The only memorial to Sir Sean Connery, who died five years ago today, is a plaque outside the Edinburgh home where he grew up. For all his global success, the world’s most famous Scot continues to divide opinion in his homeland, writes Carlos Alba

Scotland isn’t good at dealing with heroes. We don’t mind creating them – so long as they conform to our “flawed genius” ideal – it’s just the sustaining of them where we tend to fall short.

We Scots love a good rags-to-riches story: the Fountainbridge milkman who went on to conquer Hollywood; the Glasgow shipyard worker who became the world’s most popular comedian; the schoolboy who survived the Dunblane massacre to win Wimbledon.

Our problem with them begins when they start to forget about the rags and appear to be enjoying the riches just a little too much.

Of all the tall poppies to have emerged from these parts, none has been cut down to size quite as ferociously as Sheena Easton.

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The Bellshill warbler put her head above the parapet this week to explain, in the New York Times, why she made a conscious decision to escape the “craziness” of fame nearly 30 years ago.

And nothing is guaranteed to preserve the integrity of one’s private life more than giving an interview to America’s biggest selling broadsheet newspaper.

For anyone too young to remember, it’s difficult to convey the level of celebrity enjoyed by Easton who was, for a time, one of the world’s most successful female recording artists.

The young housewife shot to global fame after appearing on the BBC documentary series-come-talent show, The Big Time, in........

© Herald Scotland