A recent survey showed that 20 million
Scots were living abroad and 5 million living in Scotland: were you
born here and where?.
Sean Connery
I was born here in Edinburgh in
Fountainbridge, 5 minutes from here.
Drusilla Fraser
Is your home still here?
Sean Connery
No. It was taken over by Scottish
& Newcastle Breweries: in fact everything round there has been
almost erased.
Drusilla Fraser
When, how, and why did the Nationalist
Party sentiment affect you? And was it a family tradition or due to
other reasons?
Sean Connery
I was interested initially way back
when Winifred Ewing was attempting to get a seat before she was in
Europe and then I lost contact with her. I started travelling the
world much more and being very busy but it always stayed with me
that I would like to see some real developments in terms of
dispensing with the feudality in Scotland. A couple of statistics
substantiate it: for example only 4% of all the companies owned in
Scotland have their head offices in Scotland, the rest are in the
south. I believe that Scotland should be independent from the United
Kingdom: nothing wrong with Scotland being in the United Kingdom but
it has no choice, it's in the same geography but it should be
totally independent of it. What I don't understand is their
objection to it breaking away. If we're supposed to have such a
wonderful relationship and there's no real blood to data, attempting
to get away and the democratic principle of the country is rushing
to recognise Croatia before they've even resolved any problems
there, we should sort it out at home first. As Europe is completely
reassembling and Scotland has as much importance in Europe and
certainly in Asia and round the world we'd have no problem in terms
of making liasons and partnerships with the independent world. I
think they'd have problems at first because it's been so long since
they've been independent though.
Drusilla Fraser
You have a tatoo which says Scotland
Forever
Sean Connery
Yes, well, it's dissolved a bit now
Drusilla Fraser
Well you've just answered that
question: you would like to see Scotland leave the Union but remain
within it but be independent in it.
Sean Connery
No, I think independent of it, as an
equal partner and anything it would wish to be and equally anything
it doesn't wish to be.
Drusilla Fraser
Yes, I see. When interviewed by a
French colleague, a Scots Nationalist said recently, the question is
not if but when Scotland will be independent. Do you feel the same?
It's only a matter of time.
Sean Connery
Well it is. I think that there's
something fundamentally wrong with a system where there's been 17
years of a Tory Government and the people of Scotland have voted
Socialist for 17 years and had a Tory Government. That hardly seems
democratic. The principle party at the moment, the governing party
although they only have eleven seats, is the Tory party and they are
last in Scotland. It's Labour, then Scottish Nationalists, Liberal
Democrats and then the Tories. That doesn't seem right. I'm sure
there are a lot of votes for Socialists because they don't want the
Tories which is apparent: now I'm not saying the Scottish
Nationalist Party is equipped to run Scotland, that's not the issue.
I think all the good political brains are down in Westminster but
they're the ones who've emerged in a system that they gravitate to
Westminster instead of sorting it out here. I mean by that Blair to
Brown to Cook to Rifkind and Ian Lang: all these guys sound to me
more English than Scottish.
Drusilla Fraser
Scotland In Europe the Nationalist
posters proclaim: is a united Europe essential to Scotland's
independence?
Sean Connery
I think it's inevitable: essential
probably ... I wouldn't know. It would probably become clear when it
happens.
Drusilla Fraser
In the 1992 General Election you lent
your voice to a video for the Scottish Nationalists: would you
describe yourself as a militant member?
Sean Connery
No. If I was a really militant member
I would be living in Scotland but I have worked abroad. I left
Scotland when I was 16 because I had no qualifications for anything
but to join the navy, having left school at 13. I don't consider
myself militant but I have the advantage of having worked in
mostcountries and continents of the world so I can see what the
situation is and I can see where they are abroad and there's a lot
of fantasy about what Scotland is and the shortbread tins and that
sort of thing. But there's no question there's a spirit there which
is rather sad because as you say there's 20 million in America and
possibly 25 to 30 % of the Presidents of the United States are
descended from Scots. We don't have the bridge between America and
Scotland that Ireland has with America and that's a real drawback.
But there the Irish seem to have more fire about them than the
Scots.
Drusilla Fraser
Does the fact that millions of pounds
of oil revenue go to London explain why, that's one of the main
reasons why there's strong support for the Nationalists? Or is that
just rhetoric?
Sean Connery
No. I think we have to go back to the
source of the oil. It was typical of the canniness and reluctance to
even move ahead: even the Government in Westminster when it was not
even the United Kingdom's money which dug out the oil. They got
other people to run that risk: even when it was qualified, yes, it
was there they still didn't commit to it financially, like the
French the Germans, even the Italians with their chaotic sort of
economy. There was no question, there was an abundance. It has to be
said that in a normal evolutionary sense the oil question has to be
addressed.
Drusilla Fraser
It's claimed that nearly 30 % of the
Scots support the Scottish Nationalists, do you believe that this
percentage is continuing to rise and will continue to rise?
Sean Connery
Yes, I think it has and mainly I think
after the last election. There was an increase in the response to
yet again not a change, and I think a lot of the younger people who
are making noises, at 14, 15 and 16, they are coming of age to vote
and the monumental swing in Perth and Kinross in favour of the
Scottish Nationalists, a swing of 7,000
Arnould de Liedekerke
So you're mainly optimistic about the
future of the Scottish National Party?
Sean Connery
Well I think it's inevitable. I'm
optimistic that there's a movement towards Independence. It's
addressed all the time between the two major parties that they will
do, first of all, the Labour party will give an Assembly to
devolution in Scotland which is kinda interesting because they have
had the vote in Scotland so they have to be able to give that but
then on the other hand if they do become independent then it defeats
the whole element of the Labour party. Because the Labour party will
then have all these seats lost because they won't be counted in
England so I suppose it's a sort of pacification step but the Labour
Party's history was also that they gave their independence to all
the Empire and Commonwealth step by step right back to Atlee's time
so it's in the normal order of things. It's just there's been a
great reluctance to recognise it in Scotland. and also the objection
I think that we're finding. Let me go back a bit. I don't think that
they have all the answers, the Scottish National Party, because for
so long they've never had the opportunity and we see what's happened
in Russia where after 70 years of Communism the kind of chaos that's
going on there. I believe it will take the conflict of the different
parties an emergence of the younger ones who will see that this is
their country and there will be a Bill of Rights and then they'll
have to examine all the institutions that have been here so long and
that's the problem in England now. Every time you open a Pandora's
Box it's difficult to put the lid back on. It's one thing to have a
marvellous elite system if everybody gets a chance to be a part of
it or at least if you have some ability but I'm sorry, up here it's
still quite feudal still quite nonsensical about that side. Great
reluctance.
Drusilla Fraser
Can I ask you what you think about
organisations like Settler Watch? It's technique for dissuading the
English to move to the Highlands?
Sean Connery
I haven't heard much about it. That
kind of extremism surprises me in a way: but where there's smoke
there's fire.
Drusilla Fraser
Some time ago, Margaret Ewing compared
London with the Kremlin: and said that whilst the Russians had give
independence to the Baltic States, London had refused to do the same
for Scotland. How do you feel about the English and do you view them
as sitting tenants, feudal arrivsites?
Sean Connery
I have no real beef. I just think the
most difficult thing to displace, in my experience, is privilege. It
doesn't matter where the job is at its lowest level, the moment you
have any sort of privilege there's a great reluctance to give it up.
Most of the people up here, what do they do the moment something
looks like it's going to happen with the Nationalist Party or
whatever, the Tories come up here and they threaten everybody's
work, everybody's life force. Right ... which is pretty easy. They
just say, 'well we'll just move everything out if you don't come our
way' and they frighten and they back off. It's political and they
come up and in spite of that they only have 11 seats. It goes right
back to ... I think the greatest disservice done was Thatcher with
the Poll Tax. It could in Russia with Stalin. What do you think
would happen if they did that in France to an area of France? It's
unthinkable. Now there's Thatcher, initially all the qualities and
values that she presented in her initial regime were completely
almost a direct reflection on the best of the Scottish
characteristics. And yet absolute antagonism on both sides. And she
was finally cast out forever when she gave the Poll Tax here to the
Scots: not there. And as you know, up here in the North there's a
slight difference in the temperature and the heating. Old age
pensionners, people like that who don't have very much and they
don't have a different scale. Even in your car you have to have your
heater on. You don't use it up with air conditioning, you use a
heater.
Drusilla Fraser
A recent article in the Spectator,
claimed a strong anti-English sentiment is growing in Scotland: Alan
Cochrane, the editor of the Scottish Daily Express, wrote the
article and said he deplore it and he says 'Far too much of Scottish
opinion is becoming nastily anti-English.' What do you think of
that?
Sean Connery
I don't know: he probably knows better
than me. But again, there has to be some reason. It doesn't happen
just like that. Why doesn't he try and address it?
Drusilla Fraser
He goes on to claim that it's due to
Mrs Thatcher and the Tories who've never treated the Scots fairly.
Do you agree?
Sean Connery
Yes. It goes without saying
Drusilla Fraser
In the same article reference is made
by Alan Cochrane to the 250 th anniversary of Culloden: on the 16 th
April. What does that mean to you, Culloden?
Sean Connery
Well I know that they're making a lot
of noise now that the troops who obeyed Cumberland's orders, a lot
of them were Scottish. It's not unusual, they did the same in
Ireland. It's very easy to pick up on that because in my lifetime, I
volunteered to join the Navy for 12 years. If you get your calling
up papers, where I'm from, or a buff coloured envelope, you did it.
It's like a Police State and don't let anyone kid you it would be
different. You go back 250 years, you begin to understand something
about the diciplines and orders, the questions that you cannot
retaliate aggainst the regime. If they put you in, I go back as
recently as the Irish situation, with the Black and Tans, of course
there were Scots in there, but there was a lot of Catholics and
Protestants too: they were just put in just like that, a good mix.
But if these guys were ordered, besides being Catholic or
Protestant, they were Privates, Corporals, Sergeants who were
dictated to by the heirarchy of the military. Nobody makes the point
of why they were there. Last time I was staying in Edinburgh in the
New Club I signed a petition. An old man of 95 was trying to get
signatures because they were breaking up these Regiments whith these
wonderful traditions and I signed it because I agree that if you
look at the list of troops Scotland produced, so many of them, the
Royal greys, the Scots Guards, the Cameronians, the Gordons, they go
on forever. All these Regiments, well, why ... they're perfect for
it.
Drusilla fraser
Do you agree with the journalist who
said the Scots have a poor understanding of their history: and that
a majority of Scots were against Bonnie Prince Charlie rather than
for him, and if so why was the Duke of Cumberland's retribution so
long and bloody, and why is he referred to as the Butcher in any
case?
Sean Connery
The business of Fitzroy Macleans book.
Nobody has any great illusons about Bonnie Prince Charlie, his
accomplishments or his qualities. You can paint it any way you like.
I just say there's been so much change and there's been so little
change.
Arnould de Liedekerke
What does Culloden mean to you?
Sean Connery
It was an important time but it was no
worse than Glencoe, with Campbells and the MacDonalds, which was
pretty awful. It all goes right back to 1707: the role of dishonour.
This is waht Scotland was sold for: £24,945. That was all they
received for voting in favour of the Union. Less is worse
Drusilla Fraser
Scotlan's just celebrated the
ratification of the Auld Alliance in February, and your wife's
French so for you the Alliance is a real living Alliance?
Sean Connery
I unfortunately don't speak French but
my wife is now fluent in English, which really reflects rather badly
on me.
Drusilla Fraser
How would you describe your feeling
for France in general? The entente between France and Scotland?
Sean Connery
Well I think it's rather marvellous: I
just think it's rather sad Scotland isn't on a par with France. I
think France is not about to be messed about like they are in
Scotland. During the strike in December the lorries were clamped and
the French chucked them in the Seine, which i think is absolutely
right. It's anarchic in a way but on the other hand they dealt with
it. There's a reluctance to deal with it in Scotland because they've
been so long not doing it. In England, it's much the same but that's
the Government too. Basically, you're encouraged to buy a car, then
they give you a road tax and give you places to park and you must
put a coin in. The coin costs a fortune already if you stay there
any length of time, but you're not allowed to feed the meter. If you
can't get back to you're car, they're not content to just fine you,
which is already a considerable amount. They put a clamp on the car
- which is a private enterprise- for example there are people going
around just for that. So they tow the car away, they get the fine
for the whole day for the parking and these guys get the money. But
all comes from the guy that started with the car - so grossly
unfair. People are in houses with parking meters outside, and they
have a car because they need to get to work, and it's a kind of
madness of cosmopolitan cities now.
Drusilla Fraser
Are you saying that the French are
revolutionary by nature and the Scots aren't? We're a law-abiding
nation.
Sean Connery
I think so, yes.
Drusilla Fraser
By nature we obey they law: we like to
if possible.
Sean Connery
I don't know if we like to. We do.
Drusilla Fraser
Whereas the French think, 'No!'
Sean Connery
Well, I think this is why they had the
more recent Revolution, although they're more Royalist than the
King. I love the idea they would rather have had another Louis there
than Mitterand. I suppose, but then who wouldn't? And also if you
listen to any of these Scottish MPs in London, they sound English.
There's something fundamentally wrong and anybody who has a Scottish
accent is certainly made aware of it instead of it being perfectly
acceptable because, after all, that's where you came from.
You saw this terrible tragedy in Dunblane. When I arrived, I
couldn't believe all these people coming in from all round the world
with cameras to follow it. There was a chap on television this
morning and it was so disturbing, what he was saying, because no-one
can articulate what everyone feels about it. This chap was trying to
go on about the next phase in the school and he had a very
pronounced Scottish accent. But it was so correct and so in tune
with what he said - in his voice, in his looks, and in his attitude,
in everything - that to cultivate an English accent is already a
step and a departure away from what you are. I think the French and
the Italians, we get all the benefits from having been exposed to
them all. But it shouldn't be at the price of what you are. And
that's what's wrong. There's a big failing when these kids in school
start to get a complex because they 'talk like thaat'.
Arnould de Liedekerke
Just to go back to the Scots French
connection ... you've been married for 26 years to a Frenchwoman.
How do you see the links between the French and Scottish character?
Sean Connery
Well, I think there's no question that
the French have a Celtic link with the Scots and the Irish. The
French, with their food, and their Language are much more
sophisticated, much more developed. Partly because of what I was
saying. When you hear someone from the very north of Scotland
speaking, I think its nice, very musical and harmonious. That's one
of the real features. You ask me about the French. I have two major
awards from France; the Legion d'Honneur and the Commander of the
Arts Chevalier. I have the Freedom of Edinburgh here and I have
absolutely no acceptance or recognition in England. I have to fight
my 90 days because I moved out of britain in 1975 and there's a very
simple reason for it. It has to go back quite a long way. I must
have rubbed up the wrong way quite a lot of people which must have
something to do with it. I like to be in France, but my problem is I
have no facility for languages. I think that these frontiers like
Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland really makes for an exchange
and also because of the Latin easier to learn. We've always been an
island and isolated. I like the idea that the French expect certain
things. And that they're going to get them. I think that a lot of
the attitude in Scotland is 'Maybe someone will give them to us?':
they're not made to feel they're entitled to them in any way.
Drusilla Fraser
May I ask you about the Scottish
International Education Trust, please, which you started in 1971:
Did you see it as a way to help young Scots from poor backgrounds?
Did your background provide the backdrop to the idea for the trust?
Sean Connery
No question: your own background and
environment is with you for life. No question abou that.
Drusilla Fraser
Are you pleased with what the Trust
has achieved?
Sean Connery
Yes, it's done fantastically well.
They spend about £60 and £80 thousand pounds a year, and the value
of the Trust is over a million pounds. It's been going for 25 years.
A remarkable record and very very cross section of people are
Trustees.
Drusilla Fraser
No women on your board?
Sean Connery
Please suggest some.
Drusilla Fraser
You started that with Sir Ian Stewart.
Sean Connery
I had the idea without the direction,
met Ian, and we became very good friends and I went up to Scotland
and made a documentary on shipyards. I went to Fairfields Shipyard
and did a month up there. Shot for 2 weeks, appeared in it and
directed it. It was about a shipyard. But the Trust has gone more on
the Arts side too. We had the late Sir Alexander Gibson, Kenneth
McKellar, Alexander Goudie and Sir Samuel Curran who was in charge
of Britain's nuclear fission, so it's quite a mix of people.
Drusilla Fraser
May I ask you about your son Jason?
Does he feel Scottish? Would you have preferred to have brought him
up here in Scotland?
Sean Connery
I brought him up here. When he said he
wanted to be an actor, I pulled him out of school because he wasn't
going anywhere academically. I said 'You're not going to stay there
at these prices,'. Academically it was nothing, but the character
change was enormous.
Drusilla Fraser
So Gordonstoun was the key to Jason
finding his Scottish roots?
Sean Connery
Yes, and his much better character. It
changed him enormously. And then all the responsibilities of the
school were good for him, the Lifeboat Service, the Fire Brigade
thing, all the physical side of it, which he's much more geared to
rather than the intellectual. He was obviously scattered at that
stage but when he chose to be an actor I said 'You're going to have
to earn a living, what are you going to do?' He said 'An actor.' and
I asked him why he hadn't told me before and he said 'I didn't think
that you'd like it.' I said 'As long as you lik it. It's you who's
got to do it.' and then I got him to write to perth Rep. and places,
and he started in Perth.
Arnould de Liedekerke
You think he's standing for the same
values? Did you being that to him?
Sean Connery
He found it himself.
Drusilla Fraser
Last question. You have homes in Spain
and America, you're often in France and Scotland when you can. Do
you have a house here which is yours or do you stay with your
brother?
Sean Connery
My brother lives here in Corstorphine.
I was not allowed, when I left this country, to own anything or have
a place to stay. For example, I would not be allowed to stay at my
brother's, because I'm not resident. It would be deemed a place of
residence. That's how wonderful they are. They just changed it last
year, so we can have an appartment: my wife leaves there today to go
to the Bahamas, we have a place in the Bahamas. I was not allowed to
have anything, but I could bring a film like 'First Night', 70
million dollars, of which they get 17.5 % VAT and all the things
that go with it. And I pay full UK tax when I'm filming. I'm allowed
90 days in the UK - work or pleasure or illness - it all counts.
When I come in here, it's checked in and it's checked out. I only
came here 40 days last year to April 6 th.
Drusilla Fraser
But if things changed would you like
to retire here?
Sean Connery
I don't visulise retiring.
Drusilla Fraser
But would you like to live here in
Scotland if Scotland became independent?
Sean Connery
It doesn't make any difference to me:
I pay tax wherever I work. The only difference with my situation is
I'm resident in the Bahamas. Everywhere I work I pay the tax. The
only difference is that once I've paid the tax on my money, then
nobody can say what happens to the interest, that's the only
difference. I'm just not geared to being told by the people here or
the people in America to go and live there. I'll pay their taxes but
until they change their disposition, no. The same thing as your
question about retiring: I haven't found anywhere in the world where
I want to be all the time. The best of my life is the moving. I look
forward to going. My wife is the reverse. She doesn't like moving.
Arnould de Liedekerke
Are you confident in the future of
Scotland?
Sean Connery
I think it's absolutely essential the
timing is right. And for no selfish reasons other than the fact that
it's been prolonged. The longer that it's delayed, I think the more
difficult it will be to accomodate the changes that are necessary.
But I think that, as I said before, I don't say the Scottish
Nationalists are the answer because they've never had any
opportunity. Same as nobody knows what this Labour Government is
going to be like. They're full of wonderful stuff because they've
had 17 years of learning what's wrong, as the Opposition, so they
can pick all the good things. They're making the noises like it's
going to be terrific so that's very good in one way, but here they
haven't had that experience, the experience of making a decision
about this country. You had Ian Lang up here, now it's Michael
Forsyth. The moment the tragedy at Dunblane happened on Wednesday,
there should have been a declaration by this man Forsyth, saying
'Alright, that's it. All guns and licences will be frozen for 10
days now and everybody will have to reapply for a licence.' They say
there's a million guns out there that they cannot account for.
There's this guy with four handguns already. With a history like he
has then you just start from there. That's the sort of government
you want to have. And Scotland has the worst drug situation in
Europe. Everybody knows where it is and they're powerless to do
anything.
Arnould de Liedekerke
If Scotland was independent it would
do something?
Sean Connery
Well, I hope that they would, because
it's like a form of madness. There's only 5 million people here,
there's only 4 to 5 major cities where everybody's concentrated.
Don't tell me you couldn't take your Territorial Army, square them
all off, bring in the squad afterwards and have them all numbered
and investigated and chartered and you would know who the people
were. Why isn't that an operation?
Arnould de Liedekerke
Why does Scotland have such a drug
problem?
Sean Connery
Because of the frustration of high
unemployment rates. If you're coming out of school with good grades,
you're going to have to go somewhere else. And in the world they're
suffering the same problems.
