Am I allowed? by Sandra Horn
Recently, I was asked, by a Scottish Person, ‘What’s the connection? You wrote The Silkie and Tattybogle – what’s your connection to Scotland?’ I wasn’t sure if this was an aggressive challenge or what. In any case, the answer - which I didn’t give because other things intervened before I could – was complicated. My name before I married was MacDonald and there is both Scottish and Irish ancestry there, but it was my name by adoption, not blood. I’m English with a dollop of Cornish, so I could claim a connection that allows me to write about The Mud Maid and The Giant, and I grew up in Sussex, so The Hob and Miss Minkin is probably permissible too. My play for children, very loosely based on the Aboriginal dreamtime myths, is apparently taboo, however. Wait a minute, though: there’s the possibility of an ancestral name linked to Ashkenazy Jews who came over in the 17 th century. Hooray! That opens up more possibilities! Yes, this i...