Flag expert: The use of the Union Jack has never been so positive in Scotland

He also shows me the coat of arms he’s created for his family featuring a phoenix (to represent his other job in the aerospace industry) as well as a flag that stands for idealism. Tibbetts says the flag is a jokey nod towards his love of Doctor Who. If you’re true to your ideals, he says, you will never die, you will always be regenerated.

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Day to day, Tibbetts' main responsibilities at the Court of the Lord Lyon are to help communities create their own flags (new flags for East Lothian and Sutherland were unveiled last week); he also deals with inquiries from the public and organisations that are interested in creating a flag. The Court of the Lord Lyon, based just off Princes Street, is mainly responsible for recording and protecting coats of arms as well as Scotland’s national symbols (the saltire is registered here), but it is also there to help create new ones. And, according to Tibbetts, there is an increasing interest in doing so.

The most obvious example has been communities like Caithness and Orkney creating flags, and Tibbetts thinks there are a number of reasons for this trend. “Partly it’s the way the world is,” he says. “The more global the world becomes, the more important it is to understand your place in it.” He cites the example of the flag of Barra, which gained prominence after the death of 14-year-old Eilidh MacLeod in the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in 2017. The flag was draped over Eilidh’s coffin when her body was repatriated to the island for her funeral and there is a campaign to have it officially recognised.

Tibbetts also believes there is something particular about Scotland that makes us value symbols of identity. “There are two things in Scotland,” he says. “You have a clan-based sense of identity. Also, there are hundreds of tartans and that has encouraged a deep and healthy sense of identity - Scotland isn’t just one thing, it is so many things underneath that build up to make this rich picture. There are a number of places that have a really strong national identity but it’s almost like it’s built on sand – there’s very little underneath it. Whereas in Scotland it really is built on these strong foundations.”

Tibbetts sees his job as building on these foundations further and clearly loves what he’s doing. The 34-year-old admits to me early on that he’s always had a geeky interest in heraldry. “I’m a massive geek,” he says, “and the more I talk, the more like Sheldon Cooper I’m going to sound.” Growing up in Halesowen near Dudley, he specifically remembers falling in love with Doctor Who. “My parents introduced me to Doctor Who when I was eight hoping it would keep me away from sex, drugs and rock and roll,” he says, “But by the time I was 18 they were desperately hoping I would start to develop an interest in sex, drugs and rock and roll!”

Eventually, he moved to Scotland to study philosophy at St Andrews University, where he established a Doctor Who society and met his future wife. He also began to develop his interest in heraldry, working on the university’s graphic design team and developing a Tibbetts tartan that he could wear when supporting his wife who's a Scottish country dancer. “That triggered me on to thinking, how do you develop these symbols?” he says, “How do you make them useful?”

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Tibbetts has worked on those questions for about ten years, developing symbols for local communities before he was appointed to his new post at the Lyon Court in August. He’s now the go-to man on flags in Scotland, a kind of human wikipedia that you can fire questions at. I give it a try. Which is correct: Union flag or Union Jack? Both are correct, he says. What about the lion rampant – what’s the status of that flag? Officially, he says, it’s a royal symbol that should only be flown by a representative of the crown. But he says he’s not about to try to enforce that rule at Hampden on match day.

I have another question: how aware is he of the negative side of flags and how do we ensure the symbols he loves don’t become a bad influence? Has he ever reflected on the problematic side of flags?

Of course he has, he says. “It’s like any tool – it can be mis-used and by making more of tools that can be used negatively, am I doing a bad thing? It comes down to the system of using flags. If you were to focus solely on one flag, that’s when the most toxic, negative elements come out. Whereas I’ve seen places that start putting up their county flag and the Scotland flag and that’s where you get the more pluralistic approach.”

“A lot of the flags that are negative are political in origin,” he adds, “whereas what I’m trying to do is work with communities that don’t necessarily have any formal symbols to encourage the positive side. It would be easy to walk away, and say ‘there’s the ability to use these things for evil so no flags’. But that’s not going to happen so without encouraging the positive, there will always be a negative.”

So what are his impressions about the status of the Union flag in Scotland? For many Scottish nationalists, it’s a negative symbol, but Tibbetts has a different take. “I’ve found the Union Jack to be on the whole a fairly positive symbol,” he says. “And I think if anything has done anything positive for the Union Jack, it’s the 2012 Olympics.” He is aware, of course, he says, that there are political connotations to the Union Jack if you are looking through a particular prism, but he believes the flag has never been so positively used as it is now, even in Scotland. “The Union Jack is alive and well,” he says, “because it isn’t just a flag anymore - it’s a pop culture icon. If the United Kingdom stopped existing for political reasons, or if it just sank into the sea, the rest of the world would continue using the flag.”

Tibbetts has a similar positive impression of the saltire, and he feels it personally as a man who was brought up in England but has many connections to Scotland and now lives and works here.

“I still find the saltire very positive,” he says. “It’s the symbol of Scotland and now I have a Scottish wife and a Scottish daughter, so I think of myself as very tied to Scotland. I will use it and I do use it and I encourage everyone to use it.”

In fact, Tibbetts, the go-to man on flags in Scotland, has a kind of mantra about the saltire that he thinks we should all stick to. He can’t control who uses the flag, he says. But he can control how he uses it. “It almost doesn’t matter how other people abuse it,” he says. “It’s my flag. This is our symbol.”

Career high

The registration of the Caithness flag has been a key success. This was the first mainland community flag in Scotland.

Career low

In my very first flag campaign after promoting my own design, a flag that failed several flag design basics (such as having no wording) was chosen. However, this was a good early lesson as it taught me that it was more useful to promote good design principles and to provide communities with the tools to develop their own symbols.

Favourite music

The Moody Blues - I love the progressive, symphonic sound and their themes of philosophy and child-like wonder.

Last book read

Since the birth of my daughter last year I’ve struggled to finish any book and even read any fiction at all. So it’s of little surprise that the last book I completed was reading to her. This was Thomas & Friends' Hooray for Thomas, which we both loved. Ysobel loves the lifting flaps and pop-up sections and I like the surprising bits of science and engineering that it is teaching.

Favourite film

Ghostbusters. It’s such a fun sci-fi premise that’s both funny and deep enough that makes it not only easy but rewarding to rewatch.

Best advice you’ve ever received

Recognise the importance of good mental health. Especially when working in any medium you enjoy, or are an expert in, when criticism can feel particularly personal, stinging or ignorant.

Ideal dinner guests

Verity Lambert - as the first ever female producer at the BBC it took great vision and perseverance to deliver the original run of Doctor Who. The programme has led me to some of my strongest friendships and to meeting my wife. Professor Elemental, the steam punk stage persona of Chap-Hop rapper Paul Alborough. Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, an important figure in the development of the Lyon Court. And Ysobel Stewart of Fasnacloich, one of the two co-founders of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. She also supported the Girl Guides and she’s the lady after whom my daughter is named.