Chain of Freedom Pensioners for Independence

Chain of Freedom – We Did It!

Mary McCabe, of our Greater Glasgow group, organised our section on the Forth & Clyde Canal for the Chain of Freedom Event on 14th October. Here is her report back:

Mary writes:

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The Chain of Freedom on October 14th was more successful than we had dared to hope. And Pensioners for Indy played our part in it!

At the time I left the house to go to our allotted section 3E at Bishopbriggs, I had exactly 40 on my list. I was thinking well I don’t expect all 40 will actually turn up. If we get 25 that’ll be a good showing. In fact 54 turned up for our section! Not my figures: the count was carried out by Christian the official appointed steward for our section.

The weather was glorious and we looked and sounded cheery and lovely with our flags and banners strung along the bank of the gleaming canal.

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Rumours Are Spreading : Did Unionists try to sabotage the event?

Apparently there were  a few blank sections where nobody appeared. Mary heard that this was because Unionists (either human or bots) had registered by the hundred and filled up some of the sections thus stopping genuine activists from getting in. Next time – and there will be a next time of some kind – the organisers will be wise to the possibility of underhand tactics.


Thanks, Mary, to you and all your companions on Section 3E. Meanwhile on Section 2A at Knightswood and Clydebank in Glasgow more of our members were enjoying themselves. You’ll maybe recognise some of them in this clip.

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Our friends, Marlene and Fiona of the IndyPodcaster Team (they’re also members of Pensioners for Indy) have made this longer souvenir video of the event. It’s got more footage from Knightswood, some from near the Falkirk Wheel, from Bonnybridge, and from Kelvinhead, a drone’s eye view, and the Silent Clansman in his canoe!

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See you all next year! Because we’re sure the Chain of Freedom team are thinking about a possible follow-up event….

In Rutherglen with Pensioners for Independence

In Rutherglen with our Glasgow Group

As campaigning hots up in the Rutherglen & West Hamilton by-election, our Greater Glasgow group decided to take their stall to Rutherglen Town Hall this week and do a bit of independence campaigning themselves. This is them on Tuesday. It was busier than it looks!

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The Scottish Independence Podcast team joined us…

On Thursday we were joined by Marlene and Fiona of the Scottish Independence Podcast team (they are also in the Glasgow P4Indy group). They had a chat to some of us. Then they went off looking for other campaigners. They chatted to an Independence for Scotland Party supporter, found a Scottish Socialist Party stall, and managed to get a few minutes talking to Keith Brown of SNP on his way out to canvas for Katy Loudon. Here is the video report:

Yes Bikers at Govan

Death of a Yes Biker

Yes Biker Sandy McCracken

You may have heard about the tragic death of Sandy McCracken following a serious road traffic accident en route to the Kyle of Lochalsh Independence Rally.

Sandy McCracken, member of the Yes Bikers. Death of a Yes Biker. Scottish Independence Podcasts

Sandy will be escorted by his friends…

Yesterday morning the Yes Bikers escorted Sandy’s body from Govan, Glasgow down the M74 to the England border. Yes supporters were on some of the M74 bridges to wave him off.

The Scottish Independence Podcast team went along to Govan as the Bikers were gathering and watched them set off. Here’s their video of them. They’ve included some video from M74. And at the end you’ll see the Yes Bikers as they rode over the Kyleakin Bridge last month.

Scottish Independence Podcasts. You’ll find us on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Scottish Independence Podcasts

We have a good relationship with the Scottish Independence Podcasts team.

During the Covid lockdown when we moved to online meetings and talks, we asked them to take on producing podcasts from our events.

If you scroll down through our blog posts on this website you’ll find lots of really good talks and discussions from Glasgow and Edinburgh Groups. Those podcasts are also available on Google, Apple, Podbean and wherever else you get your podcasts. And if we recorded a video then the video is up on their YouTube channel. In all our talks and discussions have had over 5,000 downloads on these podcast channels.

All of that is down to the Scottish IndyPod team. So we thought we’d write this to say thank you and tell you a bit more about them. First thing to say is that they recently published their 800th podcast. And have just passed 250,000 downloads overall. Dedicated is the word that comes to mind!

This is a recent chat they had with Laura Pollock of The National

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You can sign up to their mail-list for advance notice of the podcasts. Click here.

Scottish Independence Podcast YouTube Channel

Although their main activity is creating audio podcasts, they have a YouTube channel called IndyPod Extra where they upload any video footage that they take. Recently they have been tackling the joys of outside recordings. If you go to the channel you’ll find footage from rallies in Skye (wet & windy), Ayr (windy & sunny) and most recently from Edinburgh (sunny and gorgeous). There is some great content and chats, eg two of their collaborators went to Loudoun in Ayrshire with the Saturday Saltire Group and our of that came a great chat about the Battle of Loudoun and Bruce’s victory of the Earl of Pembroke. Click on the image and you can tune into that one: 

Scottish Independence Podcasts

Scottish Independence Podcast Website

They publish a new podcast every Friday. It’s great being able to tune into their weekly podcasts. And as well as making sure those are available widely online, their website operates as a resource and archive. You can browse through the categories on the website. So say you’re interested in defence, you’ll find all the podcasts touching on that topic in one playlist. If you want to find out about ferries or freeports – cos let’s face it, Scottish ferries and freeports are touchy subjects in some quarters – then just click on their Infrastructure Category. Click on the image and have a look.

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Thanks again, IndyPodcasters!

Edinburgh Rally for Independence

Pensioners for Independence joined 25,000 other supporters of independence (figures from Edinburgh Polis) for the March down the Royal Mile to Holyrood and the Rally outside Parliament.

Here are some photos from our Glasgow Group

Were you there? If you were, send us your photos and we’ll add them here.

Another of the Glasgow Group was there as one of the Scottish Independence Podcast team.

Here’s their souvenir video.

Thanks to Believe in Scotland and Yes for EU for organising the event. You were brill. And you even got the sun to shine!

If you haven’t heard the speeches they will be available on Scottish Independence Podcasts on Friday 8th Sept.