Ned Larkin, 74, lives in Inverness and is a retired offshore medic. He talks us through his decision to become an independence supporter more than 30 years ago, in the time of Labour’s ‘Feeble 50’.

MY conversion to Yes, I think, pre-dates many of the contributors to this column.

I went from “No” to “Yes” in 1987. I was in my last year of service in the Royal Army Medical Corps and we had bought our house, in Inverness, where we still live.

There was a UK General Election and it saw Thatcher, and the Tories, romp home with a 102-seat majority.

However, the result, in Scotland, had the Tory return go from 21 seats to 10 with Labour climbing to 50. Pretty much the opposite of the result south of the Border!

Now, as a member of the Armed Forces, I had been told, many times that, as part of Nato, we squaddies were “defending western democracy”. Well, I thought, if “democracy” was to be respected, surely this result must herald some sort of change in the way Scotland was governed, shouldn’t it?

“Definitely not!” chorused the voices of the Westminster establishment; “The Labour Party is a Unionist party; there’s no call for constitutional change!”

The “Feeble 50” was born. For the Tories, business as usual; they went on to use Scotland as a testing ground for the Poll Tax.

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Out of the army I got a job in the offshore industry. The workforce was made up of Scots and guys from the north of England.

My workmates represented the seed bed the Labour Party drew its support from.

There were plenty who, when probed on their political allegiance, would trot out the “I vote Labour because ma faither voted Labour” mantra. During her time, Thatcher

said of Scotland: “She just needs to send a majority of nationalist MPs to Westminster to have a mandate for independence.”

Of course, she said this when the SNP only held three Westminster seats. As long as Scotland kept voting Labour, contentment prevailed at Westminster and Scotland retained its status as “region”.

What I have seen, as the years stroll by, is an ever-changing stance by Unionist politicians in their desperation to cling on to their Scottish colony.

Why is this? Some say it’s because of the affection for our United Kingdom. Some say it’s because of the loss of face a Westminster government would suffer if Scotland broke away.

I say follow the money. Scotland has all the natural resources to be one of the most affluent nations on the planet.

It’s too rich a cash cow to be released from Westminster bondage, and the Westminster establishment know that.

Come independence it won’t be all sweetness and light: mistakes are inevitable. But they will be Scottish and Scotland’s mistakes.

To write about your No to Yes journey, visit thenational.scot/my/ccn/assignment/Y6dY7fCX