SOME years ago, I was a civil servant based in Edinburgh. At the time, there was unrest among student teachers, and a group of them appeared in the form of a demonstration in the car park in front of New St Andrew’s House, Edinburgh (now, in the interest of the environment and good taste, thankfully demolished).

The students were a happy group. There was singing and dancing, and colourful balloons were held aloft. A fellow civil servant peered cynically out of the window and said: “They’ll get nowhere”. Asked why, he added: “They’re not angry enough”.

Which brings me to the independence marches, attended by tens of thousands of marchers. (Note to BBC audiences: you may not be aware of this).

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I have attended many of these as a participant. In my seventies, I gave up marching after being helpfully offered a lift in a police van on the grounds that I was falling behind the other marchers.

These marches are great fun. With all the banners, national flags, bunting and bands, they are great family days out. Scotrail should perhaps consider running excursion trains on march days. And quite rightly, the marches are peaceful. But I have a feeling that they’ll get nowhere.

“They’re not angry enough”.

Lastly, I watch in some concern as the movement by small and newly-formed parties grows with a view to contesting the regional list in the Scottish elections in 2021.

During my time in the civil service, a very senior civil servant turned to me and said: “The Scots will march arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder to the top of the hill, and then, when victory is in sight, scatter in all directions”.

We seem to be going all out to prove him right.

Keith Halley
Dalkeith

REPORTS are complaining that the Russia Today is broadcasting propaganda. Have they ever listened to what the Bias Broadcasting Corporation feeds Scotland?

M Ross
Aviemore