Softly Shouting

  It wasn’t a state visit, but you could be forgiven for mistaking it was. Pipers tuning up; a class of school children was ready with a song and small paper flags, and something approximating a red carpet was ready to be rolled out. Nothing about The Donald’s visit to his ancestral island was left to chance. The helicopter sunk from a watery, blustery sky. The pilot found the X and put it deftly on firm ground. The Trumps were in town. Donald and Melania stepped on the red carpet after their security detail had fanned out and inspected the area. Melania stood beside Trump as if she had a metal pipe welded to her spine; she wouldn’t be able bend to anyone, especially not to her husband. She could have been a hologram powered by AI. The pipers tuned up and started a rousing rendition of ‘Oh Flower of Scotland’. If Trump was taken aback by that one of the pipers was a black woman with a tartan hijab he didn’t show it. The school choir sang a Gaelic ditty; Brochan Lom, the Gae...

  I must reassure you, listener, that I didn’t play truant every week. But now and again the urge to escape the daily grind of school was strong. It was the middle of March; unseasonably warm and being cooped up in school didn’t appeal to me at all. The talk around the breakfast table was all about someone called Adolf Hitler. It was the first but it certainly not the last time that I would hear that name. Apparently, he had invaded Austria, a country neighbouring to Germany.   My mother and father reacted very differently: my mother said that she was sure that Chamberlain would keep us safe, my father was clearly worried and said that the end of Hitler’s ambition was not yet in sight. I left them to it, kissed my mother, took my satchel and went. As soon as I was around the corner, I half ran, half walked to the Inch, which was where I knew the circus would be. Careful not to encounter classmates, I took a roundabout route, taking in the Greyfriars Cemetery and some obscu...