BOMBING IS THE LONDON WAY.

AND WITH OUR VOTES, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM. A GUEST POST FROM DAISY WALKER.

Bringing Indy Home.  

I think maybe, and it is just a thought, I think maybe this business of bringing about Indy for Scotland, is going to rely on us identifying one personal thing, one thing over all the others, that having Independence from England would enable.  Of course, my ‘one thing’ will likely not be the same as yours, and that’s Ok.  But if I may, I would like to share my own personal line in the sand, just this once.

I was a child of the 70’s, a teen of the 80’s, technically an adult in the 90’s, and a burnt out, stressed out, worked out ‘adult’ machine of the new millennium…. But even from the very start – Aye for Scotland.

As a bairn, every year, come November, out would come the red poppies.  

It started in school.  Shake the tin, buy a pin, red poppies for the fallen squaddies on foreign shores, and the maimed, who came home to a country ‘fit for heroes’…   but not fit enough to pay them a decent pension.

In those days, there was the folk revival, even in the school, there were local and national folk songs and the definition of a folk singer was someone who ‘slept all day, and sang all night about hard-working folk through the ages.’

Ewan McColl was on the radio and in the school curriculum as he shoved his finger in his ear and sang of the fisher folk, the farming folk, the mining folk, the ‘traivlirs’, the truckers and anyone else who didn’t get out of his way quick enough.

But he did give us, ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, and of course the one and only, amazing, late, great Kirsty McColl – his daughter.

And in the ‘80’s – as Thatcher took power and slaughtered Scotland’s Industry, while Scotland’s oil went south and Boomed up London – the songs couldn’t keep up with the industrial collapse – fishing industry – gone, mining – gone, steel working – gone.  3 Million on the dole.

Growing up in a ‘folkie’ family, as a child in the ‘70’s, songs about your area – (literally the hill out your window), songs about folk who did jobs you recognised, songs about Scottish history, and music that would mainline straight to your souland in yir ain tongue tae!  I just thought it was normal.  I didn’t know what ‘revival’ meant.  But I knew when a song was sung ‘just right’.

The Corries – so good they were international, The McCalmans ditto, but always returned local, Bella Stewart and her daughter Sheila MacGregor – for the big ballads (and the bawdy), Ishbel MacKaskill – still the greatest Gaelic singer ever, Jimmy Hutchinson, Iain MacIntosh – another personal favourite and the all-time best singer of Waltzie Matilda, Waltzie Matilda, who’ll go a Waltzie Matilda with me’, Jim Reid and of course the songs of our ithir national bard – Matt McGuin and his ‘protégé’ – Adam McNaughtan.Fae lost ‘wee red yo-yo’s’, to McLean’s March, and the heights of a jeelie piece up a multie, to the biblical aspects of a stick of chewing gum on the floor at the Glasgow Sunday School.

I could go on, and on, and there were so, so many more.

And through them, the songs of Hamish – Henderson ANDImlash – for when Freedom Come Aw Ye arrives, it would be only fitting there be Orange Juice and Cod Liver Oil for aw the bairns.

And through it all, every ceilidh, every concert, every sing-around – songs of war, songs of Scottish Soldiers, of D day Dodgers, and Twa Recruiting Sergeants, of Willie MacBride and Banks of Sicily and Davie Steel singing St Valerie.

It was the only history about our country and our people that we got, the only ‘unredacted’ source material and I for one, could not get enough.

Then of course life – and work (mostly work) moves you on and takes over and you lose touch, but every year, come November, out comes the tin, on goes the pin, and yet more Red Poppies.  And from other sources, nuggets of evidence, snippets of info, witness accounts passed from grandfather to child and a picture presents.

That Scotland was first port of call for cannon fodder for all of England’s wars, that ‘Britain’ is an English Nationalist construct, designed, adapted and intended to hide England’s crimes, and appropriate the positive achievents of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, while all the time making them look ‘magnanimous’.

I’ve read accounts that the death rates for Scottish Regiments for WW1 was 26%, while rUK Regiments it was 13%.  

Or that 10% of the working age male population was destroyed in that war – Scotland’s male working population.

The second WW resulted in vital records being destroyed in bombing, which would have settled the above disputes about numbers one way or another.  Apparently.

And out the window, back in the ‘80’s, no jobs, no apprenticeships, 2 choices for the lads in those days, get yourself down to ‘loads of money’ London’ with a trade, or get yourself into the army… just in time for the Falklands War.

But here we are today.  And we are where we are.

Matt McGuinn wrote about John McLean – the fighting Domini.  McLean taught the shipyard workers to read and write, and he taught them the politics of war, and finance, and he refused to be cannon fodder.  He was jailed for it.

Thankfully today we would never let such truth sayers get jailed in kangaroo courts – not under Scots Law, not with a devolved parliament, not with one of ‘the most powerful women in the world’ as First Minster – not oor Nikla, not on her watch.  No way…

Except that today, the brave Nicola, had the Saltire removed from Bute House, lest it embarrass Boris during COP26.

And Craig Murray is into the 90 something day of his jail sentence… for the crime of truth telling journalism.  A civil prisoner, being detained in high security. Jigsaw justice.

There is a shame on the Indy Movement in Scotland, and I include myself in that.  Not brave, not by a long shot.

But getting back to music, if I may.  The soldiers in the trenches, they wrote their own songs, and they ripped the pish out of the propaganda – like some of the best folk songs do.   ‘If you’re looking for the sergeant, I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is… he’s hanging on the old barbed wire’.

Craig Murray wrote an article, which I hope is still on his blog site.  It was about Genie Energy, Rupert Murdoch, and Oil.

Around that time, votes were being held in Westminster to bomb Syria and a 3-year-old boy had washed up on the shore of Turkey.

Something about all those things clicked and I wrote a song, or rather the song wrote itself.  The video took longer and was the work of G.

I’ve not had a chance to speak to Mr Murray and let him know his part in the making of the song.  Hopefully one day soon.

It’s interesting isn’t it, the unintended consequences of seemingly unconnected actions.  Pretty sure Craig never anticipated his article would spark up a song.

I have a mantra, for when it’s all gone to shit and you can’t tell up from down.  It is ‘one bit of decency at a time’.

I’m going to cling to that for the duration, and, even though the Independence Movement appears to be stuck up an English river with no paddle (and no saltire to use as a sail, thanks to Nikla), Brexit, Covid, Tories and the Internal Market Bill are going to devastate Scotland, her economy and her ‘devolved’ parliament.

I can’t guarantee I can do brave, and somehow in recent years ‘brave’s’ got awfully complicated, but I can do decent, one bit at a time.

And that’s it folks, I’ve kind of gone off on a bit of a tangent somehow, but hopefully not too far.

For me, every year, come Remembrance Sunday, I’ll be there, wearing 2 poppies (I keep them from the year before) and promising, like the fighting Domini of yesterday and the jailed truth sayers of today.  No more Scottish cannon fodder for England’s wars.

At the going down of the sun, and with our Votes, we remember them. What follows is a song written and performed by the author of this article Daisy Walker against a highly emotive video with scenes of warfare and the victims and violence involved. If you are over 18 please watch.

MY COMMENTS

My thanks to Daisy for this excellent article and for her emotive song and also the video that was created by Graeme George. War is a most terrible thing, a complete failure in human relations.

I am, as always

YOURS FOR SCOTLAND.

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