Flurry...

... of activity.



During the recent French visit we went to Edinburgh and visited three Parliament buildings in one day. Who knew?!

Before 1707, the Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign independent state which had its own legislature, the Parliament of Scotland,which met from 1640 until 1707 at Parliament House on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Old Parliament

The Act of Union, passed in 1707, created an incorporating political union between the Kingdoms of Scotland and England. The Union merged the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England into the Parliament of Great Britain which was housed in the Palace of Westminster in London. As a consequence, Scotland was directly governed from London for the next 292 years without a legislature or a Parliament building of its own.

Pressure for an independent parliament grew in the 1970s with the growth of the Scottish National Party and monies were invested into the conversion of the former Royal High School on Calton Hill into an official parliament. Whilst much of this conversion was completed (including creation of the main debating hall) and the building was renamed New Parliament House it was determined that the facility was too small for its stated purpose (as and when that purpose arose). Failure to create an independent parliament, following the rather onerous conditions of the 1979 devolution referendum, led a campaign group to set up adjacent to the Royal High School at the foot of the access road to Calton Hill. Starting informally this became a permanently manned "vigil" to keep the concept in the public mind. This led to the Royal High School being the "popular" choice of site in the public (and particularly SNP) mindset.

Parliament that never was





A referendum of the Scottish electorate, held on 11 September 1997, approved the establishment of a directly-elected Scottish Parliament to legislate on most domestic affairs. Following this, the Scottish Office, led by the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, decided that a new purpose-built facility would be constructed in Edinburgh, to house the Scottish Parliament.

New Parliament

We pique-niqued in Princes Street Gardens and fought valiantly with the hordes of street performers.

On Saturday we held a ceilidh, in a place called Speddoch Hall which is on no map.

And rather bizarrely, I found myself at an outdoor performance of The Fantastic Mr Fox last night, having spent all day throwing £20 notes at various shopkeepers in Dumfries in an attempt to secure some of the vanishingly small stocks of school shoes, plimsoles and anoraks. Somehow, saying 'We've been very busy' when they know the date the schools go back just as well as I do didn't cut it with me come the end. I think I growled at a few shop assistants.

School tomorrow!