Finding my voice

“Remember, nobody’s looking at you”. My mother’s words, kindly meant and intended to bolster my fragile confidence at social events in my teenage years, ended up having the opposite effect. It made me feel that perhaps I was so unremarkable, so uninteresting that I had no business expecting others to seek out my company or to want to hear my opinion and for a few painful years I caused myself to be as invisible as possible whenever I was out of my comfort zone.

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At secondary school I soon discovered this crippling lack of self confidence, this feeling of being not quite good enough was prevalent among many of my peers in 1960’s Scotland and this feeling of being almost a second class citizen was cruelly reinforced when my friend and I joined a junior organisation of the United Nations and headed to London for its annual conference. To be fair, we only joined the worthy organisation to get us on the trip to London, so I suppose you could say that any fallout was karma.  Held in Westminster Hall, it was the first time either of us had been to London and we were entranced by the buildings, the people, the sense of purpose  and palpable confidence of the inhabitants going about their daily business in this incredible city.

What wasn’t so entrancing, however, was being asked by a group of stuck up kids from The Home Counties “did we have proper schools in Scotland and did we have to hire uniforms to come to the conference”? Our first excursion into the world of English exceptionalism, but not, alas our last on that trip. At least from the stuck up Counties kids.

Not their fault to be ignorant, but it stung, nevertheless and left us feeling somewhat bemused and flattened and perhaps, just perhaps, we weren’t worth looking at after all. It is to my eternal regret that we didn’t have the confidence to hit back at them with some well thought out ‘gotcha’ responses

  Growing up in Dundee, where the many unforgiving jute mills were responsible for covering the city in a pall of thick, dark smoke and coating the buildings with soot, it seemed as if the whole post war world was permanently dressed in mourning black. There was still the remnants of wartime deprivation, poverty was all around and we teenage girls, before the days of Mary Quant and BIBA, were strutting our stuff dressed as mini versions of our mothers. Dresses from Simplicity paper patterns and tan or black shoes by Dolcis were de rigueur.

This oppressive atmosphere was not conducive to creativity, to burgeoning entrepreneurs and many young people, myself included, left for London as soon as we could, where there was colour and the discovery that you did have a right to a different opinion, you did have worth and you were pretty good at the job you were paid to do. People actually listened to you. Life was great and for the first time you felt you belonged.

   This was the swinging sixties and I met up with some of the most amazing people, made friends for life and managed, finally, to realise that I too was valid, and my opinion had relevance and I wasn’t afraid to voice it.  As I was accepted into the fold by the (to me) exotic people in the magazine world in which I now worked, layer by layer my inhibitions and self doubts were peeled away. I had arrived. I had worth.

And so, as I found my voice, the new, confident me began to look differently at the world and my place in it. I fought for equal pay, for equal superannuation rights. Went on various marches and embraced the Women’s Lib movement with enthusiasm, but kept my Industrial sized bustenhalter far away from fire. Sacrifices only go so far.

Like all women of my generation I encountered much misogyny over the years, but with my new found confidence, batted it away with the ease of someone finally comfortable in their own skin and at ease with the world around them. I dealt with sexual harassment in my workplace as any Dundee woman worth her salt would do, and I argued with the best (and worst of them) stood my ground on occasions and fought for what I believed was right.

It was around 2013 that my world began to tilt somewhat on its axis with the announcement that an independence referendum was to be held in Scotland on 18th September 2014. And although I had originally joined the SNP in 1966, had always desired an independent Scotland and had voted in every single election, I would not have described myself as particularly political up to that point. All that, with the impending referendum and the cultural revolution social media was facilitating meant that was all about to change. And I was ready for it.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was to take to Twitter like a duck to water, but it wasn’t always plain sailing and back in the beginning I had to navigate my way through rather stormy seas. But moving on from all the unintended maritime analogies, here’s a short guide to the world of the Twitterati.

There is a language and etiquette around Twitter that you only find out about through trial and error as you go along. The classic rookie mistakes are to engage with anonymous trolls, to engage with the ‘wrong’ person,  to bandy facts and figures around that you cannot back up and by doing so earn yourself a Troll pile-on for your efforts.That way lies Twitter madness. And you soon realise that many Twitterers are Bots - paid for accounts and best avoided like the plague.

It was in the run up to the referendum that I realised, contrary to my, I suppose somewhat arrogant belief, that many of the people I admired and respected, both on Twitter and in my own social circle, did not share my vision for an independent country. They were die hard Unionists, but we had never had that conversation until then and I admit to being greatly unsettled by it. “How could they think so differently from me on that issue - so important to Scotland and her future generations - when we agree on pretty much everything else”?  I used to ask myself.  I have never wavered in my support for an independent Scotland and in fact, my desire to see it come about has only increased due to Brexit and the dire Tory governments and all their incompetence, corruption, lies and broken promises.

There have been times on Twitter when it’s been hard to maintain civility and I put it here on record that I am completely baffled by working class Scots who can see no future other than the one imposed on them by whatever government is in Westminster. Scots who endured the Thatcher years, the years of Tory austerity, the Brexit abomination and who believe the myth that Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid.

That Scottish cringe which stopped me challenging those kids in Westminster Hall all those years ago is still very much among us in some sections of society, no matter how much some may try to deny it. And Scotland has to be among the very few countries in the world where the majority of the press is unfailingly hostile to the party which gets voted into power election after election. On a daily basis the Scottish press does its scheming best to batter us wayward ‘separatists’ into submission. It treats us like unschooled fools, but their distortions and twisted truths are now falling on increasingly deaf ears.  If the independence movement had their actual support, things would be so different .

And so we come, as we must, to Scottish Unionist politicians. On a good day I would describe them as obsequious, sycophantic and deluded and on a bad day I would ask whether their elevation - or their hopes of elevation - to the undemocratic House of Lords is a worthwhile reward for continually demeaning and maligning the country they profess to love. Their slavish devotion to a Union which has proved itself to be cruel, ruthless and unforgiving is quite extraordinary.

Twitter has given me the platform to air my views and life has given me the confidence to stick to  them. And sometimes, just sometimes, I hear my lovely mum saying “Nobody is looking at you”Maybe not, Mum. But they are listening to me. And that will do me.

Ends