Monkey Puzzle tree

The Monkey Puzzle tree or to give it it's proper name Araucaria araucana. Thought to live to around 150 years old. The tree was in the grounds of a hotel I had been in for a funeral tea.

I was in Dundee today attending the funeral of a previous Chairman of the Scottish National Party, James Halliday. It was a nice celebration of a good life.

I was awful sad when I learned last week that he had passed away. Jimmy was a real gentleman, always passed the time of day when we met at National meetings and asked after the family. Indeed the last time I spoke with Jimmy was at National Conference in October last year. He was heading out of the venue but saw me and popped back to ask how my Father was.

One of a group of Scottish Nationalists who kept our Party together during extremely lean electoral years and held various different fractions together to ensure we continued and enabled us to achieve the success we have today. We are indebted to these men and woman of that era.

This taken from his memoirs very much strikes a chord with me and sums up why I too believe in Independence for Scotland:

He later said he could not remember a time when he was not a Nationalist, even as a child. "You were just a Scot and Scots should rule their own country," he recalled in his memoirs, "no-one ever preached nationalism to me until I was old enough to preach it to others."