Well, I do know that I’m neither of them but I’m in the middle of an identity crisis.
You see, I’m Cornish. Born and bred. Grew up here, went to school here, lived here all my life. Well, apart from the times that I lived somewhere else that is. Oh, and the born and bred bit. It’s a minor technicality really, but as I grew up just on the Cornish side of the border, on the occasion of my birth the hospital in Plymouth was closer than the one in Truro, so I was actually born in Devon. Makes no odds though, ‘cos as they say down here “Iffen the caat ‘as kittens en the oven it doan maken pasties do et?” So that’s it then, Cornish bred. I can belong to the story that at the bottom of every deep mine in the world you’ll find a Cornishman, similar to the other popular story that in every ships engine room you’ll find a Scotsman. Ahh….. another minor hitch. My father was actually born in India. He wasn’t of Indian descent it was just that his father, as part of the great British Raj, lived in India and designed bridges during the construction of the railway system. Dad’s parents were both Scots and at the age of four he was shipped back to boarding school in Scotland where he spent the remainder of his formative years. Apparently he didn’t see either of his parents again until he was seven, which was considered quite normal then. Extraordinary
I digress
So technically then, I’m a Scot. That’s great, I can handle that. It’s still part of the big Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Breton celtic thing. I’ve just got to realign myself to be part of the engine room story instead of being at the bottom of the pit. So I and all the thousands of the rest of us stood in engine rooms throughout the world can look forward to receiving our ballot papers for the up and coming Scottish independence vote then?
Err……. No. Apparently you’re only Scottish enough to vote if you actually live there, even though both you and your parents might have been born and bred in Prague.
So there you go. Gave up my beloved Cornishness to become a Scot, only to be told I’m not one.
Boadicea's Chariot 
jh, we’re all victims of the great human diaspora, innit? My reader already knows I have soft spot for Yarkshire. The reason is that early in the 19th C a Janus watchmaker in Sowth Yarkshire migrated to Coventry to ply his trade. And there the januses stayed until I left to become a nomad businessman, ending up in Vikingland. Am I a tyke? Well, yes at heart.
Janus,
The rest of the my fathers family are all up there, Bradford, Rawdon (just down the road from the original Harry Ramsden chippy) and Denton. ‘Tis all very beautiful.
I’m in the same position as you, jhl. A Scot born and bred but not living there just now and Salmond has disenfranchised me – and you and Sean and Alex and thousands of others. But all sorts of odds and ends currently living in Scotland – even though they might be moving back to Prague the day after the referendum – have the right to decide our country’s future. ‘Sno right, so it’s no!
Backside wonders why so many Scots migrate if it’s such a great place to live. 😦
Scots are sought after the world over, Janus, and when it’s a question of earning your living … I suppose it’s the same as the British Empire. We like to spread our genius all over. I don’t think any of the Bond movies were filmed in Scotland, so poor old Sean had to move.
Sheona,
God alone knows how you could begin to sort out who would/should be eligible to have a vote. Strikes me that it’s an idea that’s been hastily cobbled together for political expediency and not much else.
Janus,
It’s like living in Cornwall, great place, great people, great difficulty in finding a well paid job.
I have a horrible suspicion that your grandfather probably knew my great great uncle in India, was he in the NW frontier area?
I sympathise with the business of not getting a vote on the Scottish thingy but it is exactly the same as me having been disenfranchised from voting in any election for the last ten years despite owning and paying the taxes due on two properties in the UK.
They seriously don’t want anyone ‘away’ to vote on anything, most of the diaspora are not so ground down by their bloody systems. Much better to rely on wogs and parasites to bolster their status quo.
Cornwall is a lovely place, I suppose one would rather be poor there than most places! Pity about the tourists though!!! Less rain than Scotland too!
Aye weel, Sheona, it’s a worry!
But, speaking as an enfranchised odd and end currently living in Scotland, I assure you that, if Scunner Salmond wins, I have every intention of moving back to my place of birth or anywhere else furth of Scotland,that will have me the day after the referendum, I’m very fond of Hamburg. .
Pure Scot, of course, despite my natal provenance. I subscribe to the great (and far too long absent) J Wolfe’s view of nationality when he insisted that he was not a Jock, despite being born in Dundee of English parentage – ‘Just because a dog is born in a stable, it doesn’t make it a horse.’.
Mind, nobody would want to boast about being born in Dundee. Even William Topaz McGonagall had enough sense to be born in Embra before he went slumming in the widely acknowledged armpit of the Universe that is that unhappy city which is now, incredibly, a candidate for European City of Culture. An even bigger joke than Qatar getting the World Cup gig if it happened.
Mind again, Dundee are only up for a chance at the job because it’s the turn of a UK city. If I voted for Independence and Scunner won, they would be disqualified.
First argument in favour that has come even close to swaying me.
Hi JHL.
My apologies for responding to Sheona before thanking you for an interesting blog. The blog itself and my fellow Charioteers’ comments to date thereon sustain my belief that Salmond and his minions are a bunch of small-minded racists defecating on what has been the history of my country for the past three centuries. Most of that history has, in my opinion, has been a ‘good thing’.
I am glad to read that there’s a Jock strand to your ancestry but that won’t make you a Jock unless you want it to. If you feel Cornish then you are Cornish. Join the Scots Diaspora on Burns Night, Hallowe’en or Hogmanay but enjoy being what you think you are for the rest of the year.
jhl, I think that all expatriate Scots who want a vote and can prove by birth certificate, Highers certificate, degree certificate, or some such should be permitted to apply for a vote.
JM, you’re not an “odd and end”, you’re a Scot. If Marseille with its soaring murder rate – 15 so far this year at least – can be the European City of Culture, why not Dundee?
I recall that Liverpool got the nod some years ago! Why did they call it Scotland Road, I wonder?
Mrs O,
I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know where my Grandfather was based when he was working. I never got to know him that well as he moved to East London when he retired. (East London Africa that is, not Chaz and Dave country) Part of the family remained in India as one of my uncles became a tea planter in Assam.
Talking of rain, I used to live at the other end of the Sound from the area where I think you are based. I lived in Fremont for a while. Seattle, now that’s a rainy city!
Mr Mackie,
I think we share some opinions about Salmond and his henchpersons. To be honest I wouldn’t have expected to have a vote myself, its the totally casual disenfranchisement of what must be thousands of others that bothers me.
Funnily enough Seattle is probably rainier than further North. We are right on the border. The Olympic peninsula affects the way the fronts come in and basically makes the South Sound wetter than the North (Thank God!) Here we are just about the same as Carmarthenshire for rain, so very much home from home, about 35″, which is why we came here in the first place!! Both of us hate heat and dry. and brown and beastly!
Couldn’t get out of Dallas quick enough! Cloaca of the western world!!!
Seattle seems to have become very much more violent in the last ten years we have been here. Can’t be bothered with the place. A lot more murders there than there used to be.
The great great uncle was well dead before I was born but was the head of the Indian Railways in the NW region. Where they have lots of bridges, viaducts and those ratchet gradients, which is why I thought he might well have known your relative. He retired to SW London just before the war and was promptly bombed!