# 1971 in Scotland

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Events from the year 1971 in Scotland.

## Incumbents

* Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Gordon Campbell

### Law officers

* Lord Advocate – Norman Wylie
* Solicitor General for Scotland – David Brand

### Judiciary

* Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Clyde
* Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Grant
* Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord Birsay

## Events

* 2 January – 1971 Ibrox disaster: a stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow kills 66 and leaves many more injured.
* 10 March – 1971 Scottish soldiers' killings: three young off-duty Royal Highland Fusiliers are lured from a bar in Belfast and shot by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
* 23 May – "The Unknown Bairn": The drowned body of a young boy is found washed up onshore at Tayport; he is never identified.
* 25 May – production begins at the Invergordon aluminium works.
* 15 June – Upper Clyde Shipbuilders enters liquidation.
* 2 July
** Royal Scots Dragoon Guards formed as the senior Scottish regiment of the British Army at Holyrood, Edinburgh, by amalgamation of the Royal Scots Greys and 3rd Carabiniers.
** Erskine Bridge opened over the River Clyde.
* 30 July – Upper Clyde Shipbuilders workers begin to take control of the shipyards in a work-in under the leadership of Jimmy Reid.
* c. August – Kyle of Tongue Bridge and causeway opened, replacing a ferry.
* 16 September – Stirling and Falkirk by-election: Labour retains the seat but the Scottish National Party takes second place with a surge of 20% in their support.
* 21 October – Clarkston explosion: a gas explosion in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire kills at least twenty people.
* 22 November – Cairngorm Plateau disaster: Five children and one adult on an expedition die of exposure in the Highlands.
* 2 December – last resident families leave the island of Scarp.
* Expansion of Erskine as a planned community begins.
* Spey Bridge at Aviemore opened.
* Tom Farmer opens the first Kwik Fit car servicing centre, in Edinburgh.

## Births

* 21 January – Alan McManus, snooker player
* 23 March
** Kate Dickie, actress
** Gail Porter, television presenter and model
* 27 March – David Coulthard, racing driver
* 31 March – Ewan McGregor, actor
* 1 April – Karen Dunbar, comedian
* 5 April – Charles Cumming, espionage novelist
* 18 April – David Tennant, actor
* 31 July – Craig MacLean, track cyclist
* 19 August – Paul McGrillen, footballer (suicide 2009)
* 30 August – Julian Smith, Conservative politician
* 6 October – Brian Conaghan, young adult fiction writer
* 7 October – Aasmah Mir, journalist and presenter
* 8 October – Michelle Mone, entrepreneur
* 13 November – Alberto Costa, Conservative politician

## Deaths

* 16 June – John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, broadcasting executive (born 1889)
* 25 June – John Boyd Orr, physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (born 1880)
* 28 August – Edith Hughes, architect (born 1888)
* 12 December
** Torrance Gillick, Rangers F.C. winger (born 1915)
** Alan Morton, Rangers outside left (born 1893)
* 22 December – D. Alan Stevenson, lighthouse engineer and philatelist (born 1891)

## The arts

* 26 March – BBC Scotland television begins a serialisation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song, starring Vivien Heilbron.
* 18 November – Stewart Conn's play The Burning, concerning King James VI of Scotland, premieres.
* Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond's political thriller Scotch on the Rocks, concerning a terrorist group fighting for Scottish independence in the near future, is published by Collins.
* English composer Peter Maxwell Davies settles in Orkney, initially on Hoy.