"The Proud Jocks"

Oh flower of Scotland

When will I see

Your like again?

I tend to think I’m not a fool

Even though I was at school

But when it came to you jocks

I was in the dark

A foreign race so far apart.

Going north of the border opens your eyes

So much more than haggis & macaroni pies.

What I mistook as a chip on their shoulder

Is something else centuries older

A love of your country proud of it’s past

Burning heart pride that will always last

A peculiar country with your little quirks

Not to mention men in skirts!

A strange language I cannae comprehend

Unintelligible English round the bend.

But Scotland has something I cannot find

What us English cannot define

Being Scottish is something you can grasp

Us poor old English have nothing to clasp

Our past is in the Kingdom entwined

Proud to be English it’s in the mind.

I have no idea how to define national pride

Unlike over Hadrians Wall on the other side.

What’s going through my heid is bang oot of order

I’m well jealous of those north of the border!

Dulwich Mishi 17^th June 2013

( Returning from a break in Edinburgh, having visited a number of their museums, I-for the first time in my life-began to grasp what it means for them to be Scottish. It felt as if there was more pride in them being Scottish, than there was for me being English)