38 days to go

I was looking for something else today, and found this.

The thing I was looking for was a pound note printed by the Edinburgh firm W & A K Johnston in the late 1950s which I was given by a friend who collected banknotes. I still can’t find where I have carefully put it (!) but the reason he gave it to me was that I had seen such notes being printed at that time when I was a child because my grandfather ran the printing company.

I have a very clear memory of the security cage in which the printing took place at the firm’s premises on the south side of Edinburgh and therefore the argument that Scotland would have no right to keep the pound if we choose independence on the 18th of September because it is exclusively the property of the Westminster Government has always struck me as very hollow and somewhat offensive. In fact we have made them here for generations.

And we have designed them too. The W& AK Johnstone ones I saw in my childhood have an entertaining wee extra design story to them , which is given about half way down this web page It makes the direct connection all the sharper - as does the note I have pictured today.

I must have been given it just after the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The reverse side has an illustration of New College on the Mound and the words “Scottish Parliament Building” whilst this side says not only that the note is “Commemorating the First Meeting of the Scottish Parliament” but it also contains a small blue saltire. Not Scottish ? Not ours ?

The First Minister has an excellent article in today’s Sunday Herald outlining the facts of the matter and there is other good commentary too. It is Scotland’s pound - and we’re keeping it.