The General Assembly opens in Edinburgh
The Rt Hon Lady Elish Angiolini LT, DBE, PC, KC, FRSE, represented His Majesty King Charges at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Saturday.
Lady Angiolini said that people are the creation of God and all require 'love, forgiveness and support' in all their imperfection.
She said she was profoundly honoured to be chosen as the first practising Roman Catholic to be Lord High Commissioner at the annual gathering which began in Edinburgh today.
Lady Elish's appointment was only made possible after both Houses of Parliament in London changed a law dating back to 1689 that barred Roman Catholics from holding the role.
Addressing the General Assembly, she said: 'I am so pleased to be here with you all and particularly pleased I actually made it here.
'I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone who helped secure my presence here today.'
Her Grace said she believed that prejudice and sectarianism can be overcome by the recognition that we are 'all Jock Tamson's bairns'.
Lady Elish said she was 11 when she remembered how that 'essential love of humanity' manifested in January 1971 when there was a crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game at Ibrox, which caused 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries.
Her father and neighbours went to the aid of people caught up in the tragedy.
Lady Elish said: 'I, in turn, was on the receiving end of such compassion when I was a victim in the front carriage of the train when the Polmont rail disaster occurred in 1984
'Again, it was the kindness of complete strangers, other passengers, that I recollect to this day, as I lay trapped in the wreckage, comforted by their love and compassion as they teased me about how hopeless Celtic was to distract me from the horror of the situation we were in.'
Read all of the reports and documents for the General Assembly 2025 here.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day One. Moderator Rt Reverend Rosie Frew is installed as Moderator in a ceremony at New College, Edinburgh. Her Grace Lady Elish Angiolini is Lord High Commissioner representing the King during the Assembly week. Pictured with at left First Minister for Scotland, John Swinney.
Her Grace Lady Elish Angiolini is Lord High Commissioner representing the King during the Assembly week.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day One. First Minister John Swinney and the Rt Hon Lord Provost Robert Aldridge left watch on as Her Grace Lady Elish Angiolini is Lord High Commissioner representing the King during the Assembly week.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day One. Moderator Rt Reverend Rosie Frew is installed as Moderator in a ceremony at New College, Edinburgh.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day One. Moderator Rt Reverend Rosie Frew is installed as Moderator in a ceremony at New College, Edinburgh.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day One. Moderator Rt Reverend Rosie Frew is installed as Moderator in a ceremony at New College, Edinburgh.
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2025: Day one. Pictured left Her Grace Lady Elish Angiolini.
Like this:
Like
Related
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Tributes to countess who modernised royal Scottish castle
Died: April 28, 2025 The Countess of Strathmore, who has died aged 92, was, with her husband, responsible for transforming the historic Glamis Castle in Angus into one of Scotland's leading tourist attractions. They also cannily changed it into a home for their own family. Glamis has been part of Scottish history for 650 years but more recently it was the childhood home of the Queen Mother and the birthplace of Princess Margaret. The Countess admitted to being daunted at the prospect of living in Glamis but with typical resolve she said, 'On we go.' Mary Pamela McCorquodale was born at her grandparents' house in London. Her father was Brigadier Norman McCorquodale, of the McCorquodale printing family; her mother was Barbara, née de Knoop. She was brought up at Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire which was requisitioned by the RAF. After the war she spent time in Paris learning the language and on a visit to Germany in 1955 she met Fergus Bowes-Lyon and they married the following year. They had a house on the Glamis estate and Fergus worked in an Edinburgh stockbroker's office. The prospect of inheriting the title was remote. The title had passed to the Queen Mother's eldest brother Patrick, who became the 15th Earl, and then to his son Timothy who died unexpectedly in 1972. Thus, Fergus became the 17th Earl. Moving to Glamis was something of a mixed blessing as the family had settled happily in East Lothian. The geography of the castle made family life difficult – there was no division between the domestic and public areas and the kitchen was far away. They engaged the distinguished architect James Dunbar-Naismith who reconstructed the interior to be homely and modern: not least the kitchen was now close to the dining room and the old boiler room became their front hall. It took three years but it proved a wise decision and the family were glad when it was over and they moved in over Easter 1975. Read more The next challenge was to make Glamis a more welcoming attraction to the public. The castle had been open to the public since 1950 but needed much improvement. Consultants were employed but the wisest advice the Countess received was from a long-standing member of the staff, the redoubtable Bert Tosh. He simply told Lady Strathmore, 'I don't know about all those statistics but what I do know is that the public wants tea and toilets, and in that order!' The public area and the gardens were transformed and the castle became a joy to visit. Historic items were attractively exhibited as were the more modern; for example the bridesmaids' dresses and broaches that the future George VI had given to them when he married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. The Countess was a leading figure in the community and served on many committees such as the Tayside Space School where she met the astronaut, Colonel Jim Reilly. He was later married at Glamis and presented the chapel with a Celtic cross made out of metal that had been to outer space. Glamis Castle (Image: Newsquest) She was a regular supporter of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Forfar and a pillar of the county of Angus serving on many Scottish and local charities including the MS Society, Age Concern, Tayside Symphony Orchestra and the National Theatre of Scotland. She took particular pleasure in 2002 in her honorary Doctor of Laws from Dundee University. In 2022 the Countess told of a visit to Glamis of the late Queen on what was to be her final visit. 'I had her on my golf buggy for around an hour and a half and we went around the castle grounds.' She is survived by her two daughters. Her son, the 18th Earl of Strathmore, died in 2016. ALASDAIR STEVEN
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
JOHN MACLEOD: Hairy and dishevelled, bopping along as if sozzled...but hum of the bumblebee is truly the voice of our gardens
'The hum of bees is the voice of the garden,' mused the late Elizabeth Lawrence, internationally known garden writer – and she spoke not of the industrious, humourless honey-bee, merely a unit in in a hive of fantastically ordered complexity and its one loyalty to the Reich. She meant the bumblebee, meandering gently about, never in a rush, loath to sting. Hairy and dishevelled, it bounces off windows and bops, as if a little sozzled, amidst delphiniums and buddleia and honeysuckle and the bonny purple heather. The Victorians rather sweetly called them 'humblebees.' In Old English, they were 'dumbledores' – yes, that's where she got it – and the Romans thought them creatures of the Muses. To our Celtic forebears, they were messages from the heavens. And, even today, some superstitions endure. A bumblebee flying into your house, they do say, heralds some important, forthcoming visitor. They portend luck and sweetness; a bumblebee landing on your hand declares that you are about to come into money. And, chilled and ponderous as a bumblebee might seem – less the maniacal jiving of the honeybee advising the hive of abundant good things at such-and-such a location than embarrassing Dad-dancing at a wedding – it is supremely efficient. Its four wings beat two hundred times a second; it thunders like an exquisitely tuned guitar-string – and it is the only living thing capable of pollinating a tomato plant. Accordingly, great commercial growers important thousands of boxes of bumblebees each year, sourced largely from France and Belgium and where they are commercially farmed, for their glasshouses. Bumblebees do not make honey: they do not need to, for a colony lasts but one long summer. Only the fattest hibernating queens, holed up in some crevice, survive winter – and her first mission, understandably, is to feed. Duly regaled with nectar from the first spring flowers, and protein-rich pollen from catkins and fluffy pussywillow, she then seeks out some des res – most species like to repurpose a fieldmouse's burrow – moulds some waxy cups, stores therein garnered nectar and pollen-balls, and lays her first eggs. Larvae duly pupbate and, just like that, she now commands a troop of workers – all girls; and the only thing that might go amiss is the invasion of a queen of some cuckoo bumblebee species, who usually kills (or, in rare mercy, enslaves) the original queen. What no queen will tolerate is a worker laying her own eggs. Her Majesty, naturally hurt as well as cross, promptly eats them. It is in only late summer, and doubtless with a world-weary sigh, that boys are begotten: lazy, laddish and stingless and only the luckiest getting to mate. 'He does nothing except stay out all night,' darkly confides Gill Perkins of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, 'get drunk on nectar and look for sex.' It might as well be a hall of residence. There are only seven relatively common species of bumblebee you are likely to see in Britain, and the biggest, the Great Yellow Bumblebee – 'like big, fat flying ping-pong balls,' enthuses Mrs Perkins – is now confined to the far north. Caithness, Sutherland, Orkney – and the Western Isles where, too, we can boast a unique bumblebee sub-species. A small heath bumblebee, bombus jonellus var. hebridensis. All told, though, there are twenty-four species in this country, as the late and peerless Bernard Levin enthused in a column published, rather sweetly, on 9 July 1975 – a precise half-century ago. He had just read Dr D V Alford's definitive work on the subject, published by Davis-Poynter for the eyewatering price, at that time, of £25, and imaginatively entitled Bumblebees. 'They go by names of such variegated magnificence,' panted Levin, 'such exquisitely poetic beauty, that I must introduce you to a selection. 'There is bombus agrorum, for instance, who is obviously a rustic bumblebee, forever sucking straws and leaning over gates; there is bombus americanorum, who, no doubt, chews gum; bombus distinguendus, who comes of a very old family of bumblebees, and bombus elegans, who only goes to the best tailors. 'Bombus frigidus, a very reserved bumblebee; bombus hortorum hortorum, who stammers; bombus inexpectatus, who is apt to pop out from behind lampposts and cry 'Boo!'; bombus senilis, poor old thing… 'And bombus virginalis, or so she says.' But all is not well for bumblebees. 2024 was the worst year for their numbers in Britain since records began. A big factor, of course, was its extraordinarily bad spring, with – according to the Meteorological Office – many areas receiving more than double, and in some places triple, the usual amount of rainfall for March, April and May. Untold, emerging queens were chilled, starved and clobbered just at the frailest point of bumblebee life – when a season's new colonies are being established by assorted single mums. Though conditions improved, even July and August saw their second-worst counts since Bumblebee Conservation Trust monitoring began. 'We've got smaller, weaker populations of a lot of these bumblebees,' says Dr Richard Comont, 'because of long-term habitat changes. We know that bumblebees were struggling anyway and smaller, weaker populations are less able to respond to changes: they don't have that resilience. 'Although there's loads of bumblebees in midsummer, they all come from very small numbers that emerge from hibernation in the spring.' Protracted heatwaves – remember the scorcher that was 2022, so protracted that in many districts it triggered a 'false autumn'? – also jeopardise bumblebee colonies. Queens and workers routinely 'thermoregulate,' fanning eggs and larvae when things hot up, but if the thermometer hits 35 degrees or more then all is lost. For almost the greatest paradox of bumblebees is that they are creatures of temperate climes, not tropical - at their most abundant in territory like the Alps and Britain and the cool summers of the Outer Hebrides. There are even some that live in the Arctic, like bombus polaris. ('Said to have nuclear mandibles,' purred Bernard Levin.) But still greater threats are neonicotinoid pesticides – which dramatically reduce a queen's egg-laying success – and even a 26% fall is enough, in many instances, for local extinction. Climate change and heavy metal pollution, as we reported yesterday, are even affecting how bumblebees hum, according to experts – and humming is vital in teasing such flowers as the tomato to open up for a visit. The simple destruction of habitat, though, long predates such toxins. Since 1950 we have lost, incredibly, 97% of Britain's wildflower meadows – largely due to modern intensified farming – and with dire ecological consequence. One reason that bumblebees still prosper in the Western Isles is because of the lowkey crofting agriculture – Hebrideans do not scamper around spraying things – and because of the fabled machair, the rich coastal shell-sand grazings which, at this season, are a riot of sweet, scented, blossom. I fully understand why neighbours mow their lawns, but wince when they go above and beyond and strim the roadside verges too. And when, several months ago, the northern verge the length of my street was churned up by BT – laying the kit for high-speed broadband – I quietly ordered in some wildflower seed and did much discreet evening sowing. Poppy, cornflower, yellow rattle, ox-eye daisy and so on. A summer without bumblebees is, for me, unthinkable. And, as French mathematician André Sainte-Laguë once joyously reflected, 'According to aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly. Its bodyweight is not the right proportion to its wingspan. 'Ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway.'
The Independent
6 days ago
- The Independent
Neolithic farming halls older than Stonehenge discovered beneath school
An early Neolithic timber hall has been found beneath a school in Scotland, with archaeologists believing it could have been a ceremonial venue for Scotland's first farming communities. The remains of the 'internationally significant' hall, older than Stonehenge, were found beneath what will become two school football pitches for Carnoustie High School in Angus. The site, which was first explored in 2017, is being investigated by the Guard Archaeology. It is believed to be the largest hall found in Scotland. The archaeological group said the discovery of the hall and a smaller companion building was 'exceptional' and included artefacts from around Scotland, including Arran and the Highlands, as well as hazelnut shells and charred cereal grains. Among the artefacts discovered was a gold-decorated Celtic spearhead and a sword, as well as an extremely well-preserved late Bronze Age wood-and-leather scabbard. It is believed to be among the best-preserved in Britain. A report by Guard Archaeology suggested the halls likely attracted farmers from across a wide area for feasts and celebrations. It was especially rare to have two buildings together. Alan Hunter Blair, who directed the fieldwork, said: 'The Carnoustie excavation produced exceptional results, the traces of the largest early Neolithic timber hall ever discovered in Scotland, dating from near 4,000BC. 'This was a permanent structure 35m long and 9m wide, built of oak with opposed doorways near one end of the building. Its large roof was supported by paired massive timber posts.' Beverley Ballin Smith, the co-author of the report, said: 'This monumental timber hall, completely alien to the culture and landscape of the preceding Mesolithic era, was erected by one of the very first groups of farmers to colonise Scotland, in a clearing within the remains of natural woodland. 'It was fully formed, architecturally sophisticated, large, complex and required skills of design, planning, execution and carpentry.' The archaeology group said the smaller hall was 20 metres long and more than eight metres wide. Ballin Smith said: 'The Carnoustie halls, elevated and prominent in the landscape, were probably close to routeways where people might have congregated naturally at various seasons of the year. 'The availability of hazelnuts in autumn is a strong indicator that that season was an important one for meeting, feasting and celebrating. 'Carnoustie might have been a focal point, [the halls'] significance great enough to attract people from a much wider area. 'Some artefacts came from distant places and represent deliberate deposition, such as fragments of Arran pitchstone, an axe of garnet-albite-schist and a piece of smoky quartz from the Highlands. 'Other materials were found more locally, such as agate, quartz and chalcedony.' Kathryn Lindsay, the chief executive of Angus council, said: 'When [we] approved the development of two outdoor football pitches at Balmachie Road, no one imagined the process would reveal one of the most internationally significant archaeological discoveries in Scotland.' The council funded the archaeological work, which was required as a condition of planning consent.
