On:
In: Maureen Forbes, Uncategorized
With: 0 Comments

The train journey between Wick and Inverness is approximately 4 1/2 hours long. Taking the same length of time to travel between Edinburgh and London, the journey between the towns in the Far North and their nearest city is double what it would take you by road. Rather than following the A9 road down the coast, the train makes several detours inland and acts as a lifeline travel service for residents in the communities that were left isolated with the building of the Dornoch Bridge at the start of the 1990s, at that time the longest bridge in Europe, and for those in north westRead More →

On:
In: Eva Comrie
With: 0 Comments

I was a 7 year old revolutionary when I learned my first few French phrases; ca va? je m’appelle; j’habite; je suis. Instantly hooked by the fantooshness, there commenced a lifelong fascination of the foreign and exotic. In P5 at Crieff Primary School I’d a wee notebook of French vocabulary and I recognised then the excitement and interest of strange tongues, different cultures, varied ways and customs entirely at odds with those of Presbyterian Scots. We left our Crieff caravan for a cottage in the Hillfoots of Clackmannanshire; our destination must have been preordained and written in the stars for the wallpaper in my bedroomRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch, Uncategorized

“And still they gazed and still the wonder grewThat these big heids just hadnae got a clue”. One line from Oliver Goldsmith’s  poem above has always seemed to me to apply to people with pretensions.  While Goldsmith wrote “That one small head could carry all they knew” is not appropriate, I have substituted my own take on things.  The populace are definitely wondering at the public mess our Westminster government is making.  There seems to be no ending, or any progress, in sight for Brexit. As I write, the SNP have tabled a motion to revoke Article 50, which has received over 6 million signatures,Read More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

In recent months we have seen the scourge of football hooliganism rearing its particularly ugly face again. With a bottle and coins being thrown at players and most recently “fans” invading the playing area in both Scotland and England. This fall in behaviour comes on the back of the decision to repeal the Offensive Behaviour at Football Grounds Act. I was not a big fan of this law but I would not have called it “mince” or a “stain”. One thing it did highlight though is that we should not create new legislation just because the Police say we should, a rather more serious basisRead More →

On:
In: Maureen Forbes, Uncategorized

During the summer holidays last year, some local teachers began the hard task of clearing up an area of woodland near to one of the local schools. Located on the outskirts of the town and enclosed by buildings, it was an area that you never really noticed. Pleas for help were answered by both adults and children and by the time the schools started back in August, a huge amount of rubbish and debris had been cleared from the site and an entrance made into the trees. “Forest Friday” became a regular occurrence in the school whereby a group of children had the opportunity toRead More →

On:
In: Margaret Hamilton, Uncategorized

So. Another big Brexit vote. Another embarassing defeat. Just how much can one woman take. If this was happening in civvy street I am sure the men in white coats would be called in and act on such delusional behaviour. Heard a man on today’s (Wednesday) radio phone in who travels widely in Europe and says that the ordinary European is just laughing at us. Well, we knew that didn’t we? Thought he summed up the Brexit attitude very well though. ‘The English think they are the new Aryan race’. This is the really worrying aspect of Brexit for me. Common courtesy and decency haveRead More →

On:
In: Margaret Hamilton

I was asked by former blogger, Clare Adamson, if we could get information of a celebration of an historic SNP moment to a wider audience. Motherwell & Wishaw has a special place in SNP history, as the site of the first ever Parliamentary victory in the by-election of 1945. In April of that year, Motherwell-born physician Dr Robert McIntyre secured 11,417 votes to triumph over the Labour incumbent. The man who was often known as the ‘Father of the SNP’, or more affectionately as ‘Doc Mac’, packed many speeches into his short time in Westminster despite having initially faced a problem in finding the requiredRead More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

And having writ moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. Fitting way to start with the opening lines from the Rubiyat of Omar Kayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, although as usual I only remembered a fragment of it and had to consult The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – must choose something simpler next time.  Anyway the fingers of history are moving rapidly onward and we are not getting enough time to work out what is happening. Latest on Sunday of this week Mrs May isRead More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

Over the years, there have been a number of things which have symbolised Britain’s self-perception. Things like the famous capacity to pull together when things get rough, the muddle through compromises, the willingness to put the country first. Yet all of these are falling apart in the pursuit of victory in the Tory civil war over Europe. A civil war which is now engulfing the entire English political system. With the utter contempt with which most people now view their supposed “representatives“ in the Commons. Far from “taking back control” of their laws the MPs seem hell bent on refusing to accept control because ofRead More →

On:
In: Uncategorized

It is often said that people get the leadership they deserve. If so, it’s hard to imagine just what the membership of the Labour Party have done to deserve this lot. For the last year or so Labour have sought to hide their differences over Brexit behind claims that what they want is a General Election. Yet now, when the Government are floundering hopelessly does he go for the jugular? No! Instead Craven Corbyn plays socialist debating society games. Instead of leading the charge to get rid of this shambolic tory government, he and Labour’s Shadow Cabinet table a motion of No Confidence not inRead More →