Fellow Listers, Today is the day of the year to fly your Saltire Flag if you have one. Sam Heron ` St Andrew's Day November 30th St Andrew the Patron Saint of Scotland died on 30th November AD 60 at Patras. Now, November 30th every year is St Andrew's Day. St Andrew is Scotland's patron saint, but he is not Scotland's sole property - he is shared with Greece, Romania and Russia. St. Andrew was one of the original Twelve Apostles and a brother to St. Peter, both former fishermen called to follow Jesus. There are two reasons why Andrew was adopted as the patron saint of Scotland. St Andrew never actually set foot in Scotland, while he was alive. The legend is that he was killed in Greece, and his bones placed in a tomb. Hundreds of years later, the Emperor Constantine the Great wanted to move the bones to his new capital city. Meanwhile an angel came to a monk in a dream and told him to rescue as many bones as he could. The monk, called St Rule, was ordered to take them to the ends of the earth for safekeeping. He managed to get a tooth, an arm bone, a kneecap and some fingers, before setting out on an epic journey. That journey ended when his ship was wrecked, and he was washed ashore on the coast of Fife. The place where he landed is, of course, now called St Andrews. An other explanation is that the seventh century Bishop of Hexham, St. Wilfrid brought back some of the saint's relics from a trip to Rome and they landed in the hands of the Scots King, Angus MacFergus, who installed them at St. Andrew's to enhance the prestige of the new bishopric. One legend concerning St. Andrew is that when the Pictish King Angus, faced with a large invading army, prayed for divine guidance, a saltire (the diagonal cross) appeared in the shape of a white cloud against the blue sky. Angus won a decisive victory and decreed that Andrew would be the patron saint of his country. It was not until after Robert Bruce's victory at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) however, that the Declaration of Arbroath named St. Andrew the patron saint of Scotland forever and the Saltire became the national flag in 1385. More than 100 years ago, a small piece of St Andrew's shoulder blade was donated to Scotland and in 1969, when the Pope visited Scotland he brought with him further relics that can now be seen at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh. In 2006, the Scottish Parliament passed the St. Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007, which designated the Day as an official bank holiday. Although it is a bank holiday, banks are not required to close and employers are not required to give their employees the day off as a holiday. St Andrew's Day is an official flag day in Scotland. The Scottish Government's flag-flying regulations state that the Flag of Scotland (The Saltire) shall fly on all its buildings with a flagpole. The Union Flag is also flown if the building has more than one flagpole. The arrangements for the United Kingdom Government in Scotland are the opposite. They fly the Union Flag, and will only fly the Saltire if there is more than one flagpole. The flying of the Saltire on St Andrew's Day is a recent development. Prior to 2002, the Scottish Government followed the UK Government's flag days and would only fly the Union Flag on St Andrew's Day. This led to Members of the Scottish Parliament complaining that Scotland was the only country in the world that could not fly its national flag on its national day. The regulations were updated to state that the Union Flag would be removed and replaced by the Saltire on buildings with only one flagpole.

Sam, that was a most interesting email on St Andrews's Day, and presumably a large number of public buildings in Scotland that are not UK government owned, that once sported 2 or more flagpoles now only sport a single pole? Donald Main WA, Aus.