THE kilt is my delight -- except when it has pockets. I just know that

would have been the reaction of my old Clydebank scoutmaster Harry Ross

(He's the Boss) to the development of a lightweight walking kilt

complete with pockets and optional side-sporran. I kind of sympathise --

this latest business is enough to get one's filibeg in a veritable

sheepshank.

Among the avant-garde the new design (the brainwave, unsurprisingly,

of a Scot's descendant from the United States) is seen as a

breakthrough, promising a new era for the garb. Jean Paul Gaultier is

fair impressed. Meanwhile the traditionalists refuse to accept it as a

kilt at all (half the cloth, too few pleats). Hoots mon, it's a skirt by

another name, rage the detractors.

Mighty calves like Jimmie Macgregor's are not compulsory for the

wearing of our national dress (Jimmie himself prefers the trews) but

they help. My scout group contained beanpoles with stilt-like legs,

quasi-dwarfs wi' sturdy wee pins, and a few who were natural

knee-flashers. Whatever our construction we were not dedicated fashion

followers but all would-be Highlanders.

The kilt has graced untold historic occasions, the most bizarre surely

that in 1822 when the big man, George IV, during his Scottish visit,

wrapped himself in enough plaid to enkilt a Highland regiment, pink

tights setting off the outfit beautifully.

It might be interesting to have a look at how the most famous tartan

army of them all, Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobite team of 1745/46, was

fitted out.

Let's forget for a moment that the ''belted plaid'' and the later kilt

were claimed as inventions of English contractors working for General

Wade. Arriving at Derby one English observer noted that the Scots army

was: ''A crew of shabby, lousy, pitiful looking fellows . . . dressed in

dirty plaids and as dirty shoes without breeches . . . stockings not

much above halfway up their legs and plaids thrown over their

shoulders.''

In fact, the army was some 5000 strong, two-thirds being ''real''

Highlanders and the remainder Lowlanders, many of whom seem to have

adopted the Highland dress. Lists of prisoners after Culloden confirmed

that many wore the Highland habit. Uniforms of any sort were seldom seen

in this army although the Life Guards under Lord Elcho, the French Royal

Scots, the Irish Piquets, and Baggot's Hussars (cavalry men were never

satorially challenged) had distinctive pieces of uniform.

Lord George Murray, Charlie's Lieutenant, describing the crossing of

the River Esk in the Borders speaks of the men dancing reels to dry out

their clothing, adding in his diary: ''I was this day in my filibeg,

that is to say without britches . . . nothing encouraged the men more

than seeing their officers dressed like themselves.''

It's likely that most officers wore a tartan doublet, trews, and plaid

-- some perhaps wearing a belted plaid.

The White Cockade was universal, however, the distinguishing feature

among the Jacobites and in the post-Culloden trials perhaps the most

damning piece of evidence that could be lodged against any prisoner.

Well, everyone that's anyone in tartan toggery has had their say about

the new kilt. It's may be time the hairy-kneed legions raised their

voices. Answers on a sporran please . . . !