IT was interesting to read in Wednesday’s National of the concessions given to the “upper-class section” who like to go out killing wildlife for pleasure.

Surely mankind has caused enough problems in this world with so many species hovering on the brink of extinction. Why therefore encourage this mindless arrogance by allowing the participants to meet together just to kill birds, especially at a time when Covid prevents the rest of us from visiting sick relatives or attending loved ones’ funerals?

Occasionally when you reach my age you have a tendency to reminisce. Last year I did just that, and made a journey that I used to make as a child with my parents to a favourite picnic spot in the Moorfoot Hills. I remember a quiet country road with no fence and sheep wandering back and forward across the road. We usually pulled up beside the bridge over the burn, climbed down a small embankment and had our picnic at that spot. Often the sheep came towards us looking for titbits.

Alas, how it has changed. There’s a new road bridge and the small banking has been replaced with a high wall with a fence on top. There are no sheep. Instead, where we used to see them straggling up the hillsides, there is now a line of shooting butts. It seems that the land usage has been changed to grouse shooting and, just a little further on, into offroad driving with mud tracks zig-zagging up the face of the hills.

The wool from those sheep was used to produce socks, jumpers and cardigans in the woollen mills in Border towns like Galashiels and Hawick. Today there are no sheep and no mills. The socks, jerseys, and cardigans are made in China. This is something to think about for our independent Scotland. Get rid of the guns and bring back some of our industries.

I’m not hankering after the “good old days” because, quite frankly, they weren’t so good. My childhood days were spent in the years of rationing following the Second World War. You couldn’t buy a bar of chocolate without a ration coupon. We had no vaccinations for mumps, measles and rubella. Tuberculosis and polio were also not uncommon. The Xbox and mobile phones were still years into the future. Even a TV set was a rarity. Any photos I have of myself as a child show that I was a bit of a ragamuffin. But all my pals were ragamuffins too, so it didn’t matter.

But there was a difference. As I remember it, folk seemed happier. We didn’t have the austerity that we have nowadays. There were no food banks. People went into an apprenticeship and followed that with a trade and a job for life. Zero-hour contracts didn’t exist. Working men earned enough to keep their families without a need for social security assistance. There was still poverty – but not so much – and there was more “community” than there is today. If a family was struggling, a loaf of bread or a tin of stew would appear on their doorstep. Or maybe, the woman next door would drop in with a pan of soup. Nobody suffered the embarrassment of having to use a food bank.

So much of our industry has been taken from us, and a lot of it was taken away by Westminster. For instance, the Tories closed down Ravenscraig, which was the biggest sheet metal rolling plant in Europe. Taiwan bought over all the equipment from it and shipped it away. Now we import metal from Taiwan! Scotland should be making the steel for our generators for our windfarms, and they should be made by BiFab and not coming from Asia. If it means re-nationalising both the electricity supply and their equipment suppliers then we have to consider that. It must be more economic for us to have the equipment made here in Scotland than have it made in the far east and put Scots workers on the dole.

In Wednesday’s National, Phillipa Whitford joined the many SNP voices who have stated that the only way to save Scotland is to become independent. But it has to be a different country to the Scotland we have today, where the richest 5% own 90% of our assets. We need land reform coupled with a re-distribution of wealth so that everyone, not just grouse shooters, can have what they need, and the dignity of having a properly paid job to enable them to earn it. So please, SNP, stop just talking about it and give us the referendum we need. Let’s get Scexit done!

Charlie Kerr

Glenrothes