This is me, Marlene, on IndyLive Radio last week. I was a bit nervous about doing it but Norrie was very good at getting the ball rolling and keeping it rolling! Once I got into my stride, I really enjoyed it. I asked Val Gauld, our Glasgow Twitter person, along as well. As you can see she was tweeting as I was speaking. She joined in the chat, too.
Norrie asked me about how P4Indy got set up. Then I had lots of time to tell his listeners about our AGM, about our push to help new P4Indy groups get off the ground and the funding we have for doing that, about the street stalls we run in and around Scotland, and about the Warblers, our concert party.
I also talked about the low numbers, only about 1 in 4, of over 65s who supported Yes in the 2014 campaign, some of the factors involved in that, and how we might engage with those. It does seem from recent polling done at the end of 2018 that more of our age group are coming round to Yes and it’s more like 1 in 3 support independence. Still some way to go and as I said to Norrie, it’s to help push that figure up that I joined P4Indy.
The hardest question Norrie asked me was what song track I wanted to play as we took a wee break from speaking. I’m not much of a pop music fan but I lived through the 60s and 70s so I settled for a Beatles’ track. I suspect Norrie was humouring my very old choice! After that I got to present that week’s community announcements from The National. And I got to announce the “Walloper of the Week Award” which last week went to Labour MP Paul Sweeney for his rather over the top response to ScotGov’s wee video about us being open and welcoming country. He thought it was “smarmy, saccharine, bourgeois tripe”. If you want to find out what else the man said and what responses he got, look here.
They call their studio The Broomcupboard! Aye, it is pretty wee. I liked it but it must be hard for Norrie and Kevin to work there all the time. Kevin showed me a bigger space in the same building that he hoped to be able to move to. And I hear that has now gone ahead. These guys are working on a shoestring when it comes to funding. If you can help them with a few spare pounds, please do. This is their website: IndyLive Radio
I’m just back myself from being interviewed today (8/4/2019) on IndyLive. Kevin Gibney has plans for promoting Pensioners for Indy – he fully appreciates the need to get the message over to the older generation. The interview was co-hosted by Ken McDonald, the editor of the high-quality magazine i-Scot. We talked from about 12 noon till 1.45 (with musical interludes) about the growth and development of Pensioners for Indy: what the Edinburgh and Glasgow groups were doing, what Dumfries and Galloway were doing (White Rose Day) and Perth and Aberdeen. We discussed various ways of reaching senior citizens who live all over the community and so can’t be easily targeted. As well as our stalls I mentioned writing letters to the Press (especially Unionist newspapers) and of course the Pensioners for Indy Warblers and our musical gigs. I’m grateful to Brian Watson (himself a regular on our Pensioners for Indy Glasgow stall) for making the contact. (He was invited along to be interviewed about YES Bearsden and suggested they also talk to me as Co-convener of Pensioners for Indy). Thanks, Brian!