On The Doorsteps - Part One

For the last couple of months or so I’ve been helping out with the YES Scotland campaign for Scottish Independence. I really never thought I’d see the day I’d be out ‘chapping doors’, but when I decided I wanted to do more to help the cause than just retweet posts on Twitter or share posts on Facebook, I thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t want to wake up on the nineteenth of September thinking, “I wish I’d done more…”

I was shaking like a leaf the first night I went to Ellon to meet up with the rest of the volunteers and asked to tag along with one of the more experienced canvassers until I felt confident enough to try it on my own. My pal Rhona did a couple of doors with me looking on, before giving me the next card and telling me to go for it, which I did, ready or not. I got tongue-tied. I didn’t have my arguments straight. I asked the questions in the wrong order. I got a couple of YESes. I got a couple of Nos. Then I knocked on the door of an older lady who started of with the “Oh no, no, I’m nae bothered aboot all that, I think it’s a waste of time, we’ll never manage it…” etc. I marked down her reply of a “1” for the first question, which, in case you haven’t been asked yet, is a scale of one to ten (one being completely against, ten being completely for independence).

Usually if you’re faced with a “1” you quickly ask the second question, thank them politely and move on. But this lady didn’t seem too unfriendly, so I asked her a couple of questions as to why she was such an adamant “NO”. I pointed out a couple of scaremongering untruths that she’d been led to believe. A wee conversation and a good few laughs later I asked her the second question (Should Scotland be an independent country?) and could scarcely believe when she asked me to tick the box marked “undecided”. I then asked her again if she still felt like the “1” she’d answered the first question still felt like it represented her feelings on the subject, to which she replied, “No, you’re right. Change it to a four.”

I left that encounter feeling like a million dollars and from then onwards I was hooked. Bring on the doorsteps!