MAYBE Theresa May’s United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union, but that is not the experience of many others (May gives grounds as she prepares for EU transition deal, The National, September 23).

I was born and brought up in Shetland, which is much nearer to Europe geographically and culturally than many like Theresa May, raised in the south east corner of England, realise.

As teenagers growing up during the Cold War we mixed with fishermen from all over the politically divided east and west of Europe and found that we had more in common than divided us.

It is not so long ago that my own grandfather and others had to fight through the courts for 40 years to reclaim the right to graze their sheep on the hill scatald from the local laird.

To many of us the United Kingdom is much more closely associated with clearances, absentee landlords and suppression.

Maggie Jamieson

South Queensferry