‘How do we make Scott more popular?’ The question ran round the table and none of us had an answer.
‘How do we make Scott more popular?’ The question ran round the table and none of us had an answer. It was a meeting of the Abbotsford Trust. I am not myself a trustee, but was there as a member of an advisory committee. The Trust itself was set up after the death of Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott, Sir Walter’s great-great-great-granddaughter who, with her late sister, Patricia, had owned Abbotsford for many years and had made it the happiest and most welcoming of houses.
Scott bought it in 1812. It was then a small farmhouse called Cartley (or perhaps Clarty) Hole, and Scott bought it to comply with the requirement that as Sheriff of Selkirkshire he should have a residence in his Sheriffdom. But he soon started building, and the east wing of the present house is not only his work, but in its semi-Gothic appearance, furnishings and magpie collections reflects his extraordinary character. (The other wing was built by his granddaughter and her husband Sir James Hope-Scott and includes the charming little Catholic chapel where Cardinal Newman celebrated Mass and preached.)
Abbotsford attracted hosts of visitors even in Scott’s lifetime — he insisted that the grounds should be open to anyone — and it became a place of literary pilgrimage almost immediately after his death, all the more so when the railway, suitably known as the Waverley Line, opened up the Borders to tourism. Patricia and Jean looked after the house and small estate with loving care, and 30 years or so ago received some 75,000 visitors every year. That number has now fallen to around 25,000, and the Abbotsford Trustees recognise that investment is necessary if Abbotsford is to be preserved both as it should be, and in a manner attractive to people today. The sum needed to fulfil their plans is £10 million. They have made a good start with half promised by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Scotland, but they realise that the success of the project depends on making Abbotsford pay its way and attracting many more visitors. 40,000 a year would be enough. So we met last week to discuss the question: how do we make Scott popular again?
Just how far he has fallen, not only from favour, but even out of sight, is shown by his absence from any of the official publicity and plans for this year’s Scottish ‘Homecoming’ event. Admittedly this was devised — by the previous Labour/Liberal Democrat administration in Edinburgh, then pursued enthusiastically by their Scottish Nationalist successor — to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. Yet Scott, who as a boy met Burns and who quotes him more frequently than anyone except Shakespeare, is not only the greatest Scottish novelist, but the writer — the person indeed — who did more than any other individual to give form to the identity of Scotland both at home and abroad; and in doing this he became the Father of Scottish Tourism. He should surely have had a place in an event designed to draw home members of the worldwide Scottish diaspora.
It is true that as a Tory and a Unionist, though one jealously protective of Scotland’s national identity, he doesn’t appeal to the political class of today’s social democratic Scotland. Yet the more you read his novels and poetry, the more you learn about the man himself, the more you find yourself saying, ‘Why, this is Scotland, I shall know all that is best and strangest about my country.’ Only in one other European literature can you find an attachment to both the idea and the matter of one’s native land comparable to Scott’s; and that is the literature of Holy Russia.
Of course he is not a writer for Scotland alone. He is the first truly great European novelist and one whose influence permeates the literature of 19th-century Europe. As Georges Simenon, looking from Edinburgh Castle to the Scott Monument in Princes Street, observed: ‘He invented us all.’
But how to make him popular again? I wish I had the answer, though I do keep meeting people who read, and re-read, the Waverley novels. They have mostly one thing in common: they are men and women with some knowledge and experience of the world of public affairs. This is significant, for Scott, though given as a school task for past generations, is essentially a novelist for grown-ups. I hope to elaborate this in a future column.
But as to a Scott revival? I’ve been trying without much success to encourage one for years. Even now I have a play, The Ragged Lion, drawn from my novel with the same title, touring his own Border country. Sadly, though it has been well-received, I don’t see it kicking off the revival.
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