JO GRIMOND, the Liberal Party leader from 1956 to 1967, was asked to give the name of his nearest railway station on a form for parliamentary expenses — or so the story goes. Being the MP for Orkney and Shetland, he reportedly wrote “Bergen, Norway.”

Norway’s imperial control of parts of Scotland waned after the inconclusive battle of Largs in 1263, after which King Haakon retreated to Orkney — which, along with Shetland, remained under Norwegian sovereignty until 1468.

But that was not the end of the affinity felt with Scandinavia north of the border. Many Scots words still in common usage — such as bairn and midden — derive from Old Norse. And more recently Scottish crime writers and screenwriters have placed themselves in the tradition of Nordic noir rather than the English golden age of fictional murder.

Yet since 2014, there has been no ferry link between Scotland and Scandinavia. There is not even a regular means of transport from the Shetland Islands to the Danish-controlled Faroes.

Thankfully, that could be about to change. Falkirk MSP Angus MacDonald will call today for the direct link to be reinstated.

“Last year was a record year for overseas tourists — with visitors from Europe flocking to get their share of Scotland’s rich culture and heritage,” the SNP parliamentarian said.

“I have no doubt that a ferry link [from] Aberdeen, Rosyth or elsewhere would be fantastic for Scotland’s booming tourism industry.”

And he pledged to “work with ferry operators and the Scottish government to make this route a reality.”

His call is likely to receive cross-party backing. The key barrier is whether ferry operators will take up the challenge — or if they think a tidier profit could be made by deploying their resources elsewhere. Which begs the question of whether this could be a prime opportunity for state innovation.

Ferries have been getting a bad press this week — with Seaborne Freight given the £13.8 million contract for Ramsgate to Ostend freight ferries in the event of a no-deal Brexit. That’s in spite of the company having never run ferries, owning no ships.

Scotland, however, already has a state-owned ferry operator: CalMac, which operates shorter-distance routes to the Western Isles. It would need new ships for the Scandi route, but at least it didn’t — unlike Seaborne — copy and paste its terms and conditions from a pizza takeaway’s website.

Will the SNP government, forever keen to emphasise Scotland’s Nordic credentials, seize the moment? Given it tried to franchise out CalMac to the private sector not so long ago, and is resisting calls to renationalise the Northlink ferries to Orkney and Shetland, I’m not holding my breath.