Three voiced nation

As this seems to be poetry week for me, I thought I would move on to one of my favourite poets, the great Iain Crichton Smith. Yesterday when we were sworn in at the Parliament I gave my oath - as I did last time - in the three voices of Scotland - English, Scots and Gaelic. This seemed to annoy at least one journalist, Alan Cochrane of the Telegraph, who fulminated against it on his front page before I had even spoken a word.

This is my crib sheet - borrowed from my neighbouring MSP David Thompson as is obvious from my handwriting on it . The origin of the idea of course lies in the poem read on the 1st of July 1999 at the opening of the first session of the Parliament by Tom Fleming , Iain Crichton Smith's The Beginning of a New Song.

Let our three-voiced country
sing in a new world
joining the other rivers without dogma,
but with friendliness to all around her.

Let her new river shine on a day
that is fresh and glittering and contemporary;

Let it be true to itself and to its origins
inventive, original, philosophical,
its institutions mirror its beauty;

then without shame we can esteem ourselves

We are a three voiced nation - in fact a many voiced nation , as the contributions in Urdu and Italian yesterday also showed. Perviously we have had Catalan as well - a celebration of the lively "mongrel nation" (to quote another Scottish writer, William McIlvanney) we have become, but built on the foundation of our three indigenous ways of seeing the world.