Indy ref ten years on - the story behind a front page pic

Looking back at a landmark day

Last week was the tenth anniversary of the referendum on Scottish independence and I noticed some people sharing the front page of the Herald from the day of the vote, September 18, 2014, on social media. It featured a photo of a man on a mountain - which my husband Rob took. We have a framed copy on the wall and often tell the story of how it came to be there. We are very proud of it - this was a landmark day in Scotland’s history. 

It is an arresting image, which in that context brought to mind Neal Ascherson’s advice in ‘Stone Voices’, one of the classics of Scottish political writing. “When I was a boy, an old forestry gamekeeper used to take me on long, discursive walks to put me right on matters like long-forgotten disputes about the usage of Gaelic pronouns. 'At election time,' he once told me, 'a man should go into the hills alone and hearken to the voice of his own conscience.' " 

The picture had the additional interest of a caption (along the side) ‘photo by Rob Bruce’  - obviously my husband shares a name with the Scottish king who took Scotland through the turmoil of the Wars of Independence, signing the Treaty that ensured Scotland remained a nation from 1328 until the Treaty of Union in 1707. 

The impression this may have made on the paper’s readers was undercut - or balanced - by an enterprising firm of property developers who bought the ad space at the foot of the page for an ad reading “NO…hassle when you purchase a new property...”. In our framed copy, the ad has been cut off - that was Rob’s preference but I rather regret it now as it makes the page look lopsided. 

Through the years, Rob has had the habit of disappearing from time to time with a couple of pals on a bothy trip, from which he emerges from behind a stubbly ginger beard, grinning. In the days leading up to the vote he had gone on one of these and taken this picture.  I asked him for an account a while back, so I can quote it here.

Rob said:  “We were on a bothy trip to Sourlies which is at the east end of Loch Nevis, directly below Sgùrr na Cìche, the peak of the nipple. We drove to a place called Bracara along Loch Morar, as far as the road goes and then we took a sea kayak and a Canadian canoe up Loch Morar to the point where there is a tarbet,  a place where you can drag a boat between lochs and the other side of it is the tiny village of Tarbet.  Then we got these sea kayak wheels to rest the kayak on and then four of us carried the canoe. The tarbet is quite high, 50 metres, it is a decent climb.

“We dragged the boats up and over into the village and put them in on the Nevis side. The first night we spent on the north side of Loch Nevis we camped at a spot called a Camusrory and then we went through the Kyles of Nevis. When the tide is flowing through them it is a sort of whirlpool where the waters narrow. Then we canoed the remaining distance to the east end of Loch Nevis, where the bothy is. 

Rob’s three pals in the Canadian canoe

“That evening Joe and Mike Magee and I decided to go up Ben Aden, a Corbett. It was a lovely evening. We walked along up the wide valley to the foot, and decided to go up a slightly different way from the usual path. I came to a gully and climbed up it but the rock was quite steep and friable, so I shouted down to them: ‘I don’t recommend you come up this way’. So they went further round the side. I climbed to the top of the gully and amazingly as I got beyond the top, Joe appeared about 50 meters away on the top of the hllock and I took the picture with a Lumix GX7.”

The next day was Tuesday, September 16. Rob had to leave early for work in London. 

“I left at 11 am and kayaked down Loch Nevis. I dragged the boat up and over into Loch Morar and I kayaked back to where the car was at Bracara. I left the kayak there, collected my work backpack, walked seven km to Morar station, caught the Mallaig train to Fort William and got on the sleeper.” While waiting for the train at Fort Bill, Rob sent the photo of Joe to the ‘readers’ picture of the day’ email address at the Herald. Then he got on the train, had some dinner in the restaurant car, and started to get phone calls. 

Over the few days Rob had been off air, things had started to hot up as the day of reckoning approached. When it was first announced with the Edinburgh Agreement back in 2012, support for Scottish independence was about 30% and for most of the next two years the thing was considered a formality. Almost everyone agreed that the Yes side would certainly lose - but ideally it would get a good showing, enough to put Scotland’s representatives on the good foot with London. The pro-Union political class seemed quite happy with this and there was little stirring of concern in Westminster. A pro-independence majority was unthinkable. 

But ten days before the vote, a shock poll showed Yes might actually win.  In response, the British establishment pulled out all the stops. All the Unionist parties worked together day and night to pull it back to a No.  As the vote approached, canvassers, particularly from the Labour Party poured across the border. Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and many other political heavyweights pronounced that a Yes vote would be a disaster.

The sense of urgency and panic affected many people who up until then had been pretty sanguine. One old friend of Rob’s called him on the train that night and gave a long passionate plea that he must on no account vote ‘Yes’ and bring his country to ruin. When he concluded, Rob said: “Too late mate, I've already voted - by post.” 

Rob voted out of a conviction that it would be better for Scotland to run its own affairs. After being a WILLIE (Works in London, Lives in Edinburgh) for 15 years,  he felt that in the main, most people in England had very little knowledge of, or indeed interest in, Scotland. Because of this feeling that they could not share his perspective, he decided to discuss it as little as possible with colleagues down south but that he would let it be assumed he had voted for the Union. 

One of the phone calls Rob received that night was from me. Apparently, on learning he had already voted, I told him that he was a moron. Despite having started from a position of sympathy for the independence cause, towards the end I became very ‘No’, I was so anxious that I couldn’t sleep and spent hours on the phone to two of my best friends who felt the same.

I was concerned about starting what I thought would be a difficult journey on a marginal ‘yes’- I felt that an independent Scotland could not be successful with almost half the country opposed - many implacably so. I thought staying in the UK was the best way for Scotland to remain in the EU - in fact the UK government sent me a leaflet saying this. I also believed that the UK would repudiate the proposed currency union with Scotland sharing the pound. Some would say that was all Project Fear - maybe it was - certainly the bit about voting No to secure Scotland’s place at the top table of the EU turned out to be mis-selling. 

The next day, shaved and back in his suit, Rob went straight through London to a business meeting in Cambridge. At some point during the day, he got a call from the Herald picture desk saying they wanted to use his shot on the front page. He was delighted. In a hotel room on the evening of September 17, on the late news, he saw the next day’s Herald with his image in pride of place on the front page. The presenter even remarked that it was a beautiful picture. When Rob called to tell me, I was pleased, but it did not lift my spirits too much. I was a nervous wreck about what might happen the next day. 

Of course, we all know the result. The Nos had it - 55% to 45%. I was relieved - and then surprisingly uneasy. I had been moved by Gordon Brown’s barnstorming plea for the Union on the eve of the vote. Imagine my surprise when David Cameron walked out of Downing Street on September 19 and, instead of thanking Gordon Brown, announced EVEL - the English Votes for English Laws rules which would make it pointless to vote for a Scottish Labour MP. (this was repealed in 2021).  My favourite account of this period is Joe Pike’s book ‘Project Fear’, where he concludes ruefully that the Labour Better Together group was like a naive young bride fixated on the ceremony - without a thought about what comes after. 

A few days later, Rob and I went on a trip to the Amalfi coast as an early birthday celebration for me and, at breakfast on the terrace of the guest house where we were staying, everyone seemed to be discussing Scotland’s referendum. Of course, they all wanted to hear about it from the horses’ mouth. Rob and I had to negotiate the fact that we had voted differently - it was a bit difficult for us as a couple to try to explain what had happened without ending up arguing with each other. Two of our fellow guests back then were Quebecois and had their own experience of independence referendums to share. Quebec had two referendums, a decade apart. They were both won by the No side - the second by less than two percent.

The Canadian state responded differently from the UK. Quebec controls immigration; it has significant representation in Canada’s democratic Upper House and it has a say over international trade deals.  Quebec also has the power to call an independence referendum if it ever wishes to do so.  Support for independence is now much lower in Quebec than in Scotland, and it is also higher among the oldies than the young.

A decade after the historic day of reckoning, support for independence in Scotland seems higher than it was then - around 50% and more among the young.

The British government - whether Conservative or Labour - has decided to veto another independence referendum for Scotland. I think in the end that strategy may prove counterproductive for the Unionist cause.

Whether Scotland’s future is as an independent country or within the UK is a matter that the people who live here should be able to decide, hearkening, of course, to the voices of their consciences. 

The bothy crew in 2014, Joe Magee, Rob Bruce, Mike Magee and Fraser Mcintosh