Sir Tom Devine: ‘I’ve always thought England would destroy the Union’ Sir Tom Devine is Scotland’s most distinguished historian since Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), but unlike the latter — at least by reputation — he likes a joke. Shown to an alcove reserved for us in La Lanterna, his favourite restaurant in central Glasgow, he tells the waiters that he is on day release from Barlinnie, Scotland’s most distinguished jail. He keeps it up, enjoying the initial puzzlement. Seated, he says he’s between two large meals, so won’t have much. “She who must be obeyed” — his wife, Catherine — had so decreed. The meal to come is with his large family of children and grandchildren; the gluttony past was yesterday’s magnificent dinner — of whisky-kippered salmon, beetroot, salsify and lemon, Dunlop (Ayrshire) cheese, bread and butter pudding, roast beets, leek porridge and rhubarb pie with cream — sent to him by the Sir Walter Scott society. Covid-19, which also must be obeyed, decreed they could not dine in a large group. He is due to give a speech at Edinburgh’s New Club later this year to mark the 250th anniversary of the great novelist’s birth.