The Hitch Hiker's Guide To Scottish Independence - Chapter Five - Edinburgh

Day four of my journey, and I woke up this morning feeling the most nervous, apprehensive and unwilling to hitch that I have done so far on this trip. Maybe it’s because today I’ll be starting in a city rather than out in the wilds and so I’ll be embarrassed. A hitch hiker is rare enough outside the cities these days, but in cities they are rarer than rocking horse shit. It didn’t start well. I wanted to see the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) Museum, so I followed the signposts for a half-mile out of my way through a housing estate. On reaching the museum there were more signs saying that a major redevelopment was taking place and so access was through a sports centre car park. I followed the directions and found myself approaching an area of portakabins and hi-vis’d workmen. Refusing to be intimidated I stomped my way through the workmen up to the door of the museum, only to find a sign saying the museum was closed. I then realised the access directions must have been for the workmen rather than the public. Come on boys, it’s not hard to get the frigging basics right.
Half-an-hour later I took up position in a lay-by on a dual carriageway with sleet driving horizontally into my face. It must have felt like this as a Highlander stood high on Drumossie Moor on that fateful day, waiting for the order to charge. Of course, unlike the Highlander I was well-fed and didn’t have to pelt six hundred yards across a bog, carrying a musket, broadsword and targe through a maelstrom of grape and musket fire, then face a wall of British army bayonets. But apart from that……
It wasn’t the greatest place to hitch. The cars were accelerating up to seventy by the time they passed me and so were hardly going to stop. Some cars even switched lanes to keep as much distance as possible between us as they passed. They must have thought I was infectious, or they were for some reason afraid of eye contact. After an hour I felt like a complete tool. I don’t understand how I’ve got the neck to do this when I’m so scared of public speaking that if somebody asks me to give a speech or presentation I pretend I’ve emigrated. Then I glanced into the lay-by behind me and a car had stopped. I wasn’t even sure he’d stopped for me but when I ran up to the car he waved me in.
David was driving back to his office in Fife from Inverness where he’d been working for a few days.
“I saw the snow coming and thought I’d better get the hell out of Dodge while I still could!”
We talked with some difficulty over “The Magic Flute”.
“Delivering cars or something?”
I told him what I was doing.
“Actually my wife’s English. I have no issues at all with the English. In fact my fellow countrymen piss me off when they get all anti-English. Half the time they’re only repeating what their fathers have told them anyway”.
I said that what really annoyed me was when some English twits said they’d be glad to see the Scots go because the Scots received more government money per head than the English. This was one of the stupidist arguments I’ve ever heard in my life. We are called the UNITED KINGDOM! Geddit? The clue is in the name and the money goes where it’s needed. For one thing, Scotland is a far more sparsely populated country than England and is therefore going to need more money per head. And where exactly does this ridiculous argument stop? So if this guy lives in say Rugby, and suppose Carlisle and Rotherham receive more government money than Rugby but York gets less, would he like to get rid of Carlisle and Rotherham and cosy up under a duvet with York? What would he say if York wanted to get rid of Rugby? What about his next door neighbour who gets more government money than him? Bloody idiots. I didn’t hear these people complaining when Scotland was generating all the North Sea Oil revenue.
Mozart had been replaced by Elvis belting out “Teddy Bear”. David had met his wife in London whist he was serving with the army. He thought that traveling around with the army and spending a lot of time away from Scotland had helped him to avoid the parochial attitude of some Scots. I said that during my trip so far the people with the strongest views were those in favour of retaining the Union.
“Well that’s what I’d expect. I’ve not seen a single convincing argument for independence and I’ve not seen any solid answers to all the questions. What would they do about the currency? The Armed Forces? Europe? It’s all too messy and Salmond always avoids the detail.”
I agreed I’d looked at the SNP website expecting lots of detailed arguments for independence and found it very woolly. Elvis had moved onto “Blue Suede Shoes”.
“This is Salmond’s last chance and he knows it. And the vote should be held right now! Immediately! He’s only delaying because he knows he’ll lose and then he’s dead. He’s clinging on to power as long as possible and hoping for a miracle. We only voted the SNP into government because we lost faith in Labour and to be a pressure group for Scots interests. We don’t want independence.”

Union 3: Independence 2: Nae That Bothered 6

And sectarianism was not nearly as bad as it once was.
“I went to a Catholic school in the early ‘80’s and we had a punch-up at the bus stop with the Protestant lads every day. I’ve never seen that for years. I’m a Celtic fan but I sit with my Rangers mates in the pub to watch the Auld Firm matches. Though I admit it gets worse as you move west towards Ireland.”
Now Smokey: “So take a good look at my face … Does my smile seem out of place…”
We discussed Scottish football. I said how I was a Leeds fan and that when Leeds were the best team in Europe they were packed with Scottish internationals. Why were the national side so dire now?
“Ah, but we’ve got all the best managers.”
And he’s quite right. Last time I looked I think five or six Premier League teams were managed by Scots, and even more astonishingly they all came from a small area around Lanarkshire, south of Glasgow.
He told me a bit more about his background. He hadn’t been in a Scottish regiment but the Royal Engineers.
“If you’ve got a bit about you and you’re a bit smart they’ll give you a trade.”
Amy Winehouse: “Back to Black”.
His time had included three years in Germany and he’d loved it, though he described himself as more of a plodder than a rising star. When he came out he applied for the Thames Valley Police but was rejected.
“By that time they’d dropped the height restriction but there was still a heightist attitude. I’m 5ft 8. I’m a short-arse. There was nothing else. It must have been that.”
Now he works with robotics in factories. He always stops for hitch hikers.
“You just make a snap decision. I may be a short-arse but I can look after myself. I’ve never heard of a single instance in this country where someone‘s been harmed by someone they picked up. Mind you, that horror film with Rutger Hauer, “The Hitcher”, that terrified me, I don’t like that sort of thing.”
Back to Elvis: “Just a hunka-hunka burning love”.
David dropped me at Inverkeithing railway station from where I could make the short hop across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh. I was sorry to leave him. David and I could have been friends. We even had a similar eclectic taste in music (Just drop the Elvis Dave.) Later that night I searched high and low for hitch hiking crime statistics but for once the web had little to say.
My excitement grew as the train carried me briefly along the north coast of the Firth towards the Forth Rail Bridge. I’ve been to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I can tell you that this one knocks spots off them both. This bridge is massive and majestic, an immense and imposing structure whose colossal stone piers and mammoth steel girders were once regarded as the eighth wonder of the world. Despite their enormous height the three great cantilever towers seem to hang low and fat as they span the two miles from North Queensferry in Fife to Dalmeny in the Lothians, spurning and disdainful of their under-achieving cousin, the much newer road bridge alongside. It’s still regarded as an engineering marvel and is recognised the world. It was recently nominate as a Unesco World Heritage Site and best of all, it was taking me to my favourite city.
For all my swaggering about the number of times I’ve been to Scotland I’ve only ever been to Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival and it was weird to be standing in a comparatively deserted Royal Mile. It was on this spot, at the junction with King George IV Bridge several years ago, amongst a packed crowd of festivalgoers, that I’d seen a tall, stocky and middle-aged Sikh in a tartan kilt, a tartan waistcoat and a tartan turban waving a wedge of twenty pound notes above his head and shouting “Has ainy-boadie got a tekket for the Tattoooo!” I love to stand here and look out over the New Town with all the flags flying boldly over the public buildings. It always strikes me there are union flags and saltires in approximately equal numbers and perhaps surprisingly, the saltire is often flown below the union flag. It’s as if to say “Hey, we’re part of the Union too you know, just as much as you are, and we’re happy to be part of the Union, but don’t forget about us and don’t take us for granted!”. The centre of Edinburgh consists of the original and enchanting Old Town, a morass of minor streets and passageways (or wynds), and the more recent New Town, a stylish lattice of Georgian townhouses, separated by the Nor Loch which has now been drained and contains Princes Street Gardens and Waverley Station. Both the Old Town and the New Town are Unesco World Heritage Sites. But the whole scene is dominated by the magnificent Edinburgh Castle towering over everything atop its extinct volcano crag. When the castle is floodlit at night it does look quite ethereal, but I don’t know whether I believe the taxi driver who told me that an American fare visiting for the Tattoo once asked him how long it took to take down the castle after the Festival was over. It’s interesting to note that although Bonnie Prince Charlie seized Edinburgh without a fight, the commander of the castle garrison refused to surrender and continued to bombard Jacobite positions until eventually a truce was called.
But despite this apparently grand arrangement, it’s amazing quite how compact the centre of Edinburgh actually turns out to be. Contrary to appearances it would be hard to find two points in this city’s centre that are more than fifteen minutes walk apart. The Old Town itself is even more mystifying. It seems that there you only have to set out walking in any direction and after a few minutes you will turn a corner and find yourself at your destination. London and Edinburgh, two capital cities, so very different.
I had dinner that night with an old friend and ex-colleague. I met Rhona in a pub just off the Lothian Road a few yards from her office. I’d last seen her twelve years ago in London when we’d both been caught up in the lunacy of the dot-com bubble. When she joined the rest of us on e-casualty list.com she moved back to Edinburgh and was loving it. We moved on to a restaurant and over dinner she came over as the very essence of a successful independent professional woman moving upwards and onwards in the business world. But despite her move back to Scotland and subsequent success her views on independence, the SNP and Alex Salmond were caustic:
“Every time I see Alex Salmond’s miserable weasel face on the telly I want to give it a good slap. I have never in all my life heard a good argument for independence. What are they talking about? Anybody who supports independence is a blithering idiot.” Whoa! Steady The Buffs!

Union 4: Independence 2: Nae That Bothered 6

“It’s only a couple of years since both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were Scots. Tony Blair always claimed to be a Scot even though he wasn’t. You can hardly call us an oppressed nation. Even David Cameron has a Scottish name. ”
When I left the restaurant I found out that while we were eating someone had dumped six inches of snow on Edinburgh. On the way back to my digs I got lost twice, but at least this gave me the time to ponder my findings so far. As I’d mentioned to David earlier that day, it seemed to be becoming clear that the pro-Union faction felt much more strongly and were far more vehement in their views than the pro-independence group. Indeed, I’m not even convinced that the two people I’ve logged as pro-independence were indeed of that mind. Though it also has to be acknowledged there are a large group of “Nae That Bothereds” who could go either way on the day. It’s probably also worth noting that the pro-Union faction are all some permutation of middle class, professional, retired and churchgoing. If their views are reflected by similar people, particularly the opinion formers with influence in the press and on the telly then our Alex is going to have a hell of a struggle, Sean Connery or not.