I READ Gerry Hassan’s article on the Stone of Destiny (Independence – Destiny’s Child) in the Sunday National of December 20 with great interest. I was totally unaware of the reclamation. At that time I was 16 and in a college run by the Marist Brothers in Dumfriesshire. We had no contact with the outside world – I do not think I had even heard of the SNP.
In my early days in the SNP I met Jimmy Halliday, who had been the immediate past chairman of the party. Ian Hamilton asked Jimmy to come on the repatriation exercise, but Jimmy had doubts and declined, which he regretted until the day he died. In the aftermath when the police were looking for Hamilton he hid in Jimmy’s flat. (They were both at Glasgow University.) In the early 80s I was the chairman of the SNP Edinburgh District Association and Edinburgh Council had an event, The Gathering of the Clans. When considering what we could do for this event we decided to have a display in our district headquarters. There had been an article in The Scotsman of a facsimile of the Stone of Destiny held in a Church in Dundee and we decided we could ask for a loan of the stone.
As chairman and coincidentally a Dundonian, I would make contact.
When the stone was repatriated it was broken, and John MacCormick, a former leader of the SNP spoke to a progressive Glasgow councillor, Bertie Gray (the SNP was in its infancy).
READ MORE: Stone of Destiny to return to Perthshire in historic move
As a hiding place for the stone the best place was a stonemason’s yard and Bertie had one. When it was left by the students at Arbroath Abbey, there were rumours of many stones, and the authorities verified that this was the correct stone – it was quickly whipped off to London.
When I went to Dundee I called on the reverend John Mackay Nimmo, the minister of St Coloumba’s Church of Scotland in Lochee Road, Dundee, where the stone was kept.
Mr Nimmo was affable but told me he had been given the stone by Bertie Gray; it was not a facsimile, but the real stone, and Bertie had asked him to hand it over to the first independent Scottish Government. Around this time I saw Bertie Gray interviewed on TV; he was asked if the real stone was in Westminster Abbey. He sat there with his eyes twinkling and answered “Do I look like the kind o’ lad that would gie them the richt Stane?”
The SNP conference was in Dundee that year, and Mr Nimmo agreed to open the Church so SNP members could visit the stone. My youngest son, Peter, and I visited the church but I do not think a lot of SNP delegates did. The stone is a large block and was in a glass case, so it could not be touched.
When Westminster handed it over with a great fanfare at Coldstream it was immediately taken to Edinburgh Castle; when my youngest granddaughter’s class saw it she told her pals: “That’s not the real stone, my grandad’s seen it!”
(Obviously I had told her that, and she listened and paid attention to an auld blether.) It is not in a very obvious place in Edinburgh Castle, and I know Perth would like it as a centrepiece to their new museum, but Edinburgh resist.
St Columba’s Church in Dundee was demolished some years ago and I do not know where the stone went.
I believe that they had the real stone; I think that both Bertie Gray and the Rev John Mackay Nimmo were members of the Knight Templars, of whom I know nothing, but they hold the real stone.
I believed John Mackay Nimmo and still do.
I am sure it will surface after the next independence referendum, when we do get an independent Parliament.
I hope to see that.
Jim Lynch
Edinburgh
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