Reasons for feeling Scottish

Sometimes I say I’m Scottish, a claim often greeted with understandable derision. I was born in England, in Hertfordshire, went to school and university in England and, apart from some spells abroad as a journalist, have always lived and worked in England. I don’t even have much Scottish blood. My mother was English, from the West Country, and three of my four grandparents were English too. I have no trace of a Scottish accent. I don’t even know Scotland very well. I have never had a home there and have never lived there. As far as Alex Salmond is concerned, I might as well be Lithuanian.

And yet, Scotland is very much part of me. Though it may not sound like it, the name Chancellor is Scottish. It may have had its origins in Normandy, but for centuries the Chancellors lived in Lanarkshire near to the little town of Biggar, halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh.