Dr Elspeth King is a Scottish curator, writer and social historian. She is known for her role as curator of social history at the People’s Palace Museum in Glasgow, as Director the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, and for her scholarship on the Scottish Suffrage movement.
Taken at her final lecture as Director of Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum (2018)
She studied Medieval History at University of St Andrews. One of the reasons she chose that topic was because Scottish History was not a recognised topic which counted towards a degree. It was said to be too pariochial. You could only study it as a special subject in second year, there was no set eading list, you had to discover your own.
Recently she joined an online meeting of Glasgow P4Indy and talked about the importance of teaching and learning your country’s history. As she says in the talk:
It’s my belief those who know and write about the past can understand the present and shape the future.
And I know myself that the Scottish cause of independence has been held back by failure to teach Scottish history, literature & language in our schools. We have long suffered from what is known as internal colonialism and the well documented Scottish cringe whereby all our culture is regarded as inferior to our bigger southern neighbour.
You can listen to her talk and the Q&A afterwards here:
In 1974, King joined the People’s Palace, in Glasgow as a curator, where she remained for the next 16 years. During her tenure exhibitions such as Scotland Sober and Free, the 150th anniversary of the Temperance Movement, and Michael Donnelly’s 1981 exhibition of stained glass, gained record attendances.[2] The People’s Palace won European Museum of the Year in 1981 and the British Museum of the Year award in 1983.[3]
King left Glasgow to take on the role of director of the Dunfermline Heritage Trust[5][7], where she helped to oversee the restoration as a heritage centre of Abbot House,[8] the oldest secular building in the town.[9] Then 1994, she joined the Smith Art Gallery Museum in Stirling as its first Director, where she remained until her retirement in August 2018.[7]
Some years back the BBC interviewed Elspeth on Good Morning Scotland. You can listen to that here:
On 3 July, Glasgow P4Indy group hosted a digital meeting to hear Craig Murray speak about Ways Forward to Independence especially those avenues available to us internationally. After his talk Craig took questions from the meeting. Sixty people joined us for the event from all over Scotland.
You can listen to the talk and the Q&A here:
STOP PRESS: We have moved to a new mailing setup and there have been a few glitches. If you emailed us to send you the link to Craig Murray’s meeting but then you didn’t receive a reply from us, can you email us now to info@pensionersforindependence.scot. It will help us sort out the glitch and make sure we have you on our maillist. Thank you!
Our Greater Glasgow Group are meeting via Zoom every couple of weeks in this lockdown period. This week they invited Dr Tim Rideout to talk to about setting up a Scottish Currency. The video below isn’t from the meeting today but it’s pretty much the same talk. There is a shorter version of the talk at the end of this post.
Tim lays out a timeline for getting ourselves from a successful independence referendum to a Scottish currency operating in Scotland for Scots and Scottish business and in the international foreign exchange markets. Here is his timeline, taken from the Scottish Reserve Bank website The website has been set up by Tim and it has a lot of information on it. Setting up a reserve bank is one of the first steps on the timeline. Well, after the referendum has been won and the UK PM has acknowledged the result.
Thursday 9th September, 2021 – Scotland votes Yes in a second Scottish independence referendum.
Saturday 11th September, 2021 – UK Prime Minister concedes that Scotland has voted to leave the Union.
Last time that Royal Coat of Arms for UK will be seen. HM Government England and Her Majesty will have to change it appropriately.
Wednesday 15th September, 2021 – Westminster Parliament approves a Statutory Instrument to add Scotland to the Statute of Westminster 1931. This means Scotland joins Canada, Australia, etc., as countries for which Westminster will no longer pass legislation except with the full consent of the relevant Parliament, in Scotland’s case, Holyrood.
Monday, 4th October, 2021 – The Scottish Government introduces the Scottish Reserve Bank (Establishment) Bill into Holyrood, Stage 1.
2022 The Scottish Reserve Bank Act receives Royal Assent. The new bank occupies the old Royal High School Building in Edinburgh. The Bank’s President and Directors are appointed.
2023 Aims of the Monetary Policy Committee of Scottish Reserve Bank are agreed: First Priority: Full Employment; Second Priority: +/- 2% inflation
Mid 2023 Commercial Banks write to Scottish customers using a Scottish sort code or postal address to invite them to open a Scottish Currency account(s). Any other customers, eg., Scots in London or with English sort codes, may contact their bank to request a Scottish currency account. Companies apply to have sterling and Scottish currency accounts, card payment facilities, etc. Designs for Scottish notes and coins finalised after a national competition. Sent to De La Rue Plc for manufacturing.
Thursday 30th November, 2023 – Independence Day Queen Elizabeth I & II attends lowering of the Union Flag for the last time at Edinburgh Castle.
December 2023 Banks start to post new Scottish Currency bank cards and cheque books to clients.
Mid January 2024 Starter packs of Scottish Currency go on sale.
Saturday 27th / Sunday 28th January, 2024 Sterling account balances sold to the Scottish Reserve Bank. Replacement Scottish currency deposited to new accounts. Vending machines converted. Cash machines converted.
Monday 29th January, 2024 – Currency DayNew currency on public sale. New debit and credit cards go live.
Monday 4th March, 2024 Peg to sterling ends. ForEx trading starts. Bank charges apply to transactions.
December 31st, 2024 Scottish currency stands at £1.12, but more or less unchanged against the Dollar and Euro. Pensioner Guarantee in operation. Scottish Reserve Bank has £50 billion Foreign Reserves, now converted in a balance mix of Euros, Dollars, Yen, etc.
The article was published in the National on 28 May. We were asked to contribute to the series which they are running just now highlighting the groups who have received grants from the Scottish Independence Foundation.
Here’s the text of the article which was written by Alan Logue co-Convenor of our National Group.
Our age group had the highest proportion of those who rejected constitutional change in 2014. We reformed Pensioners for Independence in early 2017 because we considered that a group run by pensioners was better placed to put our message across, raise the issues that most concern us – especially those that failed to convince us to vote Yes in 2014 – and convince our peers of the benefits of constitutional change.
Edinburgh was the first group to be convened and after some months Greater Glasgow followed and some activities started in Aberdeen and Perth. Street stalls were run, speakers were arranged and local meetings held.
We were keen to spread out to other areas, so very soon a National Committee was created to focus on moving the organisation forward. Each local group sends representatives to this national coordinating group. Our website is set up so each group has their own page for their local news. We also set up central purchasing for materials that everyone can use. In March 2018 we had our first Inaugural General Meeting as a constituted national organisation
Our next step was to help build, coordinate and support more local groups. In early 2019 we approached the Scottish Independence Foundation and applied for funding detailing what we required and what we believed we could achieve with their support. The application was successful!. Thank you, SIF!
By this time we had a sizeable number on our website mailing list. Using that data to encourage clusters to start local groups, we liaised with those interested and organised local meetings to explain our objectives and what we could offer in the form of resources and initial funding to establish a group. As a result groups have formed in Ayr, Selkirk, Perth and Fife, Stirling and Clackmannanshire has held a first meeting to gauge interest and there is a very active group in Dumfries & Galloway which runs separate from our network.
We have also set up our own leaflet creation team for information on topics more closely related to our peer group, these are all on our website in pdf format for downloading, and encouragingly, our leaflets are now being requested by other Yes groups through our bulk purchasing arrangement.
As well as raising our profile in all the usual ways – stalls at rallies, street stalls, meetings, leafleting, attending and contributing to conferences and seminars- we have also set up an entertainment group,The Warblers, who take their concerts into sheltered housing, lunch clubs and local community centres. Two of our members in Glasgow were invited as guests on IndyLive Radio and were so good they are now co-presenters on the IndyLive Radio Team. And to further our influence, and as a constituted organisation, we have a representative on the Scottish Independence Convention. All this activity means we are increasingly well-placed to communicate our vision for an independent Scotland to those pensioners not yet convinced.
Our next step is to get involved with groups of the younger generation to exchange information that would be useful to both age groups in convincing each other of the positive benefits of constitutional change. Independence will be our generation’s present to their generation’s future.
At the moment, of course, active campaigning is being severely restricted. Video conferencing is now the method for meetings and discussions. As the current situation progresses we will have to rethink our campaigning methods. We will be more reliant on one to one conversations or in small gatherings as larger groups will likely be shunned.
But using our extensive mailing list, we have recently completed an exercise in sending leaflets out to those willing to distribute them in their own community. We need to build on this and encourage others to be more active in spreading the word. Using advertising / posters aimed at our peer group in the areas that would be most frequented might be another way to get our message across. As with other Yes groups, how we go about campaigning will be down to local conditions after the lockdown eases.
As our age cohort contains the highest proportion of those vulnerable to Covid19, we may be the last to emerge from this lockdown, and probably our anxiety about Covid19 will linger until there is a vaccine. Our Warbler’s visits to care homes etc. will very likely be restricted, our age group being the least users of social media, we have our work cut out – ideas on a postcard please.
Alan Logue, Co-convener National Pensioners for Independence
If you are interested in helping us, contact :-
info@pensionersforindependence.scot
Twitter: @Pensioners4Indy
Facebook: Pensioners for Independence National Hub
or write to the National and they will pass your message on
And once again, thank you, Scottish Independence Foundation for all the help you are giving to the independence campaign.
CommonWeal are starting a ReBuild initiative to address how we move forward post-coronavirus.
Here Mary McCabe tells us her thoughts on the subject:
There are two schools of thought about the world post Covid-19.
One: Plans to overhaul the system or to reform the constitution are navel-gazing. We must get back to where we were before considering radical change. If we ever do…
The Other: The place we were before, with the UK Government sacrificing Health and Social Care in England on the altar of profit, prioritising jingoistic wars over the war on poverty and ignoring the suggestions of the Scottish Government to take a different route was how we got in this mess.
