Thursday 15 May 2008

Hey, anoraks

Here's a puzzle for anoraks. Below is a photograph of some outstanding gentlemen - there's a share in a coconut to anyone who names them all and works out why they are together for this photograph.

Answer on the back of a £10 note please.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those chaps look like the founders of the National Party of Scotland.

From left to right...
The Duke of Montrose
Compton Mackenzie
R B Cunninghame Graham (who was Labour's first ever MP - for extra points)
Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve to his mum)
James Valentine
John MacCormick

I`m going to go for first public meeting of the NPS circa 1928.

I`ll have that share of the coconut...

Now I must pop off and get a hobby of some kind.

Calum Cashley said...

Those of you who read the rules will realise that no prize will be awarded - answers were to be on the back of a £10 note.

The names are correct (Robert Bontine is what the initials stand for).

Anonymous said...

The Duke of Montrose was not involved in the foundation of the National Party of Scotland, but was a leading light of the Scottish Party, which merged with the National Party of Scotland in 1934 to form the Scottish National Party - so this must be either the foundation of the SNP or the meeting of the parties' two executives in December 1933 to discuss merger.

margo channing said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Which kinda suggests that the SNP doesn't know its parents:

http://www.snp.org/node/7729

Calum Cashley said...

I am afraid that the anonymous poster was incorrect. This photograph was taken at the first public meeting of the National Party of Scotland, held in St Andrews Halls, Glasgow, 1928. Daibhi Anseo was correct.

The Duke of Montrose was, indeed, a founder member of the National Party of Scotland.

He was later also a founding member of the Scottish Party in 1932 and came in with the rest when the Scottish Party was subsumed by the NPS in 1934, changing name to the Scottish National Party.

He took the Liberal whip in the House of Lords and recommended the amalgamation of the SNP and the Scottish Liberal Party in 1935.

He was partly responsible for the SNP adopting the position that you cannot be a member of the SNP and of another political party active in Scotland.

Anonymous said...

If you cannot be a member of the SNP and of another political party active in Scotland.

Does that mean that from May 2007you can now be a member of both the SNP and Labour?