The World According to Manager Mark by Mark Jenkins

Author:Mark Jenkins [Mark Jenkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784188917
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

KILTS

One thing I’ve never understood is the whole idea of kilts.

Why, if you live in the most northerly part of the United Kingdom, would you want to wear a kilt instead of a decent pair of tweed or corduroy trousers?

I’m not against men in skirts on principle. Both Eddie Izzard and Grayson Perry can, in a certain light, look very fetching in little black numbers. There’s also a long history of warriors and soldiers in skirts. Romans wore some sort of tunic, as did Anglo-Saxons and the Normans hundreds of years later. Zulu tribes in parts of Africa still wear skirts made of straw today, which makes sense when you think of the climate. But Scotland is bloody freezing in the winter.

The Scots could, of course, use that lovely thick tartan wool to knit a nice warm pair of trousers instead of wearing a kilt and letting the high winds blow just where you don’t want them to! There is also the fact that ‘True Scotsmen’ aren’t allowed to wear anything underneath. Apparently, in the forces it was the practice that the Sergeant Major would fix a mirror to a golf club, which he would then place near the feet of the soldiers to allow him to carry out a proper inspection on the parade ground… now, that’s what you call inspecting your privates!

I have worn a kilt once, when I put on my special Scottish Night at the hotel, but that was in the middle of the summer in Sunny Torquay… and, before you ask, I’m not telling you! I did miss not having any pockets, although the sporran was really useful for containing my cigarettes and lighter.

There was a time, way back in 1746, when, to quell the Scottish clans and to stop an uprising, King George II actually banned the Scots from wearing kilts unless they were serving in the army. If you were up there in the Highlands and caught wearing a kilt, you could be punished by being sent to live abroad (in, most likely, a warm country) for seven years.

Blimey! If I’d been tramping through the Scottish glens and mountains wearing a kilt in the middle of winter in the freezing-cold weather, I’d be hoping to get bloody caught!

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