(Embarrassingly, I hadn’t even noticed her name on the bill.) So I hung around outside talking to more lovely people, until suddenly there was a commotion and Nicola Sturgeon swept out. It was packed to the gunnels and strictly one-in, one-out. We had a blether, did a few more selfies and then I went in to the gallery where the event was taking place, but any hope of getting in was long gone. There was a tall young piper in full regalia outside the mall entrance, a guy with a Yes rickshaw and the splendid comedian Bruce Morton, all of whom spotted me right away. With the BBC protest and big events in other places like Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness, I figured it might be relatively sedate and I could bumble around, take in some art by the likes of Vonny Bravo, and maybe quietly say hello to a couple of people I knew would be there.įat chance of that. I’d wanted to go somewhere I thought would be fairly low-key, so I’d picked Women For Independence’s “Art For Aye” exhibition in the Shawlands Arcade, featuring speeches from Lesley Riddoch and Ruth Wishart among others. ![]() I did the piece (mostly just me droning on about Wings’ readership stats and the like) and checked Google Maps for my next destination, which was happily just around the corner. As I got there, they’d just finished uploading the first clip to YouTube, with Sunday Herald editor Richard Walker, which you can see below. I headed on to Central to catch my train to Shawlands, where I was doing a filmed interview for The Drum as part of a series for a documentary on the referendum. I didn’t see the start or the end of the parade, so had no way of judging the total numbers. I watched for a couple of minutes, counting roughly 1200 people passing me. There were no No supporters in sight, and the atmosphere was of a carnival. Drivers honked their horns and the crowd cheered. At the junction just before Central Station the traffic had to be stopped to let it cross the street. Scores of people on the opposite side of Argyle Street were filming it on their phones, sometimes clapping and offering shouts of support. It was in exuberant spirits, chanting “Independence!”, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and occasional bursts of “Flower Of Scotland”. ![]() As I neared the bottom of the road, by complete chance, the BBC protest march was passing. People in the street were wearing and carrying Saltires. I growled “Naw” at the two goons who tried to offload a leaflet onto me and carried on down towards Argyle Street, pausing to perplex a Yes chap giving out various things from cardboard boxes by noting “That’s a smashing-looking book you’ve got there”. About a hundred yards down were Anas Sarwar and eight or nine 10 Labour activists with a trestle table, trying – with very little success – to hand out No Thanks leaflets.Īnas was putting a brave face on it, but had his back to the middle of the street and wasn’t talking to anyone. ![]() (Admittedly I was conspicuously thumbing through the Wee Blue Book – partly scanning for surviving typos but mainly in the hope that people would say “Oh, I’ve heard about that” and I could use it as an opportunity to give them a copy.) I posed for a couple of selfies and ended up chatting to a very nice young mum, a former No who said she’d done the research and found out the facts and was now firmly Yes.Īt Queen Street Station I got out and turned onto Buchanan Street. On the train to Glasgow I got as far as Airdrie before being recognised by several unconnected people. The experience was a bit like going from 0-100mph in 0.5 seconds. My plan from yesterday until the referendum was to just wander around the central belt randomly on a whim, incognito, taking in the atmosphere and seeing how the debate really felt on the streets, far from the isolated VILE CYBERNAT CONTROL CENTRE in Bath. Somewhat to my surprise I counted 21 Yes houses to 3 No. The policy clearly didn’t bring the Tories the gratitude they’d hoped for. I got home on Saturday evening, and started with a wander around the former social-housing estate where my parents live, now bisected by walls and fences and hedges where people bought their houses under Right To Buy and privatised wee patches of once communal ground. Well, at least now I know how a bullet feels when it gets fired from a gun.
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