Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland; the city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education in the fields of medicine, Scots law, philosophy, the sciences and engineering, it is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most popular tourist destination, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom; the official population estimates are 488,050 for the Locality of Edinburgh, 513,210 for the City of Edinburgh, 1,339,380 for the city region.
Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Fife, Scottish Borders and West Lothian. The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 18th in the QS World University Rankings for 2019; the city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles and the Canongate, the extensive Georgian New Town, built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. "Edin", the root of the city's name, derives from Eidyn, the name for this region in Cumbric, the Brittonic Celtic language spoken there.
The name's meaning is unknown. The district of Eidyn centred on the dun or hillfort of Eidyn; this stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle. Eidyn was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia in the 7th century and by the Scots in the 10th century; as the language shifted to Old English, subsequently to modern English and Scots, The Brittonic din in Din Eidyn was replaced by burh, producing Edinburgh. Din became dùn in Scottish Gaelic, producing Dùn Èideann; the city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie, Scots for Old Smoky, for the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town. Allan Ramsay said. A name the country people give Edinburgh from the cloud of smoke or reek, always impending over it."Thomas Carlyle said, "Smoke cloud hangs over old Edinburgh,—for since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier, the people have the art strange to Aeneas, of burning a certain sort of black stones, Edinburgh with its chimneys is called'Auld Reekie' by the country people."A character in Walter Scott's The Abbot says "... yonder stands Auld Reekie--you may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance."Robert Chambers who said that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of Charles II attributed the name to a Fife laird, Durham of Largo, who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements.
"It's time now bairns, to tak' the beuks, gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht -cap!"Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North for a variety of reasons. The earliest comparison between the two cities showed that they had a similar topography, with the Castle Rock of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis. Both of them had fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away. Although this arrangement is common in Southern Europe, it is rare in Northern Europe; the 18th-century intellectual life, referred to as the Scottish Enlightenment, was a key influence in gaining the name. Such luminaries as David Hume and Adam Smith shone during this period. Having lost most of its political importance after the Union, some hoped that Edinburgh could gain a similar influence on London as Athens had on Rome. A contributing factor was the neoclassical architecture that of William Henry Playfair, the National Monument. Tom Stoppard's character Archie, of Jumpers, said playing on Reykjavík meaning "smoky bay", that the "Reykjavík of the South" would be more appropriate.
The city has been known by several Latin names, such as Aneda or Edina. The adjectival form of the latter, can be seen inscribed on educational buildings; the Scots poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns used Edina in their poems. Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye", Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North". Robert Louis Stevenson a son of the city, wrote, "Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be"; the colloquial pronunciation "Embra" or "Embro" has been used, as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy. The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithi
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Steelers compete in the National Football League, as a member club of the league's American Football Conference North division. Founded in 1933, the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC. In contrast with their status as perennial also-rans in the pre-merger NFL, where they were the oldest team never to win a league championship, the Steelers of the post-merger era are one of the most successful NFL franchises. Pittsburgh is tied with the New England Patriots for the most Super Bowl titles, has both played in and hosted more conference championship games than any other NFL team; the Steelers have won 8 AFC championships, tied with the Denver Broncos, but behind the Patriots' record 11 AFC championships. The Steelers share the record for second most Super Bowl appearances with the Broncos, Dallas Cowboys; the Steelers lost their most recent championship appearance, Super Bowl XLV, on February 6, 2011.
The Steelers, whose history traces to a regional pro team, established in the early 1920s, joined the NFL as the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 8, 1933, owned by Art Rooney and taking its original name from the baseball team of the same name, as was common practice for NFL teams at the time. To distinguish them from the baseball team, local media took to calling the football team the Rooneymen, an unofficial nickname which persisted for decades after the team adopted its current nickname; the ownership of the Steelers has remained within the Rooney family since its founding. Art's son, Dan Rooney owned the team from 1988 until his death in 2017. Much control of the franchise has been given to Dan's son Art Rooney II; the Steelers enjoy a widespread fanbase nicknamed Steeler Nation. The Steelers play their home games at Heinz Field on Pittsburgh's North Side in the North Shore neighborhood, which hosts the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. Built in 2001, the stadium replaced Three Rivers Stadium.
Prior to Three Rivers, the Steelers had played their games in Forbes Field. The Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL first took to the field as the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 20, 1933, losing 23–2 to the New York Giants. Through the 1930s, the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than.500. Pittsburgh did make history in 1938 by signing Byron White, a future Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, to what was at the time the biggest contract in NFL history, but he played only one year with the Pirates before signing with the Detroit Lions. Prior to the 1940 season, the Pirates renamed themselves the Steelers. During World War II, the Steelers experienced player shortages, they twice merged with other NFL franchises to field a team. During the 1943 season, they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles" and were known as the "Steagles"; this team went 5–4–1. In 1944, they were known as Card-Pitt; this team finished 0–10, marking the only winless team in franchise history.
The Steelers made the playoffs for the first time in 1947, tying for first place in the division at 8–4 with the Philadelphia Eagles. This forced a tie-breaking playoff game at Forbes Field, which the Steelers lost 21–0; that would be Pittsburgh's only playoff game for the next 25 years. In 1970, the year they moved into Three Rivers Stadium and the year of the AFL–NFL merger, the Pittsburgh Steelers were one of three old-guard NFL teams to switch to the newly formed American Football Conference, in order to equalize the number of teams in the two conferences of the newly merged league; the Steelers received a $3 million relocation fee, a windfall for them. The Steelers' history of bad luck changed with the hiring of coach Chuck Noll for the 1969 season. Noll's most remarkable talent was in his draft selections, taking Hall of Famers "Mean" Joe Greene in 1969, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount in 1970, Jack Ham in 1971, Franco Harris in 1972, in 1974, pulling off the incredible feat of selecting four Hall of Famers in one draft year, Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth, Mike Webster.
The Pittsburgh Steelers' 1974 draft was their best ever. The players drafted in the early 1970s formed the base of an NFL dynasty, making the playoffs in eight seasons and becoming the only team in NFL history to win four Super Bowls in six years, as well as the first to win more than two, they enjoyed a regular season streak of 49 consecutive wins against teams that would finish with a losing record that year. The Steelers suffered a rash of injuries in the 1980 season and missed the playoffs with a 9–7 record; the 1981 season was no better, with an 8–8 showing. The team was hit with the retirements of all their key players from the Super Bowl years. "Mean" Joe Greene retired after the 1981 season, Lynn Swann and Jack Ham after 1982's playoff berth, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount after 1983's divisional championship, Jack Lambert after 1984's AFC Championship Game appearance. After those retirements, the franchise skidded to its first losing seasons since 1971. Though still competitive, the Steelers would not finish above.500 in 1985, 1986, 1988.
In 1987, the year
Jock Sutherland
John Bain "Jock" Sutherland was an American football player and coach. He coached college football at Lafayette College and the University of Pittsburgh and professional football for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Steelers, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951. A native of Coupar Angus in Scotland, Sutherland got his start in football by playing end at the University of Pittsburgh known as Pitt, under legendary coach Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner. Sutherland was named an All-American and played on Pitt's national championship teams in 1915 and 1916. Sutherland played on Pitt's undefeated 1917 team; the 1917 team was known as "The Fighting Dentists" because on occasion every position was filled by dental students. The dental students on the 1917 team included Sutherland, Katy Easterday, Skip Gougler, "Tank" McLaren and "Jake" Stahl. Sutherland lettered in wrestling and captained the track and field team at Pitt for which he specialized in the hammer throw and shot put.
He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, Psi Omega national dental fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa, the Druids Society, a secret society at the university. Sutherland graduated from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Dentistry, where he held a professorship in the instruction of bridge and crown. In 1919, Sutherland played in a few games with the Massillon Tigers of the Ohio League, the direct predecessor to the modern National Football League. However, he soon left the team and began his head coaching career at Lafayette College from 1919 to 1923, leading the Leopards to the 1921 Eastern Collegiate Championship. In 1924, Sutherland replaced his former coach and mentor, as head coach at Pitt. Sutherland, described as "a national hero" in a Saturday Evening Post article, became a admired and influential coach at the University while compiling a record of 111–20–12. On offense, he ran a double-wing formation known as the "Sutherland Scythe", he was known for his calm and direct demeanor, never ranting to motivate his team.
During his tenure, Sutherland's teams were named Eastern football champions seven times including 1925, 1927, 1929, 1931, 1934, 1936, 1937. During this time, Pitt appeared in four Rose Bowl games and turned down a bid for the 1938 Rose Bowl. Sutherland's teams were named "National Champions" by various selectors for nine different seasons including 1925, 1927, 1929, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1936, 1937, 1938. Of these, the University of Pittsburgh recognizes five of those years as national championship seasons, while one of them, 1937, includes the Associated Press national championship designation which, at the time, was only the third instance in which the AP poll had been published. Sutherland coached the famed "Dream Backfield" of John Chickerneo, Dick Cassiano, Harold Stebbins, Marshall Goldberg, which at the time was considered to be the best backfield in history by some, including Don Miller, a member of The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. After years of struggling with the University for sustained financial support, Sutherland resigned in 1938 because the school's Chancellor, John Gabbert Bowman, instituted a policy of de-emphasis for the football program, eliminating athletic scholarships, student athlete stipends, the recruiting funds.
Bowman's moves, which resulted in Sutherland's departure, were controversial among students and supporters of the football program. As of 2009, his career coaching record of 144–28–14 in 20 seasons at the collegiate level, an.812 winning percentage, is the 25th best winning percentage in all divisions of college football and 11th best among coaches from the top division known as the Division I FBS. His.812 winning percentage is the 5th best such mark during the first 20 years of any coaches' career. He is tied for the 23rd fewest games to reach 100 victories, accomplished in his 132nd game as coach. Sutherland coached in the National Football League with the Brooklyn Dodgers for two seasons, 1940–41, before leaving the team to serve the United States during World War II. During the war, Sutherland served in the United States Navy and achieved the rank of Lieutenant commander. Upon returning to the United States, Sutherland landed with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he was head coach and team vice president.
He led the Steelers to their first playoff appearance in 1947. While on a scouting trip for the Steelers in April 1948, Sutherland was found in his car in Bandana, where he was experiencing confusion and was taken to a hospital in Cairo, where he was diagnosed with "nervous exhaustion", he was flown back to Pittsburgh for further treatment. An exploratory surgery was required to determine whether he was suffering from a hemorrhage or a tumor. Sutherland died in Pittsburgh on April 11, 1948, following surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor, he is interred in Pittsburgh's Homewood Cemetery. Sutherland was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 as a coach, he is memorialized on the Pitt campus with a street, Sutherland Drive, the student residence Sutherland Hall. *The Pittsburgh Panthers claim a share of the 1934 national championship per a 1970 Sports Illustrated study on national championships that the school has used since its publication as the basis of its claims. However, this championship is not included in the Official NCAA Records Book's list of national champions.
Alberts, Robert C.. Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh 1787–1987. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press. P. 543. ISBN 0-8229-1150-7. Retrieved December 1
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is the national fire and rescue service of Scotland. It was formed by the merger of eight regional fire services in the country on 1 April 2013, it thus became the largest fire brigade in the United Kingdom, surpassing the London Fire Brigade After a consultation, the Scottish Government confirmed on 8 September 2011 that a single fire and rescue service would be created in Scotland to replace the eight existing services. Following further consultation on the detailed operation of the service, the Police and Fire Reform Bill was published on 17 January 2012. After scrutiny and debate by the Scottish Parliament, the legislation was approved on 27 June 2012; the Bill duly received royal assent as the Police and Fire Reform Act 2012. This Act created Police Scotland in place of the previous eight regional police forces; the mergers were effective from 1 April 2013. Eight months after the consolidation, an internal report said the reorganisation had not negatively affected operational response.
The service is headquartered in Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire, which houses a national training centre opened in January 2013. There are a further three service delivery centres in the east and north of the country. On 16 August 2012 the Scottish Government confirmed the first chief fire officer of the new service would be Alasdair Hay acting chief fire officer of Tayside Fire and Rescue Service, following an open recruitment exercise. Pat Watters, former president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, was announced as chair of the service, an appointment to run for three years from September 2012. Members of the SFRS Board appointed in October 2012 were Watters, Bob Benson, James Campbell, Kirsty Darwent, Marieke Dwarshuis, Michael Foxley, Robin Iffla, Bill McQueen, Sid Patten, Neil Pirie, Martin Togneri and Grant Thoms; the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service attended 25,002 fires in 2014/15. The service delivers a preventative programme, with 65,343 free home fire safety visits conducted in 2015/16.
As well as fighting fires, the service attends tens of thousands of specialist services such as road traffic collisions, water rescues and flooding incidents. In 2014/15 it attended 10,740 non-fire incidents; the service works alongside other emergency services during flooding events to ensure the safety of communities and rescue people in difficulty, with specialist swift water rescue teams positioned on major waterways and areas of activity. Firefighters are called out to water and boat rescues. For example, during Storm Frank in December 2015 the SFRS received 350 flood related calls in the space of six days. In 2015 the SFRS were called out to 78 wildfire incidents in total, with over half of those taking place in the north of Scotland. In 2015 a national trial was launched, in partnership with the Scottish Ambulance Service, which has seen firefighters at certain stations receive enhanced CPR training aimed at increasing survival rates for people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.
As of March 2016, the SFRS operates 356 stations throughout Scotland. Stations are split into three categories: Wholetime: A station with full-time firefighters. Retained: Part-time, on a call-out basis and predominantly based in some of the more rural areas of Scotland. Volunteer: On a call-out basis and predominantly based in some of the more remote villages and islands; the most northerly station is Baltasound on the Shetland Islands. The most southerly is a volunteer station in the village of Drummore in Galloway; the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service National Training Centre opened in January 2013. The facility in Cambuslang features a mock town with realistic motorways, railway tracks and buildings, including a multi-storey tenement structure; the following services were merged to create the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service: Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Service and Galloway Fire and Rescue Service, Fife Fire and Rescue Service, Grampian Fire and Rescue Service and Islands Fire and Rescue Service and Borders Fire and Rescue Service, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, Tayside Fire and Rescue Service.
The number of control rooms handling 999 calls was reduced from eight to three. The consolidation of regional call centres has resulted in a number of dispatching errors. For example, in December 2016 a crew from Raasay was mobilised to an incident on Skye – a journey that would have required taking their fire engine on a ferry – despite an alternative crew being able to reach Skye directly via a road bridge. On another occasion, a crew from Beauly was sent to a blaze 10 miles away in Dingwall as the dispatcher was unaware Dingwall had its own fire station, her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate for Scotland Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland List of British firefighters killed in the line of duty Official website BBC news report, 29 March 2013: Why Grampian is losing its unusual white fire engines, other questions... Consultation document: Keeping Scotland Safe and Strong: A Consultation on Reforming Police and Fire and Rescue Services in Scotland Police and Fire Reform Bill
National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. Its main public building is in Edinburgh city centre on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter. There is a more modern building in a residential area on the south side of the town centre, on Causewayside; this was built to accommodate some of the specialist collections, such as maps and science collections, to provide extra large-scale storage. In 2016 a new public centre opened at Glasgow's Kelvin Hall providing access to the Library's digital and moving image collections; the National Library of Scotland holds 7 million books, 14 million printed items and over 2 million maps. The collection includes copies of the Gutenberg Bible, the letter which Charles Darwin submitted with the manuscript of Origin of Species, the First Folio of Shakespeare and numerous journals and other publications, it has the largest collection of Scottish Gaelic material of any library.
Scotland's national deposit library was the Advocates Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates. It was opened in 1689 and gained national library status in the 1710 Copyright Act, giving it the legal right to a copy of every book published in Great Britain. In the following centuries, the library added books and manuscripts to the collections by purchase as well as legal deposit, creating a funded national library in all but name. By the 1920s, the upkeep of such a major collection was too much for a private body, with an endowment of £100,000 provided by Alexander Grant, managing director of McVitie & Price, the Library's contents were presented to the nation; the National Library of Scotland was formally constituted by Act of Parliament in 1925. The Nation recognised Grant with a baronetcy, he was created Sir Alexander Grant of Forres in June 1924. In 1928 he donated a further £100,000 – making his combined donations the equivalent of around £6 million today – for a new library building to be constructed on George IV Bridge, replacing the Victorian-period Sheriff Court, which institution moved to the Royal Mile.
Government funding was secured. Work on the new building was started in 1938, interrupted by the Second World War, completed in 1956; the architect was Reginald Fairlie. The coat of arms above the entrance was sculpted by Scott Sutherland and the roundels above the muses on the front facade by Elizabeth Dempster. By the 1970s, room for the ever-expanding collections was running out, other premises were needed; the Causewayside Building opened in the south-side of Edinburgh in two phases, in 1989 and in 1995, at a total cost of £50 million, providing much-needed additional working space and storage facilities. Since 1999, the Library has been funded by the Scottish Parliament, it remains one of only six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, is governed by a board of trustees. The Library holds many ancient family manuscripts including those of the Clan Sinclair, which date back as far as 1488. On 26 February 2009, areas of the building were flooded after a water main burst on the 12th floor.
Firefighters were called and the leaking water was stopped within ten minutes. A number of items were damaged; the last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots made a rare public appearance to mark the opening of a new Library visitor centre in September 2009. The Library joined the 10:10 project in 2010 in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint. One year they announced that they had reduced their carbon emissions according to 10:10's criteria by 18%. On 16 May 2012 the National Library of Scotland Act 2012 was passed by the Scottish Parliament, received Royal Assent in 21 June 2012. In April 2013 the Library advertised for a Wikipedian in residence, becoming the first institution in the Scotland to create such a post. In 2016, the Library recruited a Gaelic Wikipedian in residence. In September 2016 the Library opened a new centre at the refurbished Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, in partnership with Glasgow Life and the University of Glasgow; the centre provides access to moving image collections. As of 2013, the Library holds: manuscripts: 100,000 items maps: 2 million items films: more than 46,000 items newspaper and magazine titles: 25,000 items Bartholomew Archive John Murray Archive Scottish Publishers Association Ask Scotland, Scotland's online information service provided by Scotland’s libraries Books in the United Kingdom Official website
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status; the NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other emergency services, the public access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. In addition to ambulance services provided by NHS organisations, there are some private and volunteer emergency medical services arrangements in place in the UK, the use of private or volunteer ambulances at public events or large private sites, as part of community provision of services such as community first responders. Air ambulance services in the UK are not part of the NHS and are funded through charitable donations.
Paramedics are seconded from a local NHS ambulance service, with the exception of Great North Air Ambulance Service who employ their own paramedics. Doctors are provided by their home hospital and spend no more than 40% of their time with an air ambulance service. Public ambulance services across the UK are required by law to respond to four types of requests for care, which are: Emergency calls Doctor's urgent admission requests High dependency and urgent inter-hospital transfers Major incidentsAmbulance trusts and services may undertake non-urgent patient transport services on a commercial arrangement with their local hospital trusts or health boards, or in some cases on directly funded government contracts, although these contracts are fulfilled by private and voluntary providers; the National Health Service Act 1946 gave county and borough councils a statutory responsibility to provide an emergency ambulance service, although they could contract a voluntary ambulance service to provide this, with many contracting the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance or another local provider.
The last St John Division, to be so contracted is reputed to have been at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, where the two-bay ambulance garage can still be seen at the branch headquarters. The Regional Ambulance Officers’ Committee reported in 1979 that “There was considerable local variation in the quality of the service provided in relation to vehicles and equipment. Most Services were administered by Local Authorities through their Medical Officer of Health and his Ambulance Officer, a few were under the aegis of the Fire Service, whilst others relied upon agency methods for the provision of part or all of their services.” The 142 existing ambulance services were transferred by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 from local authority to central government control in 1974, consolidated into 53 services under regional or area health authorities. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England.
The June 2005 report "Taking healthcare to the Patient", authored by Peter Bradley, Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, for the Department of Health led to the merging of the 31 trusts into 13 organisations in England, plus one organisation each in Wales and Northern Ireland. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, this has further reduced to 10 ambulance service trusts in England, plus the Isle of Wight which has its own provision. Following the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, commissioning of the ambulance services in each area passed from central government control into the hands of regional clinical commissioning groups; the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary provider for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England, 1 each in the other three countries. In England there are now ten NHS ambulance trusts, as well as an ambulance service on the Isle of Wight, run directly by Isle of Wight NHS Trust, with boundaries following those of the former regional government offices.
The ten trusts are: East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust London Ambulance Service NHS Trust North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS TrustThe English ambulance trusts are represented by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, with the Scottish and Northern Irish providers all associate members. On the 14 November 2018 West Midlands Ambulance Service became the UK's first university-ambulance trust; the service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Ambulance Service is a Special Health Board that provides ambulance services throughout whole of Scotland, on behalf of the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
Due to the remote nature of many areas of Scotland compared to the other Home Nations, the Scottish Ambulance Service has Britain's only publi
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic or Scots Gaelic, sometimes referred to as Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced by Gaelic-language placenames. In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people reported as able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001; the highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. There are revival efforts, the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 and 2011 censuses. Outside Scotland, Canadian Gaelic is spoken in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Scottish Gaelic is not an official language of either the United Kingdom. However, it is classed as an indigenous language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which the British government has ratified, the Gaelic Language Act 2005 established a language development body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
Aside from "Scottish Gaelic", the language may be referred to as "Gaelic", pronounced or in English. "Gaelic" may refer to the Irish language. Scottish Gaelic is distinct from Scots, the Middle English-derived language varieties which had come to be spoken in most of the Lowlands of Scotland by the early modern era. Prior to the 15th century, these dialects were known as Inglis by its own speakers, with Gaelic being called Scottis. From the late 15th century, however, it became common for such speakers to refer to Scottish Gaelic as Erse and the Lowland vernacular as Scottis. Today, Scottish Gaelic is recognised as a separate language from Irish, so the word Erse in reference to Scottish Gaelic is no longer used. Gaelic was believed to have been brought to Scotland, in the 4th–5th centuries CE, by settlers from Ireland who founded the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata on Scotland's west coast in present-day Argyll.:551:66 However, archaeologist Dr Ewan Campbell has argued that there is no archaeological or placename evidence of a migration or takeover.
This view of the medieval accounts is shared by other historians. Regardless of how it came to be spoken in the region, Gaelic in Scotland was confined to Dál Riata until the eighth century, when it began expanding into Pictish areas north of the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. By 900, Pictish appears to have become extinct replaced by Gaelic.:238–244 An exception might be made for the Northern Isles, where Pictish was more supplanted by Norse rather than by Gaelic. During the reign of Caustantín mac Áeda, outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than as the kingdom of the Picts. However, though the Pictish language did not disappear a process of Gaelicisation was under way during the reigns of Caustantín and his successors. By a certain point during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become Gaelicised Scots, Pictish identity was forgotten. In 1018, after the conquest of the Lothians by the Kingdom of Scotland, Gaelic reached its social, cultural and geographic zenith.:16–18 Colloquial speech in Scotland had been developing independently of that in Ireland since the eighth century.
For the first time, the entire region of modern-day Scotland was called Scotia in Latin, Gaelic was the lingua Scotica.:276:554 In southern Scotland, Gaelic was strong in Galloway, adjoining areas to the north and west, West Lothian, parts of western Midlothian. It was spoken to a lesser degree in north Ayrshire, the Clyde Valley and eastern Dumfriesshire. In south-eastern Scotland, there is no evidence that Gaelic was widely spoken. Many historians mark the reign of King Malcom Canmore as the beginning of Gaelic's eclipse in Scotland, his wife Margaret of Wessex spoke no Gaelic, gave her children Anglo-Saxon rather than Gaelic names, brought many English bishops and monastics to Scotland.:19 When Malcolm and Margaret died in 1093, the Gaelic aristocracy rejected their anglicised sons and instead backed Malcolm's brother Donald Bàn. Donald had spent 17 years in Gaelic Ireland and his power base was in the Gaelic west of Scotland, he was the last Scottish monarch to be buried on Iona, the traditional burial place of the Gaelic Kings of Dàl Riada and the Kingdom of Alba.
However, during the reigns of Malcolm Canmore's sons, Alexander I and David I, Anglo-Norman names and practices spread throughout Scotland south of the Forth–Clyde line and along the northeastern coastal plain as far north as Moray. Norman French displaced Gaelic at court; the establishment of royal burghs throughout the same area under David I, attracted large numbers of foreigners speaking Old English. This was the beginning of Gaelic's status as a predominantly rural language in Scotland.:19-23 Clan chiefs in the northern and western parts of Scotland continued to support Gaelic bards who remained a central feature of court life there. The semi-independent Lordship of the Isles in the Hebrides and western coastal mainland remained Gaelic since the language's recovery there in the 12th century, providing a political foundation for cultural prestige down to the end of the 15th century.:553-6By the mid-14th century what came to be called Scots emerged as the official language of government and law.:139 Scotland's emergent nat
listen); Gaelic: Cùbar Aonghais) is a town in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, situated four miles south of Blairgowrie.
