Gordon Glassford (Letters, 16 April) needs “tae think again” about Flower of Scotland. It is no surprise that the brutal savagery visited on the Scottish in the past should have left an anti-English legacy. The recent renewed focus on slavery shows that we cannot just forget the past and its impact. Looking back is essential to looking forward in the most constructive way. It is absurd to reduce Scottish nationalism to anti-English sentiment. The Scottish have a history, culture, language and identity that they quite reasonably wish to be enshrined in independence. The imposition of Brexit on Scotland against its will is just the latest example of English arrogance and indifference to Scottish interests. But “we can still rise now and be [a] nation again”.
Nigel Florence
Mevagissey, Cornwall
• A national anthem does not need words. I’ve always thought that a fitting anthem for an independent Scotland would be the wonderful theme from the final movement of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 3 (the “Scottish”). Stirring, romantic and not encumbered by any embarrassing or clumsy declarations. And the work of a German Jew. A fitting choice for an outward-looking modern nation.
John Mair
London
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