IT was around 30 years ago that I first took a punt on them by buying a CD to accompany a drive all the way up the west coast. I’d never heard of them but the music soon embraced my soul. When you marry music and mountains you create something quite mesmeric. I was mesmerised.

Over the years that CD collection grew and grew as my forays increased all over Scotland and I’ve seen Runrig live five times including the legendary Party on the Moor in 2013. Just writing that brings a tear to the eye.

There’s a depth to Scotland that is hard to match. A depth reflected in that beautiful music, culture and people and that stunning scenery and natural diversity. Scotland encompasses all. I knew early on in my twenties that I would end up here. It’s where I was most fulfilled and that has nothing to do with my ongoing, never to be concluded, whisky research project.

I recall the 2014 referendum from afar whilst living in Norfolk. I was immensely disappointed. I’d convinced myself I’d be the first to get my residency application pack returned in the post.

Fast forward to June 24 2016. It was clear on that day that I was always going to be more at home in an open and welcoming Scotland than a nation that baulked against my instinctive tendencies. I was disappointed in England but principally because of inept and unfeeling governance that had given us a referendum with no plan, no vision and barely any definition. Tory austerity had contributed towards brutalising us almost systemically. They still are yet so many still chose to be brutalised. Pride comes before a fall.

Maybe they should take a road trip north with Roddy, Bruce et al supplying the backing tracks?!

It was, is wilful negligence and all I see now is a doubling down on that. A doubling down on dumb. The approach of tearing up tried and tested ties for a set of vague, misty eyed delusions of grandeur at a time when we need to be working closer than ever, more collectively in order to have a chance of having a planet to pass on to our children, is wilful negligence. The climate emergency will always trump anything Trump, Johnson and their puppet masters throw at us.

Scotland can be at the very forefront of that social and climate global revolution. It can show the way forward, be a beacon of hope but only as a sovereign nation. Chained to an increasingly isolated and bitterly divided England, where common sense has gone on holiday, Scotland will diminish.

And we all know England will benefit too with a clearer sense of identity. British means very little post-Brexit given the giant chasm that’s opened up in terms who and what we identify ourselves with. Bridging it requires wisdom and that is in very short supply in Westminster right now.

Maybe just maybe Scotland will show that wisdom in a second independence referendum?

I already know the first song I’ll be putting on if it’s AYE. Maymorning by Runrig. Alive Again! Where’s my hanky?!

Rob James
via email

I AM sure we all feel that the tide is turning; that we have a compelling case for independence and a strong group of people well able to articulate the benefits of independence. Where the Unionists still outflank us is in the tactics of voting. I still feel that we lost the last referendum in the postal ballots. What we need is training for Yes groups in signing up voters; how to keep Unionist groups out of community groups and old people’s groups; how to identify our supporters and get them out on the day; how to check counters on the day of election and spot dodgy practices. Where is this to come from?

Ian Richmond
Dumfries and Galloway