Bonjour Marie-Agnes, Janice et Jean-Claude ! 🙂 Hello again from Scotland ! Is there, I wonder, any more romantic story in all of our country’s modern history than the tale of ‘The Stone’ – how at Christmas 1950 Ian Hamilton (b.1925) and some young friends removed Scotland’s Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey to bring it back home? What they … Continue reading →
Robert Burns : Our Poet at Ellisland Farm, 1788-1791 .. . Bonjour Janice, Marie-Agnes et Jean-Claude. Hello again from Scotland ! 🙂  We do hope that you’re all keeping safe. Margaret and I were very happy, Marie-Agnes, to receive a message from you just a few days ago, saying how much you liked the Burns poem “in English” that … Continue reading →
 “Writer, traveller and adventurer, and with a Spanish grandmother, I nevertheless find Cunninghame Graham’s involvement in politics to have been the most remarkable feature of his life – for he was from a noble Scottish family, yet became the first ever Socialist member of our British parliament when he entered the House of Commons in 1886.”  Bonjour Janice, … Continue reading →
 Bonjour Marie-Agnes, Janice et Jean-Claude !  🙂 Hello again from Scotland !  How are you all today ? . A few weeks ago we saw Remembrance Sunday, which in Britain has now for a hundred years been observed on the second Sunday of November. In recent times though, it has become common also to commemorate Armistice Day, recalling the … Continue reading →
Whether or not you are an amateur of Formula I races, you’ll love Iain & Margaret’s last “Letter from Scotland” in which our dear friends tell us about the fascinating story and tragic destiny of Jim Clark, nicknamed “The Flying Scotsman”, one of the greatest motor-racing champion in the world and a national hero in Scotland. Bonjour Marie-Agnès, Jean-Claude … Continue reading →
Bonjour Marie-Agnès, Janice et Jean-Claude, Hello again from Scotland !  🙂 I know that you rarely travel without your camera, Jean-Claude, but I wonder whether you were keenly interested in photography even as a schoolboy? One or two of my school friends would talk of developing and printing their own photos – in black and white only – skills … Continue reading →
Bonjour Marie-Agnès, Bonjour Jean-Claude, Bonjour Janice, The other day I came across a letter I received some years ago from Maurice Fleming, then Editor of the Scots Magazine, telling me about an old newspaper report he had been reading. It referred to the imprisonment of the staff of Lerwick Post Office in November 1914. Mr Fleming asked if … Continue reading →
Bonjour Marie-Agnes, Janice et Jean-Claude – Ca va bien? – How are you all today? 🙂 Margaret and I love to read all the letters you send us, so full of kindness and bonhomie! Our readers here at Scotiana may not know that your letters are in fact doubly charming, for they are always illustrated! (As you have often … Continue reading →
Working dogs, careless of their own safety, ignore danger on the roads. It’s always with an immense pleasure that we receive a new Letter from Scotland so kindly written by Iain and Margaret. Each ‘letter’ is a wonderful gem, a true gift we’re always eager to share with you. Iain and Margaret have told us many fascinating stories … Continue reading →
Bonjour Janice, Marie-Agnès et Jean-Claude – Hello again from Scotland! 🙂 I think you once told me, Janice, that our posts on Oscar Slater were among the most-read here at Scotiana – some people, I’m sure, may find it almost impossible to believe that such a shocking story could be true! Quite understandable though, for the truth of the affair … Continue reading →
Bonjour, Marie-Agnès, Janice et Jean-Claude – Hello again! 🙂  Ca va? – How are you all? We must have exchanged hundreds of messages in the last few years by email – and are now getting to know each other really well – so it seems astonishing that it’s over 12 months since our last Letter from Scotland! I recall … Continue reading →
Bonjour Mairiuna, Janice et Jean-Claude! Ca va? – How are you today? It was lovely to see you again at the end of September, and to welcome you all for the first time to our home in Scotland – a short visit, but one filled with so many unforgettable moments! 🙂 In the course of your extended journey around … Continue reading →
Bonjour Marie-Agnès, Janice et Jean-Claude. Hello again from Scotland! 🙂 Jean-Claude and Marie-Agnès, please let me say how thrilled we were to meet you both again towards the end of April – for just the second time in our warm and cordial friendship! Those two days that we spent together at Carcassonne were wonderful, filled – as you said, … Continue reading →
Bonjour! Hello again from Scotland, Marie-Agnès, Janice and Jean-Claude! We both wish you – and all of Scotiana’s readers – bon courage and many happy times in the year ahead, which promises to be quite a difficult one. 🙂 As we write, the garden snowdrops are in full bloom, yet winter is not over. There’s a very welcome ‘stretch’ to … Continue reading →
Bonjour Janice, Marie-Agnès et Jean-Claude – Hello again from Scotland! 🙂 Marie-Agnès and Jean-Claude, do you still have a subscription to The Scots Magazine, the famous journal first published in 1739? We don’t have one ourselves, but were interested to find that the October 2011 issue contained a number of features on music in Scotland. Amongst them was a … Continue reading →
