An important year for Scotland

But I'm ignoring the current propaganda and going my own way by reading two writers who are significant in describing the people of Scotland and their circumstances at two periods of the C20th. They are writers who command respect -
'Scottish Journey' by Edwin Muir and ' Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil' by Ronald Ferguson.
Muir's journey through Scotland took place during the year of my birth, 1935, and describes through the eyes of an Orcadian poet the country I was born into a few years before World War II. He travelled from Edinburgh to the Lowlands and to the Highlands via Glasgow observing the people, their nature and the quality of life in a Scotland of large areas of unchanging rural expanse yet flourishing industrially in densely, grimly populated centres.
Ferguson writes about a football team's season, 1993, when Cowdenbeath FC experienced a dreadful season only lightened on May 1st that year when they beat local rivals, Dunfermline 2-0. But he says more about Cowdenbeath than is to be found in the struggles of a football team---the main industry is under attack as the Government de-industrialises the Coal industry, Black Diamonds lose value and the town's heartbeat falters. So we learn of the tears of a Scottish town as the 21st Century looms; however there also resounds wit and humour.
My life in a Scotland - caught in a time warp by these writers - is that of change and optimism, pain and occasional despair so I ponder on my Scottishness aided by two fine writers.