Dancing in the Kilt and proud of the Tartan

Dundee University and the centenary events of the RSCDS have combined on an exhibition of Tartan, and a survey of people’s opinions and emotions about the Scottish tartan. For me, of course, the kilt is attached to dancing. But not only.

Robin-Edward and his wife Michelle: the Maclean of Duart tartan is grand!

The tie carries the emblem of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Here is what I sent to Dundee – and readers are encouraged to do the same during August and September 2022.

TARTAN what does it mean to me?

“find the ordinary that is extraordinary, gather personal connections, as well as images of people animated by the tartan they wear. For this we need to hear from you!”

tartanproject@vandadundee.org

Even in my 70s, the feel and wearing of tartan gives me a beautiful, exciting, even thrilling sense of linking to my ancestral heritage.

Ancestral heritage? Yes! Twice over !

1) the historical identity and personality of the Scots

2) the direct link to my two Scottish grandparents

My mother’s father was a Hamilton (and not just any old Hamilton: she was the undeclared daughter of General Sir Ian Hamilton, who sired her in 1915 on my Huguenot grandmother whose husband was away in Lancashire setting up a munitions factory on Sir Ian’s instructions.) How romantic! The Biblical story of King David and Bathsheba re-enacted in 1915.

My father’s mother was grand-daughter of William Maclean, a Baillie of Glasgow, a spinner of cotton and a proud Maclean of Duart. It was the Maclean tartan that I wore from the age of 3 until today: sometimes the green Hunting tartan, as worn by Sir Sean Connery whose mother was a Maclean; and more often the red Dress Maclean because I always wore the kilt on Sundays and for weddings and parties. I felt good being “dressed up” and looking smart. Nothing feels smarter than the kilt. For my 21st birthday at St Andrews University, I got a new Dress kilt, and 50 years on I am still dancing in that piece of Maclean tartan.

It was not the jackets and ties that made me feel good about myself and about my heritage: it was literally the tartan, and especially the kilt.

And the dancing! I am one of those passionate dancers, and I prefer to dance in the kilt. I dance Renaissance dance in the costume of the 16th century; and I dance German Schuhplattler wearing Lederhosen; but for Scottish dance I feel awkward and under-dressed if I am not wearing the kilt.

Throughout my childhood and my student days I always had a Maclean tartan blanket on my bed: green on one side and red on the other. How clever these weavers are! I loved that tartan blanket, and eventually I gave it to my grandson. But the ‘feel’ of the tartan kilt is better, the weave in tighter, the colours are cleaner. I love a tartan scarf. And since I enjoy a laugh, I have been known to wear an “Hi Jimmy!” cap on my head, complete with red wig.

I have never shared – nor can I even understand – the reluctance of Scots to wear the tartan. Is it a sort of reverse-snobbery? Rather than criticizing Sir Walter Scott for “re-inventing” the kilt, I praise him for understanding how spectacular Scotland’s National Dress can be, and how important it is for National Identity and Pride. The English Hanoverians outlawed the Scottish kilt? So that is another reason why we should ALL wear it ALL THE TIME ! Raise a dram to Sir Walter for making the tartan respectable once more!

A Burns Night in Brittany: the author has a white beard and a dress Maclean kilt.

And to Queen Victoria for falling in love with Scotland.

There is – of course – the issue that Scots and Picts from the Highlands and Islands have a different cultural history and identity from the Saxon and German tribes who settled in the borderlands and in the Central Belt. The Sassenachs! Glaswegians sit in the centre of a zone (and in the past 200 years an increasingly urban zone) where the tartan was never worn and where the strength of the Norman - and then the English - realm dominated early on and nearly permanently. Here people were taught to fear the Highlands and to despise the Gaels; and perhaps this feeling even goes back to the Roman occupation of Scotland. Such historical experiences can get into the DNA of families and it may explain some of the Lowland Scottish reluctance to admire tartan. We should ask: “Which Scots” fail to admire the tartan?

Another advantage of tartan: if everyone wore the tartan, we would be able to spot a Campbell a mile away, and keep well clear of them.

Which nations have beautiful national costumes? Where do we see them? When to they wear them? In this increasingly homogenized world of social media and American commercialism, I am proud that Scotland’s National Dress is probably the best loved, the most recognized and the most often admired in the whole world. Certainly it is the most important in Britain, and in Europe.

Scotland and the Scots should be proud of their tartans.

I have written to the Scotland Tourist Board in the past, deploring the fact that none of their officials wears tartan. In a Highland & Islands tourist office, young men wear blue jeans. Are we promoting Levis and the American economy? Why are they not all wearing the kilt?

American tourists visiting Scotland do not come to see men in jeans: they want to see Scots in kilts. Whenever I am in Scotland (not often enough because I live in France), I wear the kilt. My photo has been taken ten thousand times by visitors to Scotland delighted to see a man in the kilt. I have walked to the top of Ben Nevis, and to the top of Arthur’s Seat, and never seen a kilt other than my own. So I am doing my “bit” for Scotland, for tourism and for the Scottish economy: because the more people wear the kilt, the more plaid weavers and kilt makers will be paid for their skills and labours.

Neglecting Tartan is being negligent: neglecting the economy, neglecting tradition, neglecting beauty and neglecting Scotland.

No man looks good in a scruffy pair of blue jeans.

No man looks bad in the kilt.

Every woman looks twice at a man wearing the kilt.

The swirl of the kilt with the skirl of the pipes makes the heart beat faster.

It took me a very long time to discover that women love to admire men’s calf muscles as we “put our best foot forward” – and thank goodness for the Highland Dance that gave my calves a strong shape. I always thought they were admiring the tartan. In fact, I think they love the fact that the kilt divides me into three roughly equal parts, which makes is look so much more elegant than wearing shirt and pants.

And while I am about it, I believe that

- all Scottish schools should wear tartan

- all Scottish schools should teach Scottish dancing

Everything I have written about TARTAN is equally true about DANCING: we have a unique and uniquely popular form of dance, in a continent (EUROPE) which has almost entirely forgotten its dance traditions. Yet Scottish dancing is practiced everywhere. Not enough; but everywhere. There are eighty Scottish Dance Clubs in Japan! The top demo-dancers of the RSCDS in St Andrews come from France, Germany, Hungary, Russia …… and it is a joy to dance with them.

Of course, whoever mentions DANCE is also talking about the MUSIC. Dance music enters my ears, travels through my body and exits at the feet. Dance gives expression to music (Reels, Jigs, Strathspeys). Dancing gives music life.

Scotland has precious assets in its DANCE, in its MUSIC and in its TARTAN and it is a tragedy that many Scots do not realize how lucky we all are.

Scottish Dance Musicians Liz Donaldson (right to left), Mara Shea and Terry Traub at the Blue Ridge Scottish Country Dance School in North Carolina, in July 2022.

Even the garden gnomes in North Carolina are dancing, dressed in tartan and moving with grace.

Who knew that the Highland Clearances included garden gnomes? But 250 year later, their descendants dance on. And so do we.