Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is a member of the British royal family. She is the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne. Instead of using the title Princess of Wales, she uses the title Duchess of Cornwall, her husband's secondary designation. In Scotland, she is known as the Duchess of Rothesay. Camilla is the eldest child of Major Bruce Shand and his wife Rosalind Cubitt, the daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe, she was raised in East Sussex and South Kensington in England, was educated in England and France. In 1973, Camilla married British Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles, they divorced in 1995. Camilla was in a relationship with the Prince of Wales before and after their previous marriages; the relationship became publicised in the media and attracted worldwide scrutiny. In 2005, it culminated in a civil marriage at Windsor Guildhall, followed by a televised Anglican blessing at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle; as Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla assists the Prince of Wales on his official duties.
She is the patron, president and a member of numerous charities and organisations. Since 1994, she has taken action on earning honours and awards, she has raised awareness in areas including rape and sexual abuse, animal welfare and poverty. Camilla Rosemary Shand was born at King's College Hospital, London, on 17 July 1947, she grew up in The Laines – an 18th-century country house in Plumpton, East Sussex – and a three-storey house in South Kensington, her family's second home. Her parents were British Army officer turned his wife, Rosalind, she has a younger sister, Annabel Elliot, had a younger brother, Mark Shand. Her maternal great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was a mistress of King Edward VII from 1898 to 1910. On 1 November 1947, Camilla was baptised at East Sussex. Camilla's mother was a housewife, while her father had various business interests after retiring from the army, he was most notably a partner in Block and Block, a firm of wine merchants in South Audley Street, Mayfair joining Ellis and Vidler of Hastings and London.
During her childhood years, Camilla became an avid reader due to the influence of her father, who read to her frequently. She grew up with dogs and cats, and, at a young age, learnt how to ride a pony by joining Pony Club camps which garnered her frequent rosettes at community gymkhanas. According to her, childhood "was perfect in every way". Biographer Gyles Brandreth describes her background and childhood:Camilla is described as having had an "Enid Blyton sort of Childhood". In fact, it was much grander than that. Camilla, as a little girl, may have had some personality traits of George, the tomboy girl among the Famous Five, but Enid Blyton’s children were middle-class children and The Shands, without question, belonged to the upper class; the Shands had position and they had help—help in the house, help in the garden, help with children. They were gentry, they opened their garden for the local Conservative Party Association summer fête. Enough said. At the age of five, Camilla was sent to a co-educational school in Ditchling village.
She left Dumbrells aged ten to attend Queen's Gate School in South Kensington. Her classmates at Queen's Gate knew her as "Milla". One of the teachers at the school was the writer Penelope Fitzgerald, who taught French and remembered Camilla as "bright and lively". Camilla left Queen's Gate with one O-level in 1964. At the age of sixteen, she travelled abroad to attend the Mon Fertile finishing school in Tolochenaz, Switzerland. After completing her course in Switzerland, she made her own decision and travelled to France to learn French and French literature at the University of London Institute in Paris for six months. On 25 March 1965, Camilla was a debutante in one of 311 that year. After moving from home, she shared a small flat in Kensington with her friend Jane Wyndham, niece of decorator Nancy Lancaster, she moved into a larger flat in Belgravia, which she shared with her landlady Lady Moyra Campbell, the daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, with Virginia Carington, daughter of the politician Lord Carrington.
Virginia was married to Camilla's uncle Henry Cubitt from 1973 until 1979. Camilla worked as a secretary for a variety of firms in the West End and was employed as a receptionist by the decorating firm Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler in Mayfair. In her spare time, she became a passionate horse-rider and attended equestrian activities, she had a passion for painting, which led to her private tutoring with an artist, although most of her work "ended up in the bin". Other interests were fishing and gardening. In the late 1960s, Camilla met Andrew Parker Bowles—then a Guards officer and lieutenant in the Blues and Royals— through his younger brother, Simon Parker Bowles, who worked for her father's wine firm in Mayfair. After an on and off relationship for years and Camilla announced their engagement in The Times in 1973,marrying on 4 July that year in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks in London. Camilla was 25 years old and Parker Bowles 33, her wedding dress was designed by British fashion house Bellville Sassoon, the bridesmaids included Parker Bowles' goddaughter Lady
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Canadian province of British Columbia; the island is 460 kilometres in length, 100 kilometres in width at its widest point, 32,134 km2 in area. It is the largest island on the West Coast of the Americas; the southern part of Vancouver Island and some of the nearby Gulf Islands are the only parts of British Columbia or Western Canada to lie south of the 49th Parallel. This area has one of the warmest climates in Canada, since the mid-1990s has been mild enough in a few areas to grow subtropical Mediterranean crops such as olives and lemons. Vancouver Island had a population in 2016 of 775,347. Nearly half of that population live in the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria. Other notable cities and towns on Vancouver Island include Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Parksville and Campbell River. Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, is located on the island, but the larger city of Vancouver is not – it is on the North American mainland, across the Strait of Georgia from Nanaimo.
Vancouver Island has been the homeland to many indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The island was explored by Spanish expeditions in the late 18th century, it was named Quadra's and Vancouver's Island in commemoration of the friendly negotiations held in 1792 by Spanish commander of the Nootka Sound settlement, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, by British naval captain George Vancouver, during the Nootka Crisis. Bodega y Quadra's name was dropped from the name, it is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, who explored the Pacific Northwest coast between 1791 and 1794. Vancouver Island is the world's 43rd largest island, Canada's 11th largest island, Canada's second most populous island after the Island of Montreal, it is the largest Pacific island anywhere east of New Zealand. Vancouver Island has been the homeland to many indigenous peoples for thousands of years; the groupings, by language, are the Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, various Coast Salish peoples.
Kwakwaka'wakw territory includes northern and northwestern Vancouver Island and adjoining areas of the mainland, the Nuu-chah-nulth span most of the west coast, while the Coast Salish cover the southeastern Island and southernmost extremities along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Their cultures are connected to the natural resources abundant in the area; the Kwakwaka'wakw today number about 5,500, who live in British Columbia on northern Vancouver Island and the mainland. They are known as Kwakiutl in English, from one of their tribes, but they prefer their autonym Kwakwaka'wakw, their indigenous language, part of the Wakashan family, is Kwak'wala. The name Kwakwaka'wakw means "speakers of Kwak'wala"; the language is now spoken by less than 5% of the population—about 250 people. Today 17 separate tribes make up the Kwakwaka'wakw; some Kwakwaka'wakw groups are now extinct. Kwak'wala is a Northern Wakashan language, a grouping shared with Haisla and Wuikyala. Kwakwaka'wakw centres of population on Vancouver Island include communities such as Fort Rupert, Alert Bay and Quatsino, The Kwakwaka'wakw tradition of the potlatch was banned by the federal government of Canada in 1885, but has been revived in recent decades.
The Nuu-chah-nulth are indigenous peoples in Canada. Their traditional home is on the west coast of Vancouver Island. In pre-contact and early post-contact times, the number of nations was much greater, but as in the rest of the region and other consequences of contact resulted in the disappearance of some groups, the absorption of others into neighbouring groups, they were among the first Pacific peoples north of California to come into contact with Europeans, as the Spanish and British attempted to secure control of Pacific Northwest and the trade in otter pelts, with Nootka Sound becoming a focus of these rivalries. The Nuu-chah-nulth speak a Southern Wakashan language and are related to the Makah of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State and Ditidaht; the Coast Salish are the largest of the southern groups. They are a loose grouping of many tribes with languages. On Vancouver Island, Coast Salish peoples territory traditionally spans from the northern limit of the Gulf of Georgia on the inside of Vancouver Island and covering most of southern Vancouver Island.
Distinct nations within the Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island include the Chemainus, the Comox of the Comox Valley area, the Cowichan of the Cowichan Valley, the Esquimalt, the Saanich of the Saanich Peninsula, the Songhees of the Victoria area and Snuneymuxw in the Nanaimo area. Europeans began to explore the island in 1774, when rumours of Russian fur traders caused Spain to send a number of expeditions to assert its long-held claims to the Pacific Northwest; the first expedition was that of the Santiago, under the command of Juan José Pérez Hernández. In 1775, a second Spanish expedition under the Spanish Peruvian captain Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was sent. By 1776 Spanish exploration had reached Bucareli Bay including the mouth of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, Sitka Sound. Vancouver Island came to the attention of Britain after the third voyage of Captain James Cook, who spent a month during 1778 at Nootka Sound, on the island's western coast. Cook claimed it for Great Britain.
The island's rich fur-trading potential led the fur trader John Meares to set up a single-building trading post near the native village of Yuquot, at the entrance to Nootka Sound. The building was removed by the end of 1788; the island was further explored by Spain in 1789 with Esteban José Martínez, who est
Gordon Cree
Gordon Charles Cree BMus FGMS is a Scottish singer, actor and entertainer. Cree is the only child of a blacksmith father and a lace weaver mother and was brought up in the village of Hurlford, near Kilmarnock, until the age of 8 when the family moved to the village of Darvel, given as his hometown, he was educated first at Hurlford Primary School and Darvel Primary School before completing his secondary education at Loudoun Academy in Galston. At the unusual age of 16, he was admitted as an undergraduate student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow where he graduated Bachelor of Music in 1998, aged 20. Following his formal education he studied piano and musical direction with Peggy O'Keefe, orchestral scoring and arranging with Brian Fahey and organ with Professor George McPhee at Paisley Abbey, he came into the music and entertainment industries as a pianist and musical director. From 1997 until 2006 he appeared on stage and radio as accompanist to some of the legends of the Scottish entertainment scene, such as Moira Anderson, Jimmy Logan, Kenneth McKellar and Anna, Johnny Beattie and Peter Morrison.
He spent seventeen seasons at the Gaiety Theatre and six seasons at the Glasgow Pavilion, intermittent seasons at the Kilmarnock Palace Theatre, The Glasgow King's Theatre and the Edinburgh King's Theatre as well as countless short-runs and single events throughout the UK, USA, Sweden and Germany. Sporadically from 1997 and with more focus from 2006, Cree has been appearing in concerts and variety seasons as a singer and entertainer. Having made singing his major study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama his early singing career consisted of a large number of serious recitals and concerts. From 2006 onwards he began to appear on variety bills throughout the UK, including seasons at the Winter Gardens, the Blackpool Opera House, the Grand Theatre, the Theatre Royal and was a longtime cast member of the legendary Duggie Chapman's "Good Olde Days" and "Matinee Music Hall" shows, he continues to appear as a variety and cabaret artiste, while making occasional "serious" singing appearances.
As a child, aged 7, the organ was the first instrument. In 1990 he competed for and won the title "Scottish Young Organist of the Year" at the Wurlitzer of East Kilbride Civic Centre Although he has maintained organ posts in Ayrshire from 1993–present he only seems to have emerged as a concert and recital organist since 2010. In the classical field he has given recitals at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, The Caird Hall in Dundee, Ayr Town Hall and was the originator of the Darvel Organ Recitals Series at the Grade I listed organ of Darvel Parish Church. In the theatre organ world he performs at these magnificent instruments throughout the UK. Organs at which he is listed as having appeared are: the Wulitzer of Blackpool Tower Ballroom, the Wurlitzer of Blackpool Opera House, the Compton of the Plaza Cinema, Stockport Plaza, the Wurlitzer of Stockport Town Hall and the Wurlitzer of Pollokshaws Burgh Hall in Glasgow, with which he appears to have a special and longstanding relationship.
Since 2001, he has appeared extensively as a conductor conducting light music, music theatre and filmscores. A large proportion of the music he conducts is orchestrated by him. From 1999-2001 he studied arrangement and orchestration with Brian Fahey, staff arranger at Chappell & Co, staff musical director at EMI, musical director to Shirley Bassey and conductor/arranger of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra In 2001 he began forming ad hoc concert orchestras under his own name, The Gordon Cree Orchestra with which he continues to appear, he appears as a guest conductor with the Scottish Festival Orchestra and the Scottish Concert Orchestra. He has provided arrangements and orchestrations for tens of theatre shows as well as for a wide array of established ensembles, including Marilyn Horne, Moira Anderson, Joan Savage, Joan Hinde, Norman Wisdom, Cheryl Forbes, The Hallé, The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The BBC Concert Orchestra, Northern Ballet, The Ulster Orchestra and the Glasgow Phoenix Choir.
Cree has published many works, most of them short and light in nature. Selected Orchestral Works:Capri Suite Angela Concertino Champagne Flutes Fiddlers Free Havanaise Petite Marche Cérémoniale Suite for Strings Nocturne The Bognor Bugler's Return Solo Organ Works:Prelude Meditation Aria Trumpet Tune Toccata on Adeste FidelisPopular Music:Scotland, My Song Forever He has been married to operatic and concert mezzo-soprano, Cheryl Forbes, since 2012, he is well known for his support of various charity through his endorsement. He has been active for many years on behalf of the Scottish Showbusiness Benevolent Fund, The Grand Order of Water Rats, he sat on the Master Court of the Trades House of Glasgow and is an Executive Founding Trustee of the Ayrshire Foodbank which he established alongside his wife, Cheryl Forbes, it was announced in August 2013 that Cree and Forbes would be stepping down as sole executives for the Ayrshire Foodbank due to family and work commitments
Southern Railway of Vancouver Island
The Southern Railway of Vancouver Island is 234 kilometres in length, is the only remaining railway on Vancouver Island, after the formal closure of the Englewood Railway in November 2017. The Southern Railway's railroad runs from Victoria to Courtenay, with a branch line from Parksville to Port Alberni. In 2006, the Island Corridor Foundation acquired the railway's ownership from the Canadian Pacific Railway and RailAmerica. Both freight service and the crown corporation Via Rail passenger service have been suspended indefinitely due to deferred maintenance on the railroad; the history of an island railroad and a functioning island railway in perpetuity, started with the colony of Vancouver Island joining British Columbia in 1866, the Canadian Confederation of 1867, the incorporation of British Columbia into Canada in 1871. The terms of union required that within two years, the federal government was to start the construction of a railway from the "seaboard of British Columbia" joining the new province and Victoria with the railway system of Canada.
On its part, British Columbia was to grant a band of public land of up to 32 kilometres in width along either side of the railway line to the federal government for it to use in furtherance of the construction of the railway. The Pacific terminus of the railway was not specific but the proposed plan would have the railway cross the Rockies by the Yellowhead Pass and reach the BC coast at Bute Inlet, it would cross Sonora Island and Quadra Island and reach Vancouver Island by a bridge across Seymour Narrows. Through the influence of BC Premier Amor de Cosmos, this plan was adopted by Order in Council by the federal government on 7 June 1873. Two shipments of rail were delivered to Victoria from the United Kingdom. In 1873, Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald had stated that Esquimalt, British Columbia, the site of a naval base, would be the terminus of the "Pacific Railway". However, both the federal government and the Canadian Pacific Railway placed a low priority on construction of an island railway, as it had low traffic potential and would duplicate an existing steamer service.
In 1874 British Columbia threatened to withdraw from Confederation and Premier Walkem petitioned the Queen for relief from these delays. Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie and Walkem agreed to accept arbitration of the dispute by the Earl of Carnarvon, the Colonial Secretary, his award, given 17 November 1874 gave an extension of time for the construction and required that a railway be built from Esquimalt to Nanaimo. Despite the promises of both parties to be bound by his ruling, the federal government bill approving the award failed in the Senate of Canada. British Columbians were indignant and withdrawal from Confederation was raised again. In 1879 Lord Dufferin was sent to BC to assess the situation, his efforts produced no resolution. Governor General Dufferin arriving in Victoria had to take an alternate route rather than pass below an arch across the main street that bore a banner reading "Carnarvon Terms or Separation." Walkem, although no longer premier, was sent to Ottawa to press for the Esquimalt to Nanaimo section.
This issue was pressed again in 1880 by Amor de Cosmos and when that failed another petition to London was presented in 1881. The father of Canadian Confederation Sir John A. Macdonald in the House of Commons in 1881 gave a speech on the CPR and criticized Alexander Mackenzie for tinkering with the preconditions of British Columbia and Vancouver Island uniting with Canada; the old chieftain said, "Both the Government of which I was the head and the Government of which he was the head were bound by the original resolutions." Macdonald said, "It was admitted. It was a matter of Colonial policy and Imperial policy in England that the road should be constructed." Robert Dunsmuir, the Nanaimo coal baron and a member of the provincial legislature, was interested in owning the railway project and in the province's coal reserves. The fact that Dunsmuir was a member of the provincial government, making the deal aroused some suspicion about corruption. Dunsmuir and three partners incorporated the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway with Dunsmuir president and owner of one half of the shares.
The company estimated. Dunsmuir planned to integrate the railway with the systems being built in Washington and Oregon with a ferry link from Victoria; the first Prime Minister gave British Columbia the choice of Dunsmuir or Lewis M. Clement of San Francisco, Chief Engineer of the Western Division of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, for the contract. Dusmuir travelled to Ottawa in 1882 with letters of introduction from John Hamilton Gray, one of the Fathers of Confederation and Joseph Trutch the first Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, both men in favour with Macdonald. After a visit to Ottawa, to present himself directly for this project, Dunsmuir went off to Scotland. While in Scotland, Dunsmuir received the news that the provincial government had chosen the Vancouver Land and Railway Company controlled by Clement for the job. Dunsmuir was surprised that Clement would take the contract without a cash grant in addition to the land and commit to building the railway to Seymour Narrows, near Campbell River.
When Clement and his company failed to come up with the necessary financial security, Macdonald moved to accept Dunsmuir's terms
Scottish Ambulance Service
The Scottish Ambulance Service is the NHS Ambulance Services Trust, part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland's population. Uniquely, the Scottish Ambulance Service is considered a special health board and is funded directly by the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government, it is the sole public emergency medical service covering Scotland's mainland and islands. In 1948, the newly formed National Health Service contracted two voluntary organisations, the St Andrew's Ambulance Association and the British Red Cross, to jointly provide a national ambulance provision for Scotland, known as the St Andrew's and Red Cross Scottish Ambulance Service; the British Red Cross withdrew from the service in 1967. In 1974, with the reorganisation of the National Health Service, ambulance provision in Scotland was taken over by the NHS, with the organisational title being shortened to the now-current Scottish Ambulance Service. St. Andrew's First Aid, the trading name of St. Andrew's Ambulance Association, continues as a voluntary organisation and provides first aid training and provision in a private capacity.
The Scottish Ambulance Service now continues in its current form as one of the largest emergency medical providers in the UK, employing more than 4,000 staff in a variety of roles and responding to 740,631 emergency incidents in 2015/2016 alone. The service, like the rest of the National Health Service is free at point of access and is utilised by the public and healthcare professionals alike. Employing 1,300 paramedic staff, a further 1,200 technicians, the accident and emergency service is accessed through the public 999 system. Ambulance responses are now prioritised on patient requirement; the Scottish Ambulance Service maintains three command and control centres in Scotland, which facilitate handling of 999 calls and dispatch of ambulances. These three centres have handle over 800,000 calls per year; the AMPDS system is used for call prioritisation, provides post-dispatch instructions to callers allowing for medical advice to be given over the phone, prior to ambulance arrival. Clinical staff are present to provide tertiary triage.
Co-located with the Ambulance Control Centres are patient transport booking and control services, which handle 1 million patient journeys per year. The Scottish Ambulance Service maintains a varied fleet of around 1,500 vehicles; this includes Accident and Emergency ambulances single-response vehicles such as cars and small vans for paramedics, patient-transport ambulances which come in the form of adapted minibuses and support vehicles for major incidents and events, specialist vehicles such as 4x4s and tracked vehicles for difficult access. The unique geography of Scotland, which includes urban centres such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, areas of low-population such as Grampian and the Highlands, the Island communities mean that fleet provision has to be flexible and include different approaches to vehicle construction. In the past, 4x4-build ambulances on van chassis have been used in more rural areas, traditional van-conversions in more urban. With a large fleet upgrade project being commissioned in 2016, the business case was made to move to a box-body on chassis build, to provide some flexibility and more resilient parts procurement.
Most of these replacement ambulances have been based on either Mercedes or Volkswagen chassis, with a mixture of automatic or manual transmissions. The equipment used on board Scottish Ambulance Service vehicles broadly falls in line with NHS Scotland and allows for intraoperability in most cases. Equipment is replaced at regular service intervals; the uniform falls in line with the NHS Scotland National Uniform standard, in keeping with the uniform standard described by the National Ambulance Uniform Procurement group in 2016. Amongst cost and comfort considerations, all Scottish Ambulance Service Staff now wear the national uniform which comprises a dark green trouser / shirt combination. Personal Protective Equipment are issued to all staff and denote rank / clinical rank by way of epaulette and helmet markings; the national headquarters are in west side of Edinburgh and there are five divisions within the Service, namely: The Patient Transport Service carries over 1.3 million patients every year.
This service is provided to patients who are physically or medically unfit to travel to hospital out-patient appointments by any other means can still make their appointments. The service handles non-emergency admissions, transport of palliative care patients and a variety of other specialised roles. Patient Transport Vehicles come in a variety of forms and are staffed by Ambulance Care Assistants, whom work
Scotland
Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland enacted a political union to create a United Kingdom.
The majority of Ireland subsequently seceded from the UK in 1922. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland; the legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England; the Scottish Parliament, a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, was established in 1999 and has authority over those areas of domestic policy which have been devolved by the United Kingdom Parliament. The head of the Scottish Government, the executive of the devolved legislature, is the First Minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the UK House of Commons by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs.
Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. From the ninth century, the meaning of Scotia shifted to designate Gaelic Scotland and by the eleventh century the name was being used to refer to the core territory of the Kingdom of Alba in what is now east-central Scotland; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass most of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages, as the Kingdom of Alba expanded and came to encompass various peoples of diverse origins. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.
At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.
The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept slaves through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth ce
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, it employs over 20,950 staff in total. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time and fixed-contract staff are included; the BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, charged to all British households and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up; the fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has funded the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, online services in Arabic and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture, it is known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both. Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920, it was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast; the company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform and entertain"; the financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.
The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired; the BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis; the crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently; the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives in a manner of its own choosing; the resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment
