The 18th century was good news for toupee manufacturers of Wigtownshire as the act of union between England and Scotland caused nationalist Scots to lose all of their hair. This sacrificial shedding came to be known as The Headland Clearances, celebrity ex-pat Sean Connery being a famous shedder. It led to the invention of the ginger wig, a now-familiar sight on the football terraces whenever Scotland are losing to some country no one has ever heard of and the jovial Scots show their superiorty over the thuggish English by laughing at their own ineptitude, rather than chucking seats around.

The original design for the Union Flag, rejected by the Scots

In the 18th century football hadn’t been invented so the plucky Scots had to come off gallant losers on the battlefield instead. Culloden was such a defeat, although many of the English stars were injured, ruling them out of the World Cup. The biggest loser, however, was Bonnie Prince Charlie whose nose was sliced off by the swipe of a bayonet causing him to change his name by deed poll to Minging Prince Right Charlie.

It wasn’t all fun and games of course. Smallpox was rife among the peasant class, who slept 50 to a newspaper, and NHS waiting lists were so long that large warehouses had to be built to read them in. Unless you had money you’d be lucky to see a doctor for generations and then he wasn’t allowed to give you medicine because it was banned by the church, like in some Southern states of America today. If you had scabby chops it was the way God intended you to be, so stop whinging you heathen! And stop scratching!

Of course the 18th century wasn’t all bad. Houses in the country were very cheap as people fled to the cities in search of prostitutes. There were few shops in the country however, and public transport was hardly better than it is today, so sun-blushed tomatoes were hard to come by. If you were driven by hunger to steal an ear of wheat from a landowner’s hedge you would be hung at Tyburn in front of a celebrity audience. This would be recorded for TV and repeated on Bank Holidays. Are you sure you’d rather live in the 18th century?

Person to be in the 18th century - A Wigtownshire wig weaver
Person not to be in the 18th century - A Highland hair stylist

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