My grandmother was Scottish – or Scotch as she would always say in the old-fashioned style. The presence of her father, though dead 27 years when I was born, still loomed over the family. He had made his name as an artist and his paintings helped re-enforce a romantic image of Scotland that was very popular with the Victorians. His grand oil paintings of highland cows and wild coastal scenes adorned the walls of my grandparents’ house. His work can still be seen in the National Gallery in Edinburgh and other major collections Engravings of his work were at one time very fashionable – although today are more likely to turn up in junk shops than fashionable galleries.

I was brought up in England and my grandparents lived in London. However my grandmother frequently returned to see her sisters in Scotland and she would send me postcards of Princes Street and St Andrews and always brought me back sticks of Edinburgh rock. She would tell me exciting stories and her distinctive speaking voice, which I then only knew as the way she spoke, was, I now realise a Scottish accent. From a young age I was aware that to be Scottish was something special, something exciting, something different. I knew too that I had a claim to Scottishness. I had a tartan and a family story that reinforced this identity. My father had inherited a portrait, which my son now has, of a distant ancestor who, family lore had it, was the son of one of Bonny Prince Charlie’s soldiers.

Today, unheard of, indeed inconceivable in my grandmother’s time, Scotland has the chance to become an independent nation again. The 300 year old union could be broken up if the referendum goes Alex Salmond’s way.

Because I have a home in Shetland, I have a vote – even though it is still an open question as to whether Shetland is actually Scottish. Administratively it is – but its heart, like its geographic position, is halfway between Scotland and Scandinavia.

It is to Scandinavia that the mainland Scots look for role models. If Norway, Denmark and Sweden can be small, successful, self-governing countries, why cannot Scotland be the same? It is a point the ‘Better together’ camp accepts. Scotland would survive once divorced from England.

But, they say, Scotland and England, apart, would both be diminished. The United Kingdom has a status in the world as a former great power. It has a seat at the top table and has its own nuclear deterrent. With Scotland’s oil and England’s clout, the UK is a nation to be reckoned with. Broken up into its constituent parts it loses its standing.

Some might argue this would be no bad thing. A separation from Scotland would force England into making a realistic assessment of its global significance. It might result in the country giving up its nuclear pretensions. It might even result in a radical reform of its own political institutions. Westminster is much in need of a major shake-up.

Yet as I contemplate how to vote at the referendum I cannot help reflect that however much I feel more Scottish than English, all national identities are essentially bogus. The land north of the border was all too often in its history a collection of feuding tribes rather than a coherent nation before the crowns, and eventually the parliaments, were amalgamated.

All the cultural icons of Scotland’s identity – are of relatively recent origin. From kilts to whisky, Burns to the Loch Ness monster, they have all emerged since the union with England. Many things we think of as essentially Scottish were invented by Walter Scott and George 1V to bolster the political union.

The questions I ask are these. Will the government of an independent Scotland be more democratically answerable to the people than the Westminster government? The hope is that it will be, but given the nature of politicians of countries both great and small, this is debateable. Will an independent Scottish nation be able to maintain, and improve on, the current standard of living of its people? This depends on factors well beyond the nation’s border. The international banking system, environmental factors, technological developments and many other imponderables beyond the control of any single national government.

So how will I vote?

It’s a secret ballot.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when my mind is in that whispy state between drowsiness and wakefulness, great, profound and important thoughts occur to me. Unless I write them down they disappear like clouds in the sky, to be wondered at one minute, gone the next.

Usually when I read what I have written, what once seemed so vital appears trite and trivial when looked at again in the morning.

A couple of nights ago I had some thoughts on the spiritual nature of the practice of art. Now there’s a subject pregnant with profundity! Why I was musing on such things when I should have been sleeping and dreaming lovely dreams I cannot say.

The thoughts that occurred to me required recording, so I thought in my 3am state of stupor, and so I set them down.

‘Fundamentalists of all faiths distrust art and often ban it. Christian Puritans, Islamic Salafi, Ultra Orthodox Jews… all teach in their own way that art is anathema and that all truth has been revealed directly by God. Art has nothing to add or say. God provides all the answers and a complete framework for living. Nothing is open for exploration and discovery. The human lot is to submit and obey.

The art of the political extremes is not dissimilar. It asks no questions and exists only to propagandise and glorify the leader or ideology.

Yet art surely is a dialogue with God - or at least one's spiritual side. It is a process of discovery and great art inhabits that space between life and death and is made up of both. Art discovers and exposes both beauty and ugliness. It asks the awkward questions. Art explores paradox and contradiction. The execution and practice can be prayerful and meditative.

Much recent, secular, contemporary art has consciously denied God. It is entirely human and urban centred. It is only interested in human trivia and minutiae and the artists involved produce pointless work that can only be explained and justified with the aid of contorted and strangulated jargon. Many contemporary art movements have been inward-looking and insulated, powered and justified by a delusory market funded by super rich.’

I must think about that a bit more now that I am awake. I couldn’t have been that dosey when I wrote it!

I have spent the last three days sorting boxes, drawers, files and mounds of papers, trying to put some order into the chaos of my life’s archive. Almost everything I find, even the old bank statements, triggers a memory.

Some of the objects help me remember events, some of them remind me of people. A lot of things have been consigned to a black sack, but many papers and items have been keep in a new coherent filing system. 

But what’s the point?

Well one day I might write some memoirs. There’s a conceited thought. Who would want to read them? 

I justify my hoarding for posterity on these grounds. Of all the things I have found, the things that have interested me most have been the things my own parents and grandparents left me. I found, and don’t recall ever reading before, a hand-written account by my father of being told at the age of six that the First World War was over. He had at that age known nothing but the war and wondered now that it was over what the newspapers would find to write about. He described the scenes in the London suburb where he lived and being allowed to buy a flag for a penny to wave as part of the cheering crowd.

I have also found his father’s naval records. My grandfather was an engineer in the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Every ship he served on is recorded plus the comments and recommendations from his commanding officer when he was moved or promoted. He saw active service in the First World and took part in the Battle of Jutland.

During my life I too have watched episodes of history being made. Perhaps my grandchildren will be interested to read a family eye-witness account. When I was with the BBC I met people who will, one day, be recalled in the history books. I found amongst my papers a transcript of an interview with Mother Teresa. I found the research notes made during a high-profile investigation into the cover up of safety breaches at the Dounreay Nuclear plant, now closed down. There were photographs, long-forgotten, of me in South Africa. There were reviews of books, letters from readers and listeners, assorted ID badges from past events and, to my amusement, a batch of sticky labels from my friend, the eccentric humourist, Ivor Cutler.

One of them read ‘Never knowingly understood’; another ‘Kindly Disregard’; a third said, ‘To remove this label, peel it off’. Perhaps I’ll start using them.

On Monday night I slept with a total stranger. I have no idea who. I was in a two berth cabin on the ferry from Lerwick to Aberdeen and went to bed at around 10. I was vaguely aware at around midnight of someone else coming into the cabin and using the other bed. I briefly saw a pair of legs, but without my glasses and in the dark, could make out nothing else. He was up and out of the door by 6. I stayed in bed for another half hour. So to whoever it was – thank you for being so considerate and quiet.

On my drive south from Aberdeen I was reintroduced to the narrow world of BBC metropolitan politics by the Radio 4 Today programme.

There was a lengthy item about a proposal to build new transport links between the major cities of the north of England. Local politicians, asking for a huge mega-billion pound investment from the government, talked about the opportunities to create an economic region that could redress the imbalance with London. The presenter asked whether it would be better to invest that money in London which was crying out for solutions to its traffic problems. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was quizzed about this potential investment. The debate essentially boiled down to whether it was best to invest large sums of public money to promote growth in the north of England (and thereby create a second mega urban sprawl to rival London) or whether the same money was best invested in London to ease the miseries of congestion there.

It was an utterly unreal debate, filled with numerous bizarre assumptions that went utterly unchallenged. Why do the BBC and politicians assume, without question, that economic growth is a good thing? Growth surely is not the solution to our current economic problems, it is the cause. What did the people of Manchester and Leeds whose homes and lives would be disrupted by the building of new rail-links and motorways think of the idea? Is it right that they give up their homes to enable more people to live in one city and work in another? What sections of the economy would be encouraged to grow? Would there be more retails parks and shopping malls? Why would this be a good thing? Is there any need for more people to buy, consume and discard more goods? How would new rail links and investment in the northern English cities, help redistribute the wealth that currently exists? Why couldn’t the individual cities of the north be encouraged to be more self-sufficient and independent of the world of global commerce – rather than more linked in and reliant upon it? Does prosperity equate with happiness?

So many basic questions went unasked. It seemed extraordinary to me. But then driving on a dual carriageway heading south with a BBC current affairs programme on the radio I suppose I was entering the real world again. Or was I?

In 48 hours from now I will be heading south on the north link ferry. At about this time of the evening (7.00) we will have passed Sumburgh Head at the southern tip of Shetland mainland and be approaching Fair Isle. The most individually famous of the northern islands, thanks to the shipping forecast, it is one of the few I have never visited. One day perhaps.

Around midnight we will be stopping at Orkney. By that time I will be in bed in my cabin, but will no doubt be woken by the banging and clattering that always accompanies an Orkney stop-over. Orkney, according to the latest archaeology, was once, seemingly, the most advanced civilisation in Europe. Neolothic remains are being discovered which suggest that, way before the pyramids were built in Egypt, Orkney was home to a sophisticated community of builders in stone..

I know there will be friends on board the ship and I will probably indulge in a glass of Orkney beer, but I always have a sinking feeling when I leave Shetland. I can only compare it to that feeling I used to get as a schoolboy when having to return to boarding school after the holidays. I knew I was heading back to see familiar faces and would soon be settled again into a well-worn routine, but I really didn’t want to go.

Having only been off Unst twice all summer, and on one of those trips only to the next island, I am expecting culture shock. I remember once travelling back to England from Shetland by plane in a journey time of little more than three hours. As I was driving along, having landed at Heathrow, I suddenly realised that I was waving a friendly hand at on-coming cars. On Unst we always acknowledge a passing motorist. I had arrived in England, but discovered I hadn’t yet adjusted to the norms and manners of the south. On the M25, folk rarely gesture at each other and then only in anger, scorn or annoyance.