoyment and mobilisation of the many. He was more like Robert Burns than like MacDiarmid, who criticised Burns for fraternising with the masses. Hamish was a man of the people who believed that culture belonged to the people and should not be sanitised and packaged, but nurtured. He believed that culture should express people's lives and aspirations and evolve according to their needs and experience.
That brings us back to politics. Hamish always brought people back to politics. Most cite "The Freedom Come All Ye" as the song that Hamish most wanted to be remembered for. However, I have heard the same view expressed of the "John MacLean March." As I am allowed to sing only one verse during this speech, I will recite this verse from "The John MacLean March":
"Hey, Mac, did ye see him as ye cam' doon by Gorgie,
Awa ower the Lammerlaw and north o' the Tay?
Yon man is comin' and the haill toon is turnin' oot:
We're a' shair he'll win back tae Glasgie the day.
The jiners and hauders-on are marchin' frae Clydebank;
Come on noo and hear him, he'll be ower thrang tae bide.
Turn oot, Jock and Jimmie: leave yer crans and your muckle gantries,—
Great John MacLean's comin' back tae the Clyde!"
Politically, MacLean was like Hamish Henderson. Both were internationalists and both would have felt very much at home in a Scottish workers' republic. However, MacLean was a pacifist whereas Hamish was prepared to fight for peace. MacLean was a conscientious objector in the first world war, who went to prison for his stance. In the second world war, the threat of fascism was too great a challenge to Hamish Henderson's socialist principles and he enlisted. He served first with the Pioneer Corps, then he was an intelligence officer, serving in north Africa and with the partisans in Italy. He accepted and translated the Italian surrender.
His book of war poetry, "Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica", won him the Somerset Maugham award. He doubled his prize money with a successful long shot on the Grand National. He gave up his job with the Workers Educational Association to travel to Italy, where he translated the prison letters of Antonio Gramsci.
In poetry and politics, Hamish was an authentic voice of Scotland. We would do well to remember his work and carry it forward into the 21st century. Hamish did not want "The Freedom Come All Ye" to be Scotland's national anthem; he thought of the song as an international anthem. Members should judge that for themselves. Sadly, I must recite some of the song, but I will sing the last verse:
"Roch the wind in the clear day's dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow'r the bay,
But there's mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o' the warld the day.
It's a thocht that will gar oor rottans
— A' they rogues that gang gallus, fresh an gay —
Tak the road, and seek ither loanins
For their ill-ploys, tae sport and play
Nae mair will the bonnie callants
Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan
Mourn the ships sailin' doon the Broomielaw.
Broken faimilies in lands we've herriet,
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair;
Black and white, ane til ither mairriet,
Mak the vile barracks o' their maisters bare.
So come all ye at hame wi' Freedom
Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom.
In your hoose a' the bairns o' Adam
Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.
When MacLean meets wi's freens in Springburn
A' the roses and geans will turn tae bloom,
And a black boy frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o' the burghers doon."
We will be able to fit everybody in if we have speeches of around four minutes.
I will not take four minutes, Presiding Officer.
Some time ago, we had a debate on the radical rising of 1820. I said at that time that I thought that it was sad that many people in our country did not know the history of the 1820 martyrs and that our history was not properly taught in schools. The same is true of our debate today. Hamish Henderson left behind a wonderful legacy, but comparatively few people in our country know about it. That is a mark of the fact that our history and culture have been largely submerged for a long time. Everyone in the Scottish Parliament should be making an effort to try to change that to some extent.
Cathy Peattie and I were on the Equal Opportunities Committee when it conducted its inquiry into Gypsy Travellers. As Cathy Peattie said, Hamish Henderson collected a lot of that culture and tradition and put it on record for us all. In a meeting of that committee, Cathy Peattie made the point strongly that it was sad that the vast majority of people in Scotland did not know about Gypsy Traveller culture and that it would be a loss to us all if no one did.
"The Freedom Come All Ye" is my favourite song that has come out of our country, particularly the lines:
"Broken faimlies in lands we've herriet,
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair".
Those lines are a mark of the man's internationalism, but they are also a mark of his nationalism. I look forward to our country being independent and being a country that can match that sentiment, and becoming the kind of country that other places all over the world will look up to because of our statement of peace and freedom. I thank Hamish Henderson for encapsulating that for me in so few words.
I am grateful to Cathy Peattie for securing the debate. I apologise for the fact that I will have to make an early departure from the chamber, but I have something else to go to. I intend no disrespect by leaving early.
I regret to say that I did not know Hamish Henderson personally—I would not want to distort the truth by claiming some sort of familiarity—but I know something of his works and his important legacy. I want to pay a sincere tribute to his multifaceted talents and his eventful life, which has helped to shape the way in which we think of ourselves, our culture and our nation.
Hamish Henderson espoused campaigns and causes with great enthusiasm and commitment. We think of his internationalism, his socialism, his opposition to nuclear weapons and his work in the campaign against apartheid in South Africa—coming from the Borders, I am particularly aware of that as he was arrested in his attempts to stop the Springboks' tour in the early 1970s, a campaign in which a different sort of politician, David Steel, was also a high-profile member.
I first became aware of the work and personality of Hamish Henderson in the early 1970s, when I was involved in a big birthday party in Glasgow for another left-wing thinker and protector of the folk song tradition in Scotland, Norman Buchan. Some of those who came to that party had been brought to public attention and to the awareness of folk singers and folk song lovers around the world through the work of Hamish Henderson. Many guests were there, including Billy Connolly as one of the Humblebums. He was not connected to Hamish Henderson at that time. It was a memorable occasion when those people came together.
As Cathy Peattie said, Hamish Henderson was a poet, a songwriter and a folklorist. He has an honourable place among that group of poet-practitioners, which includes Burns, who cherished their roots and sought to conserve and protect the heritage that nourished them and placed them in a context wider than themselves.
In his collection and promotion of folk music, he became a powerful proponent of Scotland's vernacular culture and recognised the extraordinary talent and the spiritual quality that is found among ordinary Scots, including the travelling people. In founding the school of Scottish studies, Hamish Henderson did us all a service. He increased our respect for the common man and woman and for our own heritage. We all remember the moment when Sheena Wellington sang "A Man's a Man for a' that" at the opening of the Parliament. I am sure that Hamish Henderson relished that moment, although he was not here, for he himself was a man of "independent mind" and an egalitarian. He knew well that
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that"
and there was plenty of gowd in Hamish Henderson.
A country that does not know its history and folklore cannot truly possess a vision for its future. Hamish Henderson's lasting legacy to Scotland will be not only his own poetry and songs but the countless songs and poems that he resurrected, recorded and catalogued for present and future generations of Scots. Everyone owes him a debt of gratitude for having undertaken and achieved so much in that field. Edinburgh should never forget that the people's festival, which he helped to create in 1951, was the precursor of the present Edinburgh festival fringe, which brings so many benefits to the city.
Hamish Henderson was a founder member of the school of Scottish studies and realised the value of the folklore that the Scottish Travellers in particular had preserved. He realised the danger to Scottish culture and history should the songs, poems and stories die out or become forgotten. He also defended marginalised and pressured groups in our society because he realised that we cannot promote and protect a culture if we do not promote and protect the people who produce it.
I particularly admire how Hamish Henderson brushed aside the polite, clean image of Scottish folk songs, which had been decontaminated to suit refined society, and dug out the real, raw, rude and vital roots of Scottish folk that had delighted and inspired the original recipients. That is what folk music is all about—the crude rough and tumble of ordinary life and the tragedies and comedies that mould the clay of humanity.
Hamish Henderson was human in his desire to stand up for a peaceful, harmonious world. He was a pacifist who realised that peace sometimes had to be steadfastly fought for in order that evil should not prevail. He risked his life for peace as a young man when working for the Quakers in Germany ferrying letters and messages under the noses of the Nazis. He was reduced to despair by man's inhumanity to man in the Spanish civil war. Amazingly, it was he who accepted the surrender of Italy from Marshal Graziani in 1943. He kept the signed document in his pocket until his dying day.
Hamish Henderson referred to himself and the poets of that era as having "grown up for war". His time in the Army during the second world war further exposed him not only to the songs of the soldiers but to the new flowering of written poetry in that era. He was intensely proud of being a Scot, but that national pride and an international outlook went hand in hand. He once said:
"I am definitely proud of being Scots, and incoming people with similar ideas are quite entitled to express it as well."
When Hamish won the coveted Somerset Maugham award of a travelling scholarship, he thought that it was an attempt by the establishment to get him out of the country. When he won that award in 1949, E P Thompson responded:
"I greet you with humility. You are that rare man: a poet, and you must not forget that your songs and ballads are not trivialities; they are quite as important as your elegies."
I was privileged to know and sometimes sing with another great folk singer, Hamish Imlach. One of his favourite songs was called "The D-Day Dodgers", which had been written during the second world war by a Major Hamish Henderson of the 51st Highland division in indignant response to an ill-considered comment by Lady Astor in the House of Commons. In a stupid speech, she had suggested that those soldiers who were stuck in Italy, and many of whom had died fighting the Germans in particularly bloody campaigns such as Cassino, were in some way dodging the D-day Normandy invasion. The song is great and it is long, and I find the last two verses particularly poignant:
"Forgotten by the many remembered by the few
We had our armistice when an armistice was new
One million Germans gave up to us
We finished our war without much fuss
For we're the D-Day Dodgers out here in Italy.
If you look around the mountains in the wind and rain
You'll find the scattered crosses some which bear no name
Heart break and toil and suffering gone
The boys beneath them slumber on
For they're the D-Day Dodgers who stayed in Italy."
I congratulate Cathy Peattie on securing the debate, and on the moving and fitting way in which she opened it. I particularly congratulate her on her singing. I once heard Willie McKelvie sing "Road to the Isles" in the House of Commons, and I can assure Cathy that he came nowhere near the high standard that she has set for this Parliament.
I do not claim to be an expert on the folk revival, on poetry, or even on Hamish Henderson, but I know enough about him to realise that, when an assessment is made of his contribution to the life of Scotland, he will stand head and shoulders above any of his political contemporaries who happened to get elected to Parliament at Westminster or Holyrood. It is fitting that we try to pay tribute to such a Scot, who was a giant of the 20th century.
As Cathy Peattie said, he was an intensely political man. That covers not just his CND and anti-apartheid activities. He marched against Chamberlain's appeasement at Munich in 1938 and he fought fascism itself during the second world war. When he came back from that war, he gave Marxist lectures through the Workers Educational Association to young students. He studied Gramsci and argued for communism against his Tory counterparts at the Edinburgh union. He struggled for home rule all his life, not as an end in itself, but as a means to his goal of ultimate independence for Scotland, which he always wanted to see.
Hamish Henderson joined the breakaway Scottish Labour Party under Jim Sillars, which was when I first came across him, as I had the privilege of joining that party too. Like me, he was a member of the Scottish committee of 100, whose members refused to pay the poll tax. He was very much a man of the left. Nowadays, that would be called the hard left, because these things have become very untrendy in modern times.
I remember reading a letter from Hamish to The Scotsman, in which he railed against the Wilson Labour Government of 1966-70, because of its failure to challenge the power of international finance. God knows what he would make of globalisation. He also argued against what he described as the servile complicity of Britain in the Vietnam war. He reminded everyone who read The Scotsman that that war was the first war in which 90 per cent of the casualties were civilians. If only we had listened to him, because most of the wars since then have repeated that horror statistic.
I will always remember two of Hamish Henderson's letters, which I think are important and should be put on the parliamentary record. He wrote the first to the socialist newspaper, Tribune. He warned socialists against an over-reliance on what we now know as the parliamentary road to socialism. He reminded us that socialism
"will not be fashioned in a vacuum; it will be fashioned by the painful and difficult struggles of definite communities, in definite places; it will be achieved on farms and in workshops, in mines and in shipyards, and not only by courtesy of an Act of Parliament."
That is something of which all socialists should be mindful in these parliamentary times.
In another article, which was published in The Scotsman 10 years later, Hamish Henderson referred to the painful experiences of the Scottish Labour Party, when one third of the party was expelled for claiming to be revolutionary as well as socialist. He wrote:
"Any socialist worthy of the name wants, and works for, a revolutionary transformation of society. That is what he is striving for, that is his ultimate aim. If it is not so, then he—or she—should fly different colours."
In these days, when the words "socialist" and "revolutionary" have become non-words, all of us should keep that in mind.
Hamish Henderson wrote about the great John MacLean. He has become the great Hamish Henderson and it is fitting that Parliament should pay tribute to him tonight.
I add my congratulations to Cathy Peattie on securing the debate.
I picked up a liking for Scottish folk music, my guitar and membership of CND and the committee of 100 in the early 1960s. At that time, Hamish Henderson was a great name to me—a leader—but I did not meet him until I moved to Edinburgh. At Boroughmuir High School his daughter Janet used to grace my modern studies classes with her presence on a Friday afternoon, when I gave highly political—but supposedly objective—lectures on the state of Britain's politics. Like so many people, I became acquainted with Hamish in various bars, such as Sandy Bell's—where I had the honour of being recorded by Hamish—the Meadow Bar and others between Sandy Bell's and Hamish's home. It was a great honour to have met him on those few occasions and to have experienced his sheer vivacity, energy and commitment to politics and Scottish folk music. I have wonderful memories of that.
I would like briefly to reflect on and develop what Jamie McGrigor said. In the school of Scottish studies, Hamish Henderson leaves us with an institution that is a magnet for young people from all over the world. I meet many students at the University of Edinburgh who have come here specifically to visit the school of Scottish studies. Next week, a group of Estonians will visit the Parliament from the school of Scottish studies. They have come specifically to learn about Scottish folk music and to study the collection that Hamish left.
In those early days, Hamish Henderson's contribution to live Scottish folk music, which he tied into the political tradition of commentary on the human condition, was an inspiration to all writers. I think in particular of Matt McGinn and the lovely songs that he wrote about Glasgow. That tradition has continued to this day and I hope that it will continue into the future with writers of Scottish folk song.
Hamish Henderson made a double contribution—of an institution that I hope will be nurtured and treasured by the University of Edinburgh and by the Scottish nation, and of a live folk tradition that will continue into the future. If the Parliament does anything to honour his name, it should be to support that folk tradition and the institution that he has left us with.
Like other members, I congratulate Cathy Peattie on securing this debate. I, too, lodged a motion on Hamish Henderson and I am delighted to take part in the debate.
I want to put on record—because otherwise the Official Report will not show it—the presence of the Lord Advocate in the chamber. Hamish was a man who had run-ins with the law from time to time. It will be appreciated immensely that the Lord Advocate is here to commemorate him.
Every mention of Hamish Henderson since his death on 8 March has been prefaced or followed by an anecdote. There is no doubt that he was, if not larger than life, then radically different from most of the people whom one has ever met. He wore his convictions, his passions and his appetites on the outside of his large and gangling frame. That meant that one got from him a very direct experience of a unique, great man.
In 1990, Hamish Henderson was invited to speak at the Celtic film and television festival in Douarnenez, a body of which I used to be the director. The festival was due to be held in a brand-new hotel, but the hotel was never built—a lesson for the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. As a result, it was held in a very old hotel on the beach at Tréboul, which is the twin town with Douarnenez, just across the river. The hotel's last big booking had been during the second world war when the German officers stayed there. It had been decaying ever since.
The way to the rooms was from a boardwalk. On the first evening of the festival, crossing the boardwalk in the dark, I found Hamish slumped against the sand dune. I brushed him down and took him into the bar, which was probably a foolish idea, only for him to turn on me viciously within 10 minutes because I suggested in our conversation that "The Freedom Come All Ye" should be the national anthem of an independent Scotland. There was not much gratitude for the drink or for my having picked him up. He was determined to make the point. I have discussed the point with Cathy Peattie, because the wording of her motion says that "The Freedom Come All Ye" is an international anthem. That is fine; I still think that it would make a great national anthem, but he did not want it to be.
Hamish's presence at the festival was long term, because there were only two flights a week from the UK to Rennes. One was on a Monday and one was on a Thursday. He was due to speak on the Tuesday, but when I left on the Friday he was still there. He was apparently still there the following Friday. He missed the weather window no less than four times before they finally got him back on the plane.
I suspect that Hamish is still being talked about in Breton fishing villages. The reality is that he is still being talked about in Scotland, which is the important thing. He was a fixture in Edinburgh when I was a student of Scottish history and literature in the early 1970s. He had a reputation not just for extraordinary scholarship, but for his strong and constant advocacy, to which John McAllion referred, for those who could not speak for themselves or who could not be heard in the clamour of the capitalist 20th century.
He was first and foremost a poet. He did not just agitate and campaign as a politician; he thought and he felt. I always got the sense that the rawness of his feelings for the men and women around him drove him on.
There are still elitist enclaves in Scotland in which the study of folk song and tradition is regarded as a minor matter. However, Hamish Henderson was the greatest of a generation—and it was a great generation; one thinks of others such as Calum MacLean—who proved them wrong. His interest in travelling people, working people and people from the linguistic and cultural minorities of Scotland led to a huge body of recorded work and a huge development in understanding our mongrel nation and its cultures. Scotland is a different place as a result of those people.
Like all cultural nationalists—in the best sense of the term—Hamish Henderson was also an internationalist. The two stances are indivisible. They both arise from a curiosity about and identification with the question of our humanity and our relationships with one another.
Hamish Henderson wrote the "Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica", which have been referred to and which are a remarkable and astonishing statement of humanity from a soldier. The first elegy starts with the line that rings in the mind, which is:
"There are many dead in the brutish desert".
That sets the scene. The poem goes on to say:
"There were no gods and precious few heroes.
What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with
race and leader".
That was an anti-fascist statement, but it was a statement of enormous humanity. There are more accessible writings from Hamish Henderson, but it is sometimes possible to overlook and forget those early poems and their great impact.
The Times Literary Supplement in its review in January 1949 wrote about the former soldier's poems, reflecting upon his experience. It noted:
"Mr Henderson's compassion … gives his poetry a rough humanity, a sincerity and an emotional truth that make it valuable."
Compassion, rough humanity, sincerity and emotional truth were words that defined Hamish's whole life and Scotland still has need of them.
I, too, start by congratulating Cathy Peattie on obtaining the debate and by congratulating the various contributors. This week, a certain rather vacuous female journalist on "Newsnight" referred, in her criticism of the Scottish Parliament, to the fact that we did such things as discussing Hamish Henderson, as if that were something that a proper Parliament does not do. I believe that commemoration of such an important Scottish figure and his contribution to Scotland's song and musical traditions is a worthwhile subject for debate in the Parliament.
As other members have said, Hamish Henderson grew up in Perthshire in poverty. In growing up in that part of our country, he inherited the rich oral tradition of which he made great use later on. Linda Fabiani and Cathy Peattie both referred to the importance that Hamish Henderson placed on recording forgotten people. The recordings of the Gypsy Travellers are a source of an oral and cultural tradition that would have been otherwise much neglected.
Hamish Henderson's approach was not that of a detached observer. He had tremendous enthusiasm and, by transferring that enthusiasm to others, he encouraged them. One of the most famous people whom he encouraged to record was the singer Jeannie Robertson. As Ian Jenkins said, he followed in the tradition of many other Scottish poets and preservers of tradition. Robert Burns did much the same when he went around Scotland in the 18th century, collecting what might have become forgotten works and traditions and preserving them for posterity.
As Robin Harper reminded us, Hamish Henderson did not preserve songs for posterity alone. He also developed folk societies to sing and keep those songs alive. He recorded and, in some cases, wrote songs that were taken up by the most prominent folk singers of his time. Mike Russell reminded us that he was also a notable poet and songwriter in his own right. The poem "Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica"—that was difficult to pronounce—was highly regarded and the song "The Freedom Come All Ye" has attained iconic status.
Hamish Henderson supported many causes, including nuclear disarmament, the anti-apartheid movement, international socialism, home rule and, possibly, independence for Scotland. He saw no contradiction between being a patriotic Scot and being a believer in international solidarity. That is an important factor, because there is often a contradiction in people, who believe that, somehow, pride in one's nation or culture means that one cannot respect the traditions and cultures of others. That is not the case—it is through understanding, creating and caring for one's own culture that one learns to respect and appreciate the pride that others have in their cultures. That was an important gift that people such as Hamish Henderson gave our country. He was also a great linguist and a highly original translator of poetry. He often translated new poetry from Gaelic, French, German and Latin—often into Scots.
As Jamie McGrigor reminded us, Hamish Henderson made a distinguished contribution as an intelligence officer during the war. He gave shrewd advice on the invasion of Sicily and accepted the surrender of Marshall Graziani of the Italian army.
Hamish Henderson did not seek publicity and recognition for himself. His poems and ballads were often published obscurely—sometimes they were later attributed to other people or taken to be part of the folklore tradition. Unfortunately, the ballad "The D-Day Dodgers" is not always attributed to him although it was his work, as Jamie McGrigor said.
Hamish Henderson was generous with his time and money for people of creative talent. He was even generous towards Hugh MacDiarmid—who came from my constituency—with whom he had a famous and public dispute, as Cathy Peattie said. How important the topic of that dispute is for us today. Poetry and all culture are there for the enjoyment of all people, not just for the enjoyment of a few privileged, educated people. Our culture belongs to all of us because it comes from all of us.
The minister made an important point about what poetry is and about how people should feel that it belongs to them. I will make a point that has yet to be raised in the chamber. Will she join me in hoping that the new Scottish Parliament building will be a place not only where we can we celebrate poetry but where we can celebrate Hamish Henderson and others? I offer the caution that we should remember Norman MacCaig's remark about commemorating Hugh MacDiarmid, when he said that we needed two minutes of pandemonium.
That is an interesting point of view. I hope that when the Scottish Parliament finally gets its new building we will be able to commemorate those Scots who came before us and who helped us to attain the Parliament.
The traditional cultures of Scotland, along with the many other cultures that have enriched Scotland over the generations, are part of our national identity. They help us to understand and interpret our roots and our past. Traditional arts are not just about the past—those art forms can express our lives today and our hopes for our nation's future. They are also part of the uniqueness of Scotland and an important contribution to the richness of the experience of visitors to our country.
In an earlier debate, Roseanna Cunningham referred to a recent project that linked traditional arts and tourism. Our culture is an important aspect of the experience that a visitor can have of our country. Only in Scotland can one experience Scottish culture. One can experience many other sorts of cultures here, which one can experience elsewhere, but Scottish culture is unique and special to us. We should be proud to project our culture to our visitors from overseas. I am pleased that the Scottish Arts Council is giving greater recognition to the role of traditional arts and that more money has been devoted to the promotion of those arts. I am sure that traditional art forms will continue to flower in Scotland.
As John McAllion mentioned, Hamish Henderson campaigned for inclusion and social justice and was—perhaps above all—an international socialist. He commemorated Scotland's socialist traditions in works such as "The John MacLean March", which Cathy Peattie recited. I recall looking all over the place for a copy of "The John MacLean March"—a task that seemed to be completely impossible—during my 13-year period of exile in the south of England.
Hamish Henderson's work will help us to appreciate the value of our living tradition. To appreciate and value our Scottish culture and traditional arts would perhaps be the greatest memorial to Hamish Henderson that we could create. In celebrating our culture and in celebrating Scotland, we celebrate him; in celebrating him, we celebrate our culture.
I congratulate everybody who took part in the debate.
Meeting closed at 17:46.