Referendum Day

Referendum Day

A misty autumn morning, golden leaves falling, Glasgow traffic a little quieter than usual.  A large, red sandstone secondary school, entrance sporting the understated small black and white notice ‘Polling Station’.   This is a well educated, relatively wealthy middle class area, near the University.  The tenement flats are large, comfortable.  Doors with stained glass, gardens well tended, metal railings neatly painted.  Built in Glasgow’s wealthy Victorian past.   ‘Second City of the Empire’, they called us then.  There is a row of shops on the main road – delicatessan, cafe, fruit shop.  This is comfortable Glasgow, far in soul if not in miles from the rambling chaotic 50’s schemes on the outskirts.

Pinning on my large blue and white ‘Yes’ badge, I start my 12 hour stint.  The role is to welcome voters, answer questions if any when asked, hand out leaflets if anyone wants one.  To ‘be the face of the ‘Yes’ campaign for the day.  We are not permitted within the building where the vote is taking place, so it’s standing on the pavement.  There are two ‘No’ reps there as well, leaning on the fence, red and yellow leaflets ready to go.  My leaflet is softer, more gentle.  Two open hands, an adult’s cradling a child’s, resting on a white blanket.  ‘Scotland’s Future in Scotland’s Hands’ it says simply.  ‘Vote Yes’.  

And so the day ticks on. Two policemen appear, lean on the wall, chatting.  People came in a constant stream.  Young families, cradling babies, clutching sticky little hands; old people, chatting to friends, some leaning on sticks; laughing teenagers, still in school uniform, students in fashionably torn jeans.  And the frail.  People who can hardly walk; one woman clearly very ill – pale, bandaged head, thin as a willow, leaning heavily on her friend; an old Asian couple, the wife slow and pained as she stumbles beside her husband.  Determined, so determined to vote.  Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.

I smile, wish everyone ‘Good Morning’, Good Evening’, ‘Good Afternoon’.  They take some leaflets.  I look after three dogs, two children, one baby, help someone up the ramp to the door, take photos for people.  One young couple take a tiny baby from his pram. ‘Will you take a photo of us?  We want to show him when he grows up.  It’s history you know’.  Some people walk towards the door, head down, looking at neither ‘Yes’ nor ‘No’ representatives.   

But many make their intentions clear – ‘Yes’ stickers, badges, rosettes, T-shirts.  They come bounding towards us – ‘I’m so excited!’ ‘This is it!’  ‘This is history!’  Their eyes are bright, their excitement palpable.  ‘Enjoy your vote!’ we say. Three times during the morning people ask us ‘What can I do to help?’ ‘What do you need?’’ ‘Anything I can do?’.  We send them to our local ‘Yes’ base to be deployed.  After voting, many come up to us. ‘How do you think it’s going?’ ‘Will we win? No – don’t tell me.  We have to win!’

Some ‘No’ voters also make intentions known – a scowl at us, nod to the others, the occasional small badge.  They are noticeably less effervescent.  They have an air of grim determination.  They are not happy and it shows.  

‘No’ seem to have trouble getting helpers out.  Their rep. is now alone.  It’s about 3pm and he has had no lunch, but no relief can be found for him.  I offer to get him a coffee but he declines.  I even offer to distribute his leaflets, but he wisely declines that as well – I suppose he doesn’t want them distributed into the bin.

A reporter turns up.  Interviews us.  Takes photos.  TV turn up – a documentary for BBC.  They make a young girl walk up to the door time and again, filming her from all angles.

About noon, a man appears – burly, about 6’, 18 stone, closely shaved head.  He stands a bit away, raises a purple megaphone to his mouth.  ‘Citizens of Glasgow’ he shouts, ‘Do not be intimidated. Vote NO!’  The police discuss this, and go into the building to take advice.  Official ‘No’ look concerned.  People scuttle past to vote.  He leaves after about an hour, returning after dark.  This time it is noticeable he shouts particularly at women who are alone, frightened in the shadowy street.  One woman, incensed, grabs one of our leaflets and fulminates volubly.  The police approach and tell him to quieten down, but after they re-enter the building, he starts again.  I ask if I can do anything, but am told it will only be portrayed that ‘Yes’ are trying to intimidate.  He is huge and male and about 40, I am small, female and 66.  But I am a ‘Yes’ supporter, and according to the ‘No’ dominated media, we intimidate people.  So I get the point.  

So what are my impressions as the heavy wooden doors slide shut at 10pm? 

Firstly, people were desperate to get their voice heard.  No disability, rushed diary, heavy shopping bag would stop them.  

Secondly, ‘No’ seem to be able to intimidate with impunity, because the media only carry stories of problems with ‘Yes’.  

Thirdly, ‘Yes’ has far more people offering help.  At the ‘Yes’ base, the organising genius scratched his head over where to send me.  Too many people, where to put them all?  ‘No’ seem to have far less helpers.  

Fourthly, and this will be the lasting impression for me, now poignant, was the joy, the anticipation, the laughter of so many of the ‘Yes’ voters.  The same atmosphere that pervaded the city last night.  People openly smiling at you, eyes gleaming, laughing easily.  We were going to build a new country, a new Scotland, one where the vulnerable could be our priority, where the rich and powerful would not twist everything out of shape.  Where Scots of all colours, shapes and sizes would be welcomed.  Where we could take our cheerful place in the world, and be known as just who we are, Scots, and not have to constantly explain.  Where there would be no Establishment of People of Power and wealth 400 miles away, who do not understand us and who do not have the interests of quirky, thrawn, mischievous, big-hearted Scotland as any sort of priority.  Where the dark shadows of black submarines would not drift silently through our beautiful misty lochs.  Where our resources would be our own to use to grow our country.

And it was taken away.  We took it away from ourselves.  As Scots so often do, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  

They sent some of our own to bully and cajole us.  They controlled the media – every paper except a Sunday one supported ‘No’.  Research by a Professor of Media proved BBC bias.  They persuaded people all over the world to tell us we were not entitled to our own country – President, Leaders, the Pope, the famous – all coincidentally suddenly realised this tiny country was on the planet and ought to be told not to be.  Keeping apart from another country’s democratic process suddenly was forgotten.  You could interfere in ours and nobody minded.  

Then they called in the supermarket bosses to No. 10.  ‘Your weekly shopping will cost you more’ they told the poor.  The people who sold them horse meat last year.  And not true, as they admitted later.  They called the banks in.  ‘All your banks will leave.  You’ll lose your jobs’.  They leaked this while the Bank’s boardrooms were still in discussion.  And it wasn’t true, as leaked emails proved.  ‘Your pensions will fall’ they cried.  The Pensions department said not true, but still they repeated it, in leaflets through our doors, huge hoardings, TV ads.  They terrified the elderly poor, people who often couldn’t use the internet to check the truth, people who had been brought up, as I was, to respect and believe authority.  Relentlessly, they turned the screw on the most vulnerable.  They made promises they knew they could not keep, and 12 hours after the result, they began to renege.  To watch the Establishment in action is a terrifying thing.  

But they need our oil, they need renewables, they have nowhere else to house Trident.  You cannot put it in Falmouth, they say, because it is beautiful and heavily populated.  Glasgow is 30 miles away?  Is it indeed?  Imagine that!

In the face of all this and more, it is truly astonishing that we got 1,600,000 Scots to be prepared to say ‘Yes’.  It was against every possible expectation.   

They say we won really because now we will be more united.  With whom?

But they took our hope and our joy.  

45% of us could clearly see our new Scotland.  We knew it would be difficult but we knew we could do it.  For our kids.  For our grandkids.  

The Unionists took over George Square last night.  I heard from someone who was there.  The ‘Yes’ folk were meeting to meditate together.  They took off their badges and rosettes, their T shirts and stickers, folded their flags and quietly left.  The Unionists burned the Saltire and mounted police intervened.  The newspapers reported it.  Said the ‘nationalists’ had rioted.

My daughter wept in my arms today.

This is not over yet.

Meg Lindsay, 19/9/14