SO, the (official) Tories have revived their hatred and fear for their favourite Bogyman Braveheart movie again. It wasn’t the costumes, make-up, or inaccuracies of any historically based movies that upset them, just the main core fact that Wallace, Scotland’s national hero, was allowed to be even mentioned, or of the wrongdoing and ongoing atrocities of the Plantagenets should have been aired at all.

The American author Randall Wallace explained all his deviations from Blind Harry’s version to no avail. It was a composite of Scottish history from Pictish times to Jacobites and acts of Scottish resistance to naked English aggression and colonialism around the globe. It wasn’t mainly filmed in Ireland to avoid taxes. There were no institutions the film makers could go to in Scotland. Ireland had a one-stop organisation. “You want horses. actors, extras, Irish army, fields etc? I’ll give you them.”

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The whole Anglo British media was in an uproar. Mel Gibson (of the clan Buchanan) was attacked for being an Ozzie. Yet the dashing Errol Flynn was never slagged for being a Yankee Ozzie, who made outrageously inaccurate films about English cut-throats, robbers, imperialists and slavers for “Good” Queen Bess, the First of Engerlund. Nor was Errol’s Scottish surname, frae the Clann Ross, or his auntie frae Dennistoon ever mentioned.

Saoras Wallace of the Clann re-enactment society was approached by several Holyrood producers, including Alan Ladd, for extras and stunts etc. They asked about a suitable Scottish actor for the part, and he suggested Mel Gibson for his international appeal.

I loved John Wayne’s fiercely inaccurate movies despite being pure hokum. John Wayne said that the Indians didn’t do nothin’ with the land. He even tried to attack a female Native American activist actress who declined an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando, who campaigned for Native Amercian rights.

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Gary Cooper played the part of a sheriff who was isolated when no-one would back him when the baddies came to town. Stanley Kramer altered the High Noon story to get at the effects of McCarthyism on Hollywood, where actors, screenwriters, producers were being isolated and persecuted and their friends deserted them, even being afraid to be seen with them in public. Some of the scriptwriters fled to England, where their successful Hollywood formula was used for inaccurate hokum for fictional characters like Robin Hood. England has a statue to the fictional Robin Hood and an airport. Yet, when Tommy Sheridan MSP proposed a statue and airport to be name after Scotland’s national hero he was vilified by the reigning Labourites in Holyrood.

Labour refused to cash in on the blockbuster movie by not approving statues and plaques associated with Wallace, including the Battle of the Bell of the Brae in Cathedral Street, or Stockwell St where Wallace allegedly stocked English bodies in the well (according to composer Alexander Dewar Gibb). Or of Robroyston where he was grassed up after plotting in Rutherglen Kirk with English Governor de Valence, who was no “Liberty” Valence. Too close to home for class traitors and Scottish grasses?

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The film was a favourite in Palestinian refugee camps and Scots were acknowledged all over the world as Bravehearts against all the odds. I believe a sheriff in Fife fined someone for punching an English polis after watching the Braveheart move. The sheriff said that was more than 700 years ago. “I know”, said the accused. “I’ve only jist fun’ oot aboot it”.

Something the true Brits don’t want us to find out about, oor ain true Scottish history, or we will all be up in arms.

Donald Anderson
Glasgow