“The shame was that we were not English,” he clarified. Shame was what characterised the mid-twentieth-century Scot,” he wrote. I wanted a Scotland which would reject Westminster utterly, but I could find no sympathisers. “When I tried to formulate my thoughts and convert others, I found that everyone saw Scotland only in terms of Westminster’s government, and what could be gotten from there. In his autobiographical account of the removal of the stone, A Touch of Treason (1990) – later followed by A Touch More Treason (1994) – he described how he grew interested in Scottish nationalism, and his frustrations upon finding that his was almost a lone voice in the wilderness. Its position beneath the Chair was seen as a symbol of Scottish servitude to England.īack in 1950, Ian Hamilton was studying law at Glasgow University, and wanted to “wake up the Scots”. But in 1296, King Edward I of England seized the stone and had it placed it under the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey in London, where it remained until 1950. It become one of the central symbols of Scottish pride and independence, over which their kings were once crowned. According to legend, the stone was once Jacob’s pillow, on which he laid his head while dreaming of a ladder to Heaven. Ian’s “effort” – the removal of the Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny as it is often termed – happened on Christmas Day, 1950, and is now an iconic episode in Scotland’s modern history. “I believe that my effort may have written a new verse to an old song, because Scotland has grown in its self-confidence very, very much in the last seventy years,” Ian explains. Scottish history hadn’t been taught in schools, and, as Ian remembers it, there was a general sentiment that Scotland was merely a sub-part of England. When Ian Hamilton was growing up in the first half of the 20th century, he thought Scotland was “officially dead”. “There is not much left for a ninety-three-year-old to do,” he explains. He has made a habit of watching snooker online.
There is no television – Ian tells me he doesn’t watch TV anymore – but he always has his iPad within arm’s reach. Family portraits and photos of children decorate the walls.
A large desk is covered with newspapers and Ian’s shelves are full of books and various ornaments. Inside, the living room is filled with natural light, and very tidy, despite the myriad of objects lying around. He may be a bit hard of hearing, but is clearly far from deaf, as he promptly awakes and heads towards me, with the help of a walking cane, when I knock on the terrace’s glass door. When I arrive at his doorstep, Ian is having his afternoon nap in an armchair in the living room his chest wrapped in a blue blanket decorated with a pattern of Scottish flags. The glass wall of the living room overlooks a small lake and lush, hilly meadows. Ian’s home is a single-storey house at the end of a narrow dirt road. The grass genuinely seems to be greener here. North Connel is a small place dominated by whitewashed façades, gardens with neatly trimmed shrubs, and colourful flowers. A lattice-shaped bridge connects the two parts of the town.
The journey takes you through the green, hilly landscapes of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, before depositing you at a small railway station on the south side of an estuary. Today, Ian lives in North Connel, a village located a three-hour train ride from Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, on the western coast of the Highlands. He is the man who, almost seventy years ago, broke into Westminster Abbey in London, stole one of the great symbols of Scottish nationhood – the Stone of Destiny – and brought it back to his homeland. Because this is the Ian Hamilton who, in his own words, once “held Scotland’s soul in his hands”. Some of the people I met in Scotland referred to him as a “national treasure” others used the definitive article “the” in front of his name to highlight the fact that he is one of a kind. “I suspect one old man is much like another,” added the third.īut I knew that Ian Hamilton was no ordinary old man.
“Historic Scotland has my story on disc copyright free if you find it you need not to come,” read the second, in the same clipped, unpunctuated style.