A Wee Something to Celebrate: Our Chair Awarded an MBE

A note from our Chair, Frank Strang, reflecting on the unexpected honour of being awarded an MBE for services to intercultural dialogue and interfaith relations.

You have to look pretty hard to find your name in the honours list, especially if your parents didn’t call you by your first name.

An MBE, eh? I can’t say I’m a fan of the literal meaning of the letters: how about “Music, Ballet and Élysée”; or “Muslims, Buddhists and Episcopalians”? After all, it says that the gong was for intercultural dialogue and interfaith relations.

Some of this makes me a bit queasy. After all, two weeks ago I extolled the immortal memory of Burns, for whom the man who had a ribband and star was nothing but a coof… Moreover, we ALL know that the real heroes are those who look after elderly parents, care for neighbours in distress, or grapple with great courage with their own challenges. GUSH (Glory to the Un Sung Heroes), anyone?

But it would be dishonest if I said I wasn’t pretty chuffed. Here, some people are saying that what we’ve been doing – both in the Scottish Government and at Solas Festival, where I serve as Chair – has been noticed and appreciated. Big kudos and thanks to the teams I’ve been lucky enough to work with. What they’re also saying is that the content of what we’re doing – creating the circumstances where relationships between people of very different backgrounds can thrive – really matters, never more so than in today’s troubling world.

I’ll take that.

[William] Frank Strang, MBE
Chair, Solas Festival.