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St Johnstone’s wonderful weekend suddenly made me feel very far from home

St Johnstone fans turned out in their thousands on Sunday to welcome their Scottish Cup heroes.
St Johnstone fans turned out in their thousands on Sunday to welcome their Scottish Cup heroes.

Scots abroad are fond of pining for their homeland. Sometimes it seems like we leave Scotland just so we can miss it.

As Batman once said, “Never underestimate the sentimentality of a Scotsman”. Ochone, ochone, we do so love to be homesick.

When I left, I decided not to bother with any of that stuff. I resolved to look ahead, never back, and to focus on the positives of wherever I was to go. I even banned from my home the Dougie MacLean song Caledonia. I’ve always loved that song but I just didn’t want to get myself all teary for the old country.

Well, I lasted 14 months. All it took was St Johnstone winning the Scottish Cup to send me over the edge.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7CeBMb2otAs%3Frel%3D0

I’d had a few bouts of homesickness, notably on Burns Night, but I was coping until Perth had an open-topped bus tour and I wanted so, so, so badly to be there. I would have had a few pints that night. Instead, I followed the fun online and felt very sad.

I often say that Scottish people become more Scottish the further from Scotland we get. We cling fiercely to our culture, and the same becomes true as time passes. Pining for home gets stronger and stronger.

It’s interesting, though, that homesickness is directly linked to nostalgia. For example, I have a craving for a mince roll, but it isn’t about mince rolls themselves; it’s about the need to eat a mince roll at 3am on a cold night in Dundee some time about 1992. After a night out at Fat Sam’s, probably with a snog involved. And several cheap beers.

What you really miss is the feelings you felt back then, and it doesn’t take emigration to make people feel that way.

The toughest part of closing down a life and taking it to another country is the people you leave behind. Moving is relatively simple, except that human connections don’t work that way.

Social media make it worse, not better. I miss so many good mates who know their way around a proper pint. I miss the talented reprobates who make The Courier. Every time there’s a comic book convention I miss the splendid weirdoes I used to hang around with. Emigrating is like you went to sleep for 100 years and woke up after everybody else was gone.

All of this is exactly the sentimental nonsense I was trying to avoid. It seems it’s inevitable and, as usual, Batman was right. Happily, there’s a shop down the road that’s run by Fifers. They import frozen pies that just about taste like home, if you eat them in a wet bus shelter with your eyes closed. I will continue to focus on the positives and look ahead.

But, when Scotland votes on September 18, it’s going to take a lot of pies to keep the tears at bay.