"BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 555, 10 February 1950, Page 5

"BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE"

*, Sir,-I should. like to thank "P.J.W." »for. writing his review of Bonnie Prince Charlie without once misusing the term "Sassenach." For the benefit of your other contributors who attempt to imbue any reference to Scotland with a local flavour, a Sassenach is a non-Gaelic speaker. The Gaelic-speaking Highlander never differentiated between Lowland Scot and Englishman-they are both Sassenachs. . Robert Burns was a Sassenach, as are the vast majority of his countrymen; and he would, I imagine, have been extremely indignant at any attempt to identify him with the savages of the North. However, since his day tailors’ handbooks of tartans and the dyers’ art have changed things, and the general impression abroad seems to be that everyone from Gretna Green to John o’ Groats was bed to shame Jacob. me Re With reference to’ «film Bonnie Prince Charlie, I considér it\good entertainment, once the shock of the amazing tartans and the Lowland speech of the "Highlanders" is over. The. last point is not without irony, inasmuch. "as the "Forty-five" is generally aceepted ‘by historians as the last struggle of the feudal Celtic North against the encroaching in-' dustrial South. The South seems to have won indeed if there are not enough Gaelic speakers left to give atmosphere to a film. The absence of Will Fyffe may have cost something in the way of comedy, but anyone less like a Highlander in speech and temperament I find it difficult to imagine.

MALCOLM

McALPINE

(Wellington).