Book review: Sir Sean the Scot – the rest is silence

Let's start with what this book is. It is packed with information and anecdotes about Scottish history and architecture, golf, football, film, comedy based on the parody that was Harry Lauder, the "Scottish cringe", acting and shipbuilding - reports The Scotsman.

There is a lot about the inertia, and occasional ill-will, of politicians thwarting not only Sean Connery's best efforts, but, as he sees it, Scotland's best interests. The sharpest barbs are for former Prime Minister Tony Blair and New Labour, but any organisation connected with arts funding fares no better.

Much of it is interesting and will give any newcomer to Scotland's story valuable snapshots of information, with the proviso that Murray Grigor's teeming thoughts tend to overflow.

Grigor? Yes, because this book might "have evolved over Sean's many discussions with Murray" – filmmaker, friend and fellow-Scot – as the introduction claims, but the man listed as "co-writer", with his well-stocked brain and polemical views, clearly has much to do with the content.

No bad thing for the reader, because he's a good writer when he can restrain the urge to over-elaborate. But to be borne in mind by anyone who has watched Connery deliver a speech without a script.

At coffee-table size the book also has hundreds of splendidly laid out, top-quality photographs, a selling point for which design and art director Teresa Monachino deserves the separate credit she gets.

What the book is not is an autobiography, a biography or any kind of revelation of the private life or thoughts of the actor who is one of the best-known faces in the world, still rated, at 78, one of the planet's sexiest men and with a career that has produced almost six million references on Google.

Fans will find nothing beyond the range of newspaper cuttings of the "real" Sean Connery as we get a brief opening outline of his progress from the milkman with the biggest round in Edinburgh – based on the number of people who now claim he delivered their pinta – through brief naval service, artists' model, coffin-polisher, semi-professional footballer and an unsuccessful Mr Universe contest, to early acting breaks and the jackpot of being James Bond.

Equally, critics will be pushed to find new ammunition. Certainly not from his personal life, although some have tried on the negative grounds that there is no mention of his first wife Diane Cilento and their stormy relationship with accusations of physical abuse, or their son Jason.

No surprise given the kind of book it is, where he lists his passions as Scotland, sport, and acting in that order. His second wife of more than 30 years, Micheline, features only occasionally, as does James Bond. He – and Grigor – have much more to say, and all power to them, on subjects such as tartan flummery, Scottish kitsch, Scottish myth and public gullibility.

The Da Vinci Code and bogus claims for Rosslyn Chapel, for instance, get a good kicking, as do Sir Walter Scott, fanciful fake lore about the Picts and modern architecture in Edinburgh – and the many politicians, civil servants and arts organisation grandees who have failed to share Connery's visions of what Scotland needs and what should be done, even when he was prepared to put up the money.

Like his good friend Billy Connelly – he has many famous friends and most get a mention – Connery dislikes a media which has criticised him for being an outspoken Scottish Nationalist while living abroad, for criticising monarchy then accepting a knighthood, for saying that a slap would do some women no harm.

There is no mention of these in the book, although he writes near the end: "For someone who is a private person who also happens to be a public figure, I am a very easy target. I've been accused of professing to give to charity to avoid tax. Yet I pay tax every time I work, both in the UK and the USA, although I receive no state benefits from either country as I live permanently in the Bahamas."

I think someone with a sense of irony would not have written that. There is another paragraph, referring to the Ossian poems – claimed as re-discovered ancient Scottish in 1760, proved as fakes, but remarkably popular abroad – when Connery/Grigor write: "Ancient Scots myths never die. They merely emigrate."

That's a thought.

Discuss this news here...