Brian Holton > Quotes

“Outside, its a hard frost but a pale blue sky, an the kail an sprouts in the gairden are bairdit wi white. In the wuids a hoodie-craw's cawin, an the hedges are full o cocky wee robins shoutin the odds. The swing o the axe an the crack o splittin sticks lets distant neibours ken ye're up, ye've got throu anither nicht. Then twistin the Southern Reporter inti spirlies, coverin them wi kindlin an coal, an a match ti the fire: the day begins wi a mug o tea an a slice o toast, nithert in the ingle. Ay, Niel Gow's auld tune 'Whisky at Nicht an Dry in the Mornin' has some truth ti't tae.”
― Brian Holton, Ayont the Thistle: A gallimaufry of poetry and prose to mark the centenary (1926 - 2026) of Hugh MacDiarmid's 'A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle'

“Scots is a West Germanic language with a literature going back more than 800 years, yet Scotland is a country where only English is compulsory in school, and where Scotland's history is barely taught beyond primary school, and where (non-Scottish) newspaper owners have been known to prohibit the reviewing of Scottish books on the grounds that this would be 'provincial', while the myopic hegemony of the Anglocentric media enshrines a set of attitudes which routinely ignores or belittles our culture.”
― Brian Holton, Irish Pages, Vol. 12, No. 2: Scotland