After the Weigh-in
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Swearwords: None.
Description: The long and winding road to Scottish independence.
_____________________________________________________________________
I didn’t get to vote YES in the end. I was in Scotland on the 14th but I was in no condition to even fill in a postal vote. On the fifth of August I had a smash on the A9 while I was driving back for my wee girl’s fourth birthday and I was in a medically induced coma until a few days ago. I was dreaming that strange voices were calling my name and then I heard my wife so I opened my eyes.
It was like one of those old movies where the bad guys are first seen as grey ghostly shapes that gradually resolve into real people. At that stage I saw my wife, with tears running down her face, and a bunch of folk in white congratulating each other.
“Hi Margaret, how was the party,” was what I meant to say but even I could tell that what came out was unintelligible.
“I’m really sorry I missed it,” must have been clearer because she asked: “Missed what?”
One of the strange voices chipped in:”He probably means the referendum. He was quite involved, wasn’t he? He wrote articles about it, I remember.”
Strangely enough my mind seemed to me quite clear. I just could not understand what the other people were saying. I was delighted that Margaret was not mad at me for missing the wean’s party but I reckoned that the white coats implied doctors so I assumed I had been hurt. Margaret was hugging me but gingerly, if you know what I mean, as if I was fragile.
I tried to hug her back but my arms wouldn’t do more than twitch. I wiggled my fingers and toes and grimaced and, as far as I could tell, everything was working.
“Are you in much pain, love?” Margaret asked in a gentler voice than she had used since she first saw Kirsty in the delivery room. I was getting really concerned by this time!
Margaret gave me a kiss and then stood up and I moved my head to follow her until another face took her place. This was a big, friendly looking man with grey hair surrounding a young face.
“How are you feeling? Any pain or discomfort?”
“I’m fine except that my muscles seem to have melted. Did you say the referendum was over?”
He laughed, as did several other people in the room. He explained that I had been kept in a coma until my brain had recovered from the accident. They had stimulated my muscles as well as they could but I would need a lot of physiotherapy before I felt fit to challenge for a place in Strachan’s team.
“What is the last thing you remember before today?”
So I told him that I had been writing a piece about how the upgraded A9 would affect the fishing communities on the Moray Firth. I posted the email to my editor just after ten o’clock and was heading on autopilot for the bar when I thought that if I left at once I could be in Glasgow by the early hours. I had faithfully promised that I would be home for Kirsty’s fourth birthday. Of course I wanted to be there for the kid’s sake but Margaret had made it clear that failure to attend for the third year in a row might lead to separation and divorce.
Not that attending a birthday party was that big a deal but it was a culmination of a lot of things, not least my dedication to the YES campaign. I could have been on time even if I had waited until morning to drive home but my self-control when faced with alcohol was not to be relied on. I went back to my room, packed, checked out and was on the road shortly after eleven.
“I remember getting into the car. It was a blustery night with rain squalls that hit you like needles. I turned the heater full on and then … nothing until I heard you telling me to wake up.”
Next morning Margaret came in with Kirsty. I was propped up on pillows and most of the tubes around my face had been removed. I still had a drip in my arm for fluids in and a catheter for fluids out but I don’t think I looked too frightening.
When I apologised to Kirsty for missing her birthday she looked puzzled. Margaret asked her to tell me her big news.
“I’m starting school next week, Daddy!”
“But I thought you didn’t start until Easter.”
“Silly Daddy! It was Easter last week.”
“Are you staying in a hotel?” I asked Margaret.
I thought my coma had lasted a week or so but I had been out for nearly eight months! I had assumed that I was in hospital in Inverness but it turned out I was in the Southern General in Glasgow. I felt disorientated for the first time since I woke up. The world had kept spinning but I had stayed still: I was suddenly scared witless!
Fortunately, Kirsty kept chattering and I found her enthusiasm drew me into her world. Margaret noticed my moment of panic; she squeezed my hand and mouthed ‘I love you’. After that I began to feel better. My wife and daughter were clearly pleased to have me back so I could catch up with the rest of humanity in time.
I was sitting up in a chair beside my bed in a few days, taking ‘solid’ food that was nothing but mush. It reminded me of mashed bananas my mother used to make for sandwiches – I liked to spoon the remains out of the bowl. My bed was now fitted as a mini-gym so I could begin to rebuild my muscles. I expected to find the physiotherapist too tough but I was so determined to get back on my feet that he spent much of his time telling me not to overdo things.
With my family life looking wonderful and my body getting stronger, I began to fret for news of Scotland. I knew that the vote had been YES but I wanted all the details. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what would happen after the 14th: I wasn’t so naïve that I expected Cameron to meet Salmond on the outskirts of Berwick on the 15th to hand over a bunch of keys.
I suppose I pictured it like buying your council house. You agreed a price – that was the referendum – then you found a mortgage and discussed things like your right to resell. There must be hundreds of links between Scotland and England that would have to be untangled. Perhaps it would be more like an operation to separate Siamese twins where vital organs were shared.
It seems to be my nature to fret so the doctors allowed my old editor to visit me to tell me the developments. He had retired two years before to write a novel but he spent more time in the newsroom than in his study at home.
“I’m still gathering material for the book,” he would tell us.
So he told me how the Westminster leaders had accepted the decision of the Scottish people with ‘great regret’. He had been War Correspondent in his youth and he was always at his best describing battles. His tale of the approaching general election was entertaining and often funny.
Of course, you lived through all this but I missed it so I make no apology for writing it down.
Cameron announced that Scottish constituencies would not vote since the country would no longer have a right to representation in Westminster. Milliband countered that Scottish MPs should continue to represent their country’s interests until the exact terms of the treaty of disunity, as my editor called it, was signed and sealed.
The debate was a power struggle, of course. Without the Scottish seats Labour had no chance of forming a government unless UKIP split the Tory vote. The leaders reached a compromise allowing Scottish members to take their seats but forbidding them to speak or vote on matters of interest only to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. “Try to make that work!” my editor said.
Perhaps it was the imminent Westminster elections prodding them but Cameron and Miiiband quickly agreed that the way forward was to appoint a Royal Commission. He brought me that wonderful picture from the Sun showing Salmond on the left and Cameron on the right of the Queen who was smiling at a distinguished man with silvery hair. The caption read: ‘Who’s He?’
He was an experienced Canadian diplomat who was to chair the Royal Commission. Nowadays only passing Martians and me do not know Henry Smith. He set up shop at the end of November by inviting interested parties to make a declaration of interest. The response was overwhelming: it seemed that every country in the world and at least half the multi-national companies wanted to be involved.
At the national level Henry quickly resolved that Scotland, England and the European Community should have full rights to represent their interests. All other countries could send observers who might, at the chairman’s discretion, be invited to address him. Only those multinationals employing two or more percent of the Scottish working population would be represented with the others designated observers.
There had never before been a commission exactly like this. Other countries fought for independence with guns, not through the ballot box. During the fighting demands were made and outside influences were courted by both sides so that by the time peace had been negotiated pretty well everyone knew where they stood. No one had bothered to say what exactly Scotland wanted: independence from England, of course, but that left a huge amount of open territory for discussion.
At a more local level, the border counties of England sought representation at the commission. Mr Smith shut up shop for a few days while he thought about this. In a judgement of Solomon he decreed that they would be officially recognised when matters affecting boundaries were considered but at all other times would be observers. This judgement was delivered at about four in the afternoon and the chairman was about to adjourn for the day when a very senior Scottish advocate rose and was recognised.
“I represent the people of Orkney and they wish to be recognised when boundary disputes are discussed.”
Henry Smith looked a bit taken aback and exchanged looks with his team before allowing the advocate to continue. The vote in the referendum had not been uniform. In the central belt the majority was 60-40 YES; the further north you went the smaller was the margin until you reached Orkney where the vote had been 54-46 NO.
The Orcadians wanted to remain part of Great Britain. As their advocate pointed out they were further from Holyrood than Holyrood was form Westminster. One of the main planks of the YES campaign had been that Westminster was too remote from Scotland to understand its problems.
If this was true for Scotland as a whole, and he was inclined to think it was, how much more did it apply to the small group of islanders so remote from Edinburgh. He reminded everyone that the British government had gone to war to guarantee the right to self-determination of an even smaller group of people in the South Atlantic.
The strategic position of the Orkneys is so important that the islands cannot be allowed to stay with Britain. Much of Scotland’s oil would remain in English hands if Orkney seceded from Scotland. The Royal Commission has listened to all the arguments and will give a judgement in due course.
The next furore came when the barrister representing the Westminster Ministry of Defence proposed that an area from Cardross to Arrochar and from Loch Lomond to the Cowall Hills together with the waters of Loch Long, Gareloch and the Clyde Estuary from Bowling to the sea would be sovereign territory. It would remain part of Britain and would be administered from Westminster.
He expressed himself surprised at the reaction of the Scottish parliament.
“It is an elegant solution,” he declared with every appearance of sincerity. “Scotland wishes to be a nuclear free country and it would be cripplingly expensive to relocate the nuclear facilities centred on Faslane. Making the designated area a possession of the Crown meets both requirements.”
My own pet project was also the subject of unlooked for dispute. Early in 2014 the Westminster treasury said that the Scottish parliament would be able to issue bonds. It was quickly agreed on all sides that making the A9 dual carriageway was an appropriate target for the extra funding. I think that my series of articles on the subject had some influence but I was preaching to the converted.
The need for better links with Inverness was widely accepted as essential to the growth of the Scottish economy. The plans were detailed and approved. In fact the only hold up was the need to win Westminster approval of funding in the face of competing claims for projects elsewhere in the country. A Scottish bond would effectively move the A9 to the top of the list of priorities.
During my snooze teams from both treasuries had been working hard so that the bonds could be issued when it became legal to do so in 2015 (I have to keep reminding myself that this is 2015!) A broker had been asked to sound out potential buyers. The offer was to be made at one percentage point above the treasury rate. Then last month the secretary of the US treasury visited Aberdeen to talk to American oil workers. He made a fairly bland speech to a press conference respecting Scotland’s right to self-government and praising the contribution Scots had made in his own country.
He was asked by an English journalist if the USA would buy the A9 bonds. He answered that it would depend on the interest rate. A Scottish journalist suggested that the interest rate was known.
“I understand that the rate was agreed while Scotland was part of the United Kingdom. Without backing from the UK treasury I would not consider buying at less than twice the interest rate proposed.”
Suddenly the rather meandering discussions on Scottish currency that had been dragging on become central to our survival. We were happy enough being paid in sterling and spending it in the shops but unless we become part of a larger block such as the pound or the Euro we will have to establish our international credit rating from scratch!
I will soon be fit to re-enter the battle. When I was put to sleep I thought that the referendum was the only thing that mattered – an end in itself. Now I am awake to the fact that it was just the bell for the start of round one. It will be a long and bruising battle to make Scotland truly independent.
I see the opinion polls show that we would vote NO if we were given the chance again. Maybe we should have waited a year or two before forcing the issue but now we have cut the tie let’s get on with transforming Great Britain into Great Scotland.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The long and winding road to Scottish independence.
_____________________________________________________________________
I didn’t get to vote YES in the end. I was in Scotland on the 14th but I was in no condition to even fill in a postal vote. On the fifth of August I had a smash on the A9 while I was driving back for my wee girl’s fourth birthday and I was in a medically induced coma until a few days ago. I was dreaming that strange voices were calling my name and then I heard my wife so I opened my eyes.
It was like one of those old movies where the bad guys are first seen as grey ghostly shapes that gradually resolve into real people. At that stage I saw my wife, with tears running down her face, and a bunch of folk in white congratulating each other.
“Hi Margaret, how was the party,” was what I meant to say but even I could tell that what came out was unintelligible.
“I’m really sorry I missed it,” must have been clearer because she asked: “Missed what?”
One of the strange voices chipped in:”He probably means the referendum. He was quite involved, wasn’t he? He wrote articles about it, I remember.”
Strangely enough my mind seemed to me quite clear. I just could not understand what the other people were saying. I was delighted that Margaret was not mad at me for missing the wean’s party but I reckoned that the white coats implied doctors so I assumed I had been hurt. Margaret was hugging me but gingerly, if you know what I mean, as if I was fragile.
I tried to hug her back but my arms wouldn’t do more than twitch. I wiggled my fingers and toes and grimaced and, as far as I could tell, everything was working.
“Are you in much pain, love?” Margaret asked in a gentler voice than she had used since she first saw Kirsty in the delivery room. I was getting really concerned by this time!
Margaret gave me a kiss and then stood up and I moved my head to follow her until another face took her place. This was a big, friendly looking man with grey hair surrounding a young face.
“How are you feeling? Any pain or discomfort?”
“I’m fine except that my muscles seem to have melted. Did you say the referendum was over?”
He laughed, as did several other people in the room. He explained that I had been kept in a coma until my brain had recovered from the accident. They had stimulated my muscles as well as they could but I would need a lot of physiotherapy before I felt fit to challenge for a place in Strachan’s team.
“What is the last thing you remember before today?”
So I told him that I had been writing a piece about how the upgraded A9 would affect the fishing communities on the Moray Firth. I posted the email to my editor just after ten o’clock and was heading on autopilot for the bar when I thought that if I left at once I could be in Glasgow by the early hours. I had faithfully promised that I would be home for Kirsty’s fourth birthday. Of course I wanted to be there for the kid’s sake but Margaret had made it clear that failure to attend for the third year in a row might lead to separation and divorce.
Not that attending a birthday party was that big a deal but it was a culmination of a lot of things, not least my dedication to the YES campaign. I could have been on time even if I had waited until morning to drive home but my self-control when faced with alcohol was not to be relied on. I went back to my room, packed, checked out and was on the road shortly after eleven.
“I remember getting into the car. It was a blustery night with rain squalls that hit you like needles. I turned the heater full on and then … nothing until I heard you telling me to wake up.”
Next morning Margaret came in with Kirsty. I was propped up on pillows and most of the tubes around my face had been removed. I still had a drip in my arm for fluids in and a catheter for fluids out but I don’t think I looked too frightening.
When I apologised to Kirsty for missing her birthday she looked puzzled. Margaret asked her to tell me her big news.
“I’m starting school next week, Daddy!”
“But I thought you didn’t start until Easter.”
“Silly Daddy! It was Easter last week.”
“Are you staying in a hotel?” I asked Margaret.
I thought my coma had lasted a week or so but I had been out for nearly eight months! I had assumed that I was in hospital in Inverness but it turned out I was in the Southern General in Glasgow. I felt disorientated for the first time since I woke up. The world had kept spinning but I had stayed still: I was suddenly scared witless!
Fortunately, Kirsty kept chattering and I found her enthusiasm drew me into her world. Margaret noticed my moment of panic; she squeezed my hand and mouthed ‘I love you’. After that I began to feel better. My wife and daughter were clearly pleased to have me back so I could catch up with the rest of humanity in time.
I was sitting up in a chair beside my bed in a few days, taking ‘solid’ food that was nothing but mush. It reminded me of mashed bananas my mother used to make for sandwiches – I liked to spoon the remains out of the bowl. My bed was now fitted as a mini-gym so I could begin to rebuild my muscles. I expected to find the physiotherapist too tough but I was so determined to get back on my feet that he spent much of his time telling me not to overdo things.
With my family life looking wonderful and my body getting stronger, I began to fret for news of Scotland. I knew that the vote had been YES but I wanted all the details. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what would happen after the 14th: I wasn’t so naïve that I expected Cameron to meet Salmond on the outskirts of Berwick on the 15th to hand over a bunch of keys.
I suppose I pictured it like buying your council house. You agreed a price – that was the referendum – then you found a mortgage and discussed things like your right to resell. There must be hundreds of links between Scotland and England that would have to be untangled. Perhaps it would be more like an operation to separate Siamese twins where vital organs were shared.
It seems to be my nature to fret so the doctors allowed my old editor to visit me to tell me the developments. He had retired two years before to write a novel but he spent more time in the newsroom than in his study at home.
“I’m still gathering material for the book,” he would tell us.
So he told me how the Westminster leaders had accepted the decision of the Scottish people with ‘great regret’. He had been War Correspondent in his youth and he was always at his best describing battles. His tale of the approaching general election was entertaining and often funny.
Of course, you lived through all this but I missed it so I make no apology for writing it down.
Cameron announced that Scottish constituencies would not vote since the country would no longer have a right to representation in Westminster. Milliband countered that Scottish MPs should continue to represent their country’s interests until the exact terms of the treaty of disunity, as my editor called it, was signed and sealed.
The debate was a power struggle, of course. Without the Scottish seats Labour had no chance of forming a government unless UKIP split the Tory vote. The leaders reached a compromise allowing Scottish members to take their seats but forbidding them to speak or vote on matters of interest only to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. “Try to make that work!” my editor said.
Perhaps it was the imminent Westminster elections prodding them but Cameron and Miiiband quickly agreed that the way forward was to appoint a Royal Commission. He brought me that wonderful picture from the Sun showing Salmond on the left and Cameron on the right of the Queen who was smiling at a distinguished man with silvery hair. The caption read: ‘Who’s He?’
He was an experienced Canadian diplomat who was to chair the Royal Commission. Nowadays only passing Martians and me do not know Henry Smith. He set up shop at the end of November by inviting interested parties to make a declaration of interest. The response was overwhelming: it seemed that every country in the world and at least half the multi-national companies wanted to be involved.
At the national level Henry quickly resolved that Scotland, England and the European Community should have full rights to represent their interests. All other countries could send observers who might, at the chairman’s discretion, be invited to address him. Only those multinationals employing two or more percent of the Scottish working population would be represented with the others designated observers.
There had never before been a commission exactly like this. Other countries fought for independence with guns, not through the ballot box. During the fighting demands were made and outside influences were courted by both sides so that by the time peace had been negotiated pretty well everyone knew where they stood. No one had bothered to say what exactly Scotland wanted: independence from England, of course, but that left a huge amount of open territory for discussion.
At a more local level, the border counties of England sought representation at the commission. Mr Smith shut up shop for a few days while he thought about this. In a judgement of Solomon he decreed that they would be officially recognised when matters affecting boundaries were considered but at all other times would be observers. This judgement was delivered at about four in the afternoon and the chairman was about to adjourn for the day when a very senior Scottish advocate rose and was recognised.
“I represent the people of Orkney and they wish to be recognised when boundary disputes are discussed.”
Henry Smith looked a bit taken aback and exchanged looks with his team before allowing the advocate to continue. The vote in the referendum had not been uniform. In the central belt the majority was 60-40 YES; the further north you went the smaller was the margin until you reached Orkney where the vote had been 54-46 NO.
The Orcadians wanted to remain part of Great Britain. As their advocate pointed out they were further from Holyrood than Holyrood was form Westminster. One of the main planks of the YES campaign had been that Westminster was too remote from Scotland to understand its problems.
If this was true for Scotland as a whole, and he was inclined to think it was, how much more did it apply to the small group of islanders so remote from Edinburgh. He reminded everyone that the British government had gone to war to guarantee the right to self-determination of an even smaller group of people in the South Atlantic.
The strategic position of the Orkneys is so important that the islands cannot be allowed to stay with Britain. Much of Scotland’s oil would remain in English hands if Orkney seceded from Scotland. The Royal Commission has listened to all the arguments and will give a judgement in due course.
The next furore came when the barrister representing the Westminster Ministry of Defence proposed that an area from Cardross to Arrochar and from Loch Lomond to the Cowall Hills together with the waters of Loch Long, Gareloch and the Clyde Estuary from Bowling to the sea would be sovereign territory. It would remain part of Britain and would be administered from Westminster.
He expressed himself surprised at the reaction of the Scottish parliament.
“It is an elegant solution,” he declared with every appearance of sincerity. “Scotland wishes to be a nuclear free country and it would be cripplingly expensive to relocate the nuclear facilities centred on Faslane. Making the designated area a possession of the Crown meets both requirements.”
My own pet project was also the subject of unlooked for dispute. Early in 2014 the Westminster treasury said that the Scottish parliament would be able to issue bonds. It was quickly agreed on all sides that making the A9 dual carriageway was an appropriate target for the extra funding. I think that my series of articles on the subject had some influence but I was preaching to the converted.
The need for better links with Inverness was widely accepted as essential to the growth of the Scottish economy. The plans were detailed and approved. In fact the only hold up was the need to win Westminster approval of funding in the face of competing claims for projects elsewhere in the country. A Scottish bond would effectively move the A9 to the top of the list of priorities.
During my snooze teams from both treasuries had been working hard so that the bonds could be issued when it became legal to do so in 2015 (I have to keep reminding myself that this is 2015!) A broker had been asked to sound out potential buyers. The offer was to be made at one percentage point above the treasury rate. Then last month the secretary of the US treasury visited Aberdeen to talk to American oil workers. He made a fairly bland speech to a press conference respecting Scotland’s right to self-government and praising the contribution Scots had made in his own country.
He was asked by an English journalist if the USA would buy the A9 bonds. He answered that it would depend on the interest rate. A Scottish journalist suggested that the interest rate was known.
“I understand that the rate was agreed while Scotland was part of the United Kingdom. Without backing from the UK treasury I would not consider buying at less than twice the interest rate proposed.”
Suddenly the rather meandering discussions on Scottish currency that had been dragging on become central to our survival. We were happy enough being paid in sterling and spending it in the shops but unless we become part of a larger block such as the pound or the Euro we will have to establish our international credit rating from scratch!
I will soon be fit to re-enter the battle. When I was put to sleep I thought that the referendum was the only thing that mattered – an end in itself. Now I am awake to the fact that it was just the bell for the start of round one. It will be a long and bruising battle to make Scotland truly independent.
I see the opinion polls show that we would vote NO if we were given the chance again. Maybe we should have waited a year or two before forcing the issue but now we have cut the tie let’s get on with transforming Great Britain into Great Scotland.
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned four novels and is now trying his hand at short stories. His latest novel, The Island, is a McStorytellers publication.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned four novels and is now trying his hand at short stories. His latest novel, The Island, is a McStorytellers publication.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.