Greater Glasgow

It’s been four months since Glasgow P4Indy folk have done any street campaigning. We’ve had online meetings. We’ve had some really good speakers. And we’ve had more people coming to the line meetings than come to our usual monthly meetings in Glasgow city centre.

That all changed a day or so ago ….

Two of our group, Sheena Stephens and Mary McCabe, checked the coronavirus advice (and the weather forecast) and decided that it was OK to get outside and set up some of of our new banners. They tied them to the railings at Alexandra Park. And they set up a wee table with some leaflets. Mary and Sheena kept to the two metre distancing between themselves and any interested passers-by. But that still let them have some good conversations about where Scotland is now with respect to independence. Since then Sheena and Anna have taken a couple of the banners out to Milngavie and restarted our campaigning there – thanks, you two!

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Scotland Does Differently

Milngavie Banners

I set up a zoom meeting with Mary and Sheena so that I could ask them more about where the banners came from and how the outing went. Val Gauld, another Glasgow P4Indy member, joined us.

You can listen here. Just a heads up, Mary’s audio was playing up. I had to edit some of it out and insert me saying what she’d said. 🥴 We’ll need to get that sorted for next time.

One of our group put the photos on Twitter and on the P4Indy Facebook page. Now we learn that over 14,000 people have seen the tweet. Good to know that people are picking up on P4Indy activism and also that there seems to be an appetite to get out on the streets again. In a safe way, of course.

You can find out more about Grassroots Oban’s Banner Library And here are some of the banner designs in their collection. Use the < and > arrows to move through the slides or click on the thumbnails:

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Scotland Does Differently

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Scotland Voting History

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.

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 here:

And the Q&As after Craig’s talk are 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!