Scotland, p.1
Scotland, page 1
With thanks to Anne and Carol for their encouragement, corrections, and suggestions, and for proofreaders everywhere.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1 The Rock (1985)
Chapter 2 James (2020)
Chapter 3 Simon (2018)
Chapter 4 Isobel (2018)
Chapter 5 Kenny (IDay minus 8)
Chapter 6 Isobel (2022)
Chapter 7 James (2022)
Chapter 8 The Plan (IDay minus 1 year)
Chapter 9 James (2022)
Chapter 10 Richard (2022)
Chapter 11 Jack (IDay minus 8)
Chapter 12 Richard – Afghanistan
Chapter 13 James (2023)
Chapter 14 HMS Ambuscade
Chapter 15 Karen (IDay minus 1)
Part Two
Chapter 16 Jack (IDay minus 1)
Chapter 17 Kenny (IDay minus 7)
Chapter 18 Jack IDay
Chapter 19 Dumbarton Castle, IDay
Chapter 20 Bute House IDay
Chapter 21 Jack IDay
Chapter 22 IDay
Copyright
PART ONE
“I believe an independent country run by a government not much richer than the People has more hope than one governed by a big rich neighbour.”
Alasdair Gray
Chapter 1
The Rock (1985)
It was dark and raining. Glasgow rain – slightly sooty, slightly acidic, and wetter than water. She could taste it on her lips, feel it already soaking through the seams of her anorak. It had not been far from the student residence hall to the pub, and she had wanted to look her best so had resisted the urge to put the hood up. She had left it just a little too long and now she was going to look half drowned.
The warmth and the bright lights of the pub welcomed her. She took off her coat and shook it out, freed some wayward strands of hair that were stuck to her cheeks, and hoped they would dry out quickly. She ordered a Coke from the bar and joined a small group of students who had naturally coalesced together around a pair of tables. She was surprised that they were so early but pleased that she no longer needed to worry about no-one turning up except her and a couple of friends. She introduced herself and told the others that they would wait to see if anyone else arrived before getting started. She felt her nervousness slip away – it was going to be how she imagined, a group of like-minded people and sensible discussion.
Isobel had been at school at the time of the 1979 devolution referendum. One of her teachers had made the class study the proposal in detail and then discuss it. She and her classmates had been enraged at the result and the unfairness of the conditions that were imposed on it. They had formed a protest group, but it did not stretch beyond the school gates.
Several years later when she had moved on to university, she realised that, just like her schoolmates, a high proportion of all the new people she met were for a separation from England. This emboldened her to try again with a much wider audience. One of her friends had suggested The Rock – a pub not far from the university campus. And although known to everyone, it was not solely a meeting place for students, so she hoped to also attract other members of the public. Her friends helped her make up the posters that invited anyone interested in seeing a self-governed Scotland to attend at the pub on a weekday evening. Only one thing had changed during those intervening years; she no longer thought devolution was a good idea – full independence was the only way to go.
People continued to arrive in small groups, and some were noisy as though they had already had a drink or two. Isobel began to feel nervous again and she was glad that she had prepared some notes to start off the discussion. She was not expecting the forty or so people who turned up. They were mostly students from many different faculties at the university, along with some members of the public who had seen the posters and were easily spotted by being somewhat older than the students.
It was a tribute to her still developing force of character that she managed to quiet the hubbub and bring the meeting to some sort of order. She managed to get at least an introduction to the subject and some of her points from her notes across, but it soon developed into a shouting match as people started speaking over each other as though taking the opportunity to vent their anger and frustration.
The bar manager ushered her aside, and she noted wryly that her exit from the front had no effect on the meeting whatsoever. He explained that usually a group this big would have given some advance warning, and that his place, being a little outside the normal beat of the university, was not normally a ‘student bar’. He intimated that it was OK for now as the bar was doing good trade. ‘But,’ he had said, ‘they are annoying the other customers. Can you quiet them down a bit?’
She looked around the pub. There were several old guys playing dominoes, and a couple had paused in their game to light cigarettes and were watching the proceedings with a little more interest than the others. Several other regulars were sipping pints and reading newspapers at the bar. None of them seemed particularly annoyed, so she was about to object when a tall, sandy-haired student came up and offered to help her.
‘Hello, I’m Richard,’ he said, and she noted his posh accent. ‘Perhaps I can help you with the meeting.’
‘Isobel.’ She managed a smile. ‘And yes, please do, though I don’t see how.’ The manager left them to it.
Richard walked back to the front of the crowd, which had largely fragmented into small groups. Some were standing, while others had remained in their seats, and some with more than one person talking; others were just chatting to their friends. He pulled up a chair from one of the tables and stood on it. The noise died down substantially as people turned to watch, and gradually more and more followed their lead until the meeting was quiet except for one person talking animatedly to a group that surrounded him and were listening intently.
Richard called out in a loud voice. ‘Excuse me, yes, you there!’
The man stopped speaking and turned in his direction.
‘What you are saying seems interesting, so please now address the whole meeting. If you would stand and give your name first, that would be good. And listen, everyone, if you want to speak, hold up your hand and you will get your turn. We will get a lot more done if we all do this. Thank you. The floor is now yours.’ He gestured to the man, who stood up.
‘I’m James Sinclair, and I study Civil Engineering. I guess that may help explain what I was trying to say to this group here, which was basically that moaning about the unfairness of the referendum and how it was already set up to favour a no vote etc., etc., will not get us anywhere. We should be considering building something, and I don’t mean bridges.’ This raised a small murmur of laughter in the audience. ‘Whether that is a political movement or a campaign for another referendum – this time on independence, not devolution – does not really matter. What does matter is that whatever the next step is we should be intent on building something better than what we have now.’
‘Taking control by force is the only way,’ someone shouted.
A number of arms were raised, and several more shouted out trying to draw attention to themselves. A female student with long, dark hair caught Richard’s eye. She stood quiet and still with her hand raised to shoulder height. Richard stood back up on the chair and pointed at her. ‘You, make your point,’ and he raised his arms to quieten the others.
‘If we are going to talk full independence, then it has to be worthwhile. I agree that huge changes are needed to reform the present system. And I mean socially, as well as ditching the union, but I’m not sure we should be talking revolution just yet.’
‘Oh aye, yes! The third Jacobite!’ someone shouted.
A few others started a chant of ‘Scotland, Scotland,’ until Richard quietened them down and asked James to respond to the question.
‘Ah, OK, it wasn’t me who mentioned revolution,’ said James, ‘but it is a valid point and should be included in the list of possible ways to gain self-government. History and, for that matter, more recent times are full of examples where the only way to overthrow a government, especially one of a foreign power, was by armed insurrection. So it is perfectly possible that the only way to attain full independence may well require the use of force.’
There were a few cheers but not whole-hearted support for that idea.
‘Just to add that the possibility of that happening in the UK is extremely remote. There is no identifiable disadvantaged ethnic group that would support an insurgency or, for example, an exiled political party building up a rebellion outside the border. More importantly, there is no underlying loss of freedom or oppression to such a degree that would bring the mass of people out to support the venture. There is also no source of arms that could make that possible, as the UK has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, left over I believe from the fear of a general uprising in the 1930s.’
‘Except for the shotguns and hunting rifles of the landed gentry, and whose side would they be on?’ someone shouted.
‘There is one thing we do have,’ said Isobel, ‘and that is a deep sense of national identity. That has never diminished since the union, and that is what will power the drive to independence.’
‘Ok, we are getting sidetracked. Let’s move on. Next question.’ Richard selected another raised hand.
‘Don’t we already have a political party in the SNP, with exactly these aims?’
Isobel motioned to Rich
‘Our chairwoman Isobel will take that question.’
‘Perhaps I can answer that,’ she said. ‘The SNP has been around in some form or other since the 1930s, so that basically answers your question. I’m sure there are SNP supporters here and, whether they agree or not, it is clear to me that their time is running out and it is doubtful that they can ever take Scotland to independence. They have never had more than a handful of MPs at Westminster, so they are not going to change anything. We should not just want to separate from England for the sake of it.’
The student with the long, black hair added her voice. ‘And it has to be a better system of government; a better social structure, and an end to inequality of wealth. A Socialist Scotland, if you like.’
A small section of the crowd jeered at that, and one of their number shouted out, ‘You do know communism is dead, don’t you?’
Richard quieted them down with raised voice and outstretched hands.
‘I don’t think she meant that at all,’ said Isobel, ‘Socialism is not the same thing as communism. For socialist, think fairer. What I think they both meant was improvement over what we have. A superior system like, uh, James has already said. What would be the point of an independent Scotland with a British-style parliament and political system? We deserve something better.’
There was a sense of approval from the crowd, a scattering of applause, and a few shouted comments in support of the SNP. But with no clear questions, Richard decided to move on and picked an upraised arm that he had noticed before, and the discussion took another turn. As the evening grew later, the debate had begun to turn back to moaning about the unfairness of it all and a general anti-English sentiment, so Isobel decided to wind things up. She called a halt to the discussions, improvised a brief summary, and thanked everyone for coming.
The crowd started to drift away, some to the bar and some putting coats on and heading out. Isobel was chatting with Richard when the female student who had spoken several times approached them.
‘Hi, where do I sign up?’
Isobel was non-plussed for a moment, but Richard understood immediately. ‘Yes, good idea to get names and addresses.’ He tore off a sheet of paper from Isobel’s notepad and hurried over to the door, where he began asking people as they left.
‘Thanks, I should have thought of that,’ said Isobel, noting with a small twinge of jealousy that the girl had long, straight, lustrous dark hair and bright blue eyes that made an unusual but attractive combination. In stark contrast, she thought, to her own rather curly and mousy brown hair.
‘I’ve joined too many clubs!’ she said. ‘It seemed logical, and I’m really interested in being part of this. I’m Karen, by the way. Karen Black.’
‘Pleased to meet you, and I’m Isobel Anderson,’ she answered, turning over a page of her notes and starting a list on the back of it. ‘Add your address under your name, and a phone number if you have one.’
Several more people, seeing what was happening, had started to line up behind Karen, who finished writing then headed over to the bar. Isobel carried on taking names and addresses, and by the time closing time was approaching and the pub was emptying out, she had a list of twenty or so. Richard had gathered up some more at the door before retiring to the bar for a pint, where she spotted him.
She was heading over to him, hoping to get a drink as the barman had already called ‘Last orders’, when she was halted by a call from behind her. She turned to confront a man aged around fifty – he could have been older, as he had a worn and craggy face, was dressed in a rumpled brown suit with a broad pale pinstripe, no tie, and had a hard look about him. His right-hand fingers were stained with nicotine, and a half-smoked cigarette hung between them as though it belonged there. This was an older version of the sort of guy one avoided on a night out in the town.
She recognised him from the domino players earlier, and she thought at first that he was going to berate her for ruining his evening in ‘his’ pub.
‘Aye, hen,’ he said, ‘add me to yer list.’ His voice was gravelly hard and with a deep Glasgow accent to it that she found hard to decipher. It did not feel like a request.
‘Of course,’ she answered, and rummaged around in her bag until she found her notepad and a pen. She poised expectantly, but he reached out and took the pad from her. He scribbled his name and a phone number.
He handed it back. ‘Keep in touch, aye.’ He turned and left.
She saw he had written Jake and a phone number, which was unusual – there were not many phone numbers among the students.
The bar was almost deserted now but Richard was still there, so she leant on the bar beside him and ordered a half pint of cider. The barman nodded, and when he came back with it, he leant over towards her and said, ‘Be careful of that guy. He’s not someone to mess with.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘in what way?’
‘Just dodgy, you know. Runs a couple of hamburger vans round the West End, like “Wimpy-on-wheels” type thing, only he sells more than food if you get my meaning. He also supplies bouncers to some of the pubs,’ he laughed, ‘so if you need help with your next meeting, he may even be useful.’ The barman moved away, shouting, ‘That’s it, folks. Drink up. Closing in five.’
She turned to Richard and thanked him for his help in bringing the meeting to order and helping to keep the discussion as a debate and not a riot.
‘Oh, I don’t think it would have turned that bad,’ he said. ‘Was it what you hoped for?’
‘Good grief, no. I’m not sure what I expected, but definitely not that. A wee group having a drink and a discussion is what was in my mind! Sorry, I was totally unprepared for so many people, and I had no idea how to control the talkers.’
‘Shows strength of feeling about the issue, though, and right across the spectrum, from far right to socialist. What are we going to do with all these names?’ He took a carefully folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
The lights went out in the main part of the room, and the barman was standing pointedly at the door. Isobel had a last swig of her cider but had to leave some in the glass. The barman gestured for them to hurry, but all the same wished them a cheery goodnight as they left. They hesitated outside the pub; it was a drizzly, gloomy night, but the rain at least had eased off. The streetlights added a faint yellow haze to everything.
Isobel pulled up her collar against the cold and pointed to the right. ‘I’m in the halls, not far.’
‘I’ll walk you back. I’m in a flat a bit further on. We should decide what to do next.’
She wasn’t sure if that was a come on or not. She was a bit nervous, as there seemed to be a trend at the university for everyone to sleep with everyone else – a leftover from the 60s and 70s – but it was not something she felt a part of or wanted to be. She eyed him from the side; he seemed fine, and he walked with a respectful distance between them, although that should not necessarily make her feel any better.
She hated that feeling after a date where she had really got on well with a guy and then it all changed as he walked her home, and he expected the night to end in bed. She hated that conversation, which to be fair, was usually taken well, but often it resulted in some awkwardness and even occasionally in some nasty insults. It was as well to find out early, she always thought.
What almost always guaranteed a second date, she smiled to herself, was the boy taking charge, no awkward conversation, just a kiss on the cheek and a ‘hope we can see each other again’. She stopped herself; this was never a date. He was good looking in a tall, posh sort of way, and boy! did he have a posh accent. There was a certain self-assurance about him as well, especially in the way he had stood up on that chair. She was attracted to him, no doubt, but no, let’s not go there.
‘That’s a posh accent, almost English – don’t mean to be insulting – where are you from?’
‘Edinburgh, well originally. My father was in the Army, so we moved around a lot and I went to an English boarding school. Where I got my accent, I suppose.’
‘Wow! I’ve never met a public schoolboy before. I can’t imagine what it was like. Did you have to dress in tails?’
