Stuart Cosgrove: The best examples for independence are in day-to-day life

It was not Steve Clarke’s appointment as Scotland boss, nor the latest farcical chapter in Westminster incompetence, but the news that a small independent Scottish publisher had won the International Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious accolades in publishing. This was a huge achievement against the odds – akin to Clarke’s confident pronouncement that we can travel away to Belgium and get a win.

Sandstone Press is a Dingwall-based indie who won the prize for the novel Celestial Bodies written by Jokha Alharthi – the first female Omani novelist to be translated into English. Celestial Bodies is set in the Omani village of al-Awafi and follows the interweaving stories of three sisters: Mayya, who marries into a rich family after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries for duty; and Khawla, waiting for a man who has emigrated to Canada.

Chair of the judges Bettany Hughes said: “Through the different tentacles of people’s lives and loves and losses we come to learn about this society – all its degrees, from the very poorest of the slave families working there to those making money through the advent of a new wealth in Oman and Muscat. It starts in a room and ends in a world.”

It is a significant boost for Scotland’s small publishers and a triumph for the real purpose of independence when a publication breaks through a crowded and skewed marketplace dominated by global delivery company Amazon.

The spirit that is being pursued in this specific story is one of risk-taking, passion for the subject and an outward international collaboration – values that we should all applaud irrespective of the way we vote.

I have always argued that Scotland needs to disentangle the word “independence” from the current constitutional debates, and not because there is anything wrong with self-determination, but because the argument for independence has to be made through many glimmering prisms and not just politics alone.

The best examples we have of independence are not in politics – where Westminster has been so ever-present in our modern political history that imagining a life beyond it seems easier for some than others.

Sensing the spirit of independence as it surrounds us in everyday life is much easier.

On Thursday I set myself a simple task: to keep an audit of examples of independence in everyday life – the businesses, the innovations and the initiatives that in some way reflect the surge of change in Scottish society.

One significant entry on the ledger was the news that A View From The Terrace, the alternative football show, has been re-commissioned for a second series. One of the success stories of the new BBC Scotland channel, the show emerged from the culture of self-produced podcasts that have made use of the open publishing possibilities of the web. The podcast first came into existence with Napier University students Craig Fowler, Alan Temple, Jen McLean and Niall McNeill, when the foursome came together to record in the university’s studio.

Although A View From The Terrace has evolved since then, the freshness of the show derives from another key characteristic of independence – it offers viewpoints that are different and at times oppositional to the mainstream. Its strength is that it refuses to give an airing to the curdled cliches of football punditry and reaches out beyond the bigger clubs to find gold in the dung.

The announcement of the new Terrace TV season was made coincidentally on the day that Dundee’s much-heralded games industry faced an unexpected blip in its stellar growth. TIGA, the games association, published figures that hinted at the first, small setback. But the tiny decline in the number of people employed in the sector was immediately challenged by the studio chiefs at Ninja Kiwi, the New Zealand games-company that has bought into Dundee because of its global reputation and the surfeit of talent emerging out of the Scottish higher education sector.

Again there is a perspective on independence here. Dundee’s success-story is an indicator that the old world of centralised cultural power led by London and to a lesser extent Edinburgh is no longer as important to the digital economy. Geography is not the barrier it once was and success is no longer in the gift of capital cities and their privileged agencies.

Dig deeper and you find great stories everywhere.

I am an inveterate collector of ephemera, the hand-bills, flyers and promotional cards that you can see in cafes, venues and even hairdressers throughout Scotland. One that really caught my eye was a postcard for a new start-up company, The Mighty Mama Coach, a company that offers pregnancy and post-natal services to women in Scotland.

I confess that I am not the target market for caesarean section recovery, pelvic floor training and birth preparation support, but I am convinced it is a great and very timely idea. The company has the same sense of self-confidence that has led to the foundation of the Glasgow Women’s’ Library and the multi-award winning 404 Ink, the publishing venture that has enhanced Scotland’s reputation as a place of smart, youthful and attention-grabbing writing.

The Mighty Mama Coach points to yet another perspective on independence – one that is conscious not only of gender but of the seismic changes that are sweeping through society, in this case changed attitudes to health, well-being and child-rearing.

Independence is a glorious word, one that rattles like the night train through Memphis. For me it all began with music and the most successful independent labels in the world: Motown in Detroit, Stax in Memphis and Def Jam in New York. Each in their own ways had to fight against the centralised major labels and an industry increasingly out of touch with consumers.

Similarly, the rise of Scotland’s post-punk music labels like Glasgow’s Postcard Records emerged because local talent was expected to pass through the eye of a London needle and appeal to an A&R system that seemed remote and out of touch with new bands. It was the spirit of independence that brought us Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera.

Success story: Orange Juice (Image: Orange Juice)

Another chunk of my life was spent working with independent production companies, the generations of television creatives that set up their own production entities and in some cases broke free from the major broadcasters to develop and produce their own ideas.

Nor is this just a matter of creativity. The wider growth of new businesses in Scotland’s retail and catering sectors are obvious examples of people seeking independence in their life and wanting to be “their own boss”.

The only bad news that I discovered this week in my audit of the diverse independence currently in play in Scotland was the news that small companies working away from the traditional high street have been targeted in the so-called distraction scam. This is when a rogue customer resets the functions on a point-of-sale card machine and gives themselves a refund on a bogus purchase. In Edinburgh independent traders Haymarket and Blackhall were targeted in scams in which £32,000 was stolen – a punishing and deflating experience for any small business especially one new to the retail game.

So on the day that the polls opened on what was a strange potentially crucial European election, I took time out to reflect not on the Scotland that may be in front of us, but the spirit of independence that is already here and enriching our lives.

Independence is an elixir, one that is too precious to restrict to elections or even to the political arena – it’s the air we breathe, and it’s in a street near you.