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 . . . !
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