Time we torpedoed the nuclear menaces

An independent Scotland has no need for Trident.

Sometimes as a child, when the long summer (usually wet days) had stretched not only the pockets but the nerves of my parents, my father would pack my brother and me into the car and take us down to my Uncle Alistair’s boat to take us on a wee trip Para Handy style down the River Clyde.

This was no multi-million pound yacht or large comfortable cruiser mind but an old diesel powered chugger that would, in these enlightened Health and Safety times, been condemned on site, broken up and turned into washers.

But to us it was palatial. It was the QE2. Or, at our age, the best pirate boat any seaman could wish for O’Arrrrr! Thar she blows Jim lad you get the picture.

Magical times were had on that boat , and very dangerous ones as well, near death experiences would be closer to the truth as we pottered up and down the Clyde visiting such exotic locations as Millport, Rothsey and Port Appin.

On one trip, a rare day when the sun actually shone, we were braving the freezing waters of the Clyde when my father, who like to be called Capt’n on these trips, bellowed for the pair of us to get out of the water pronto. Given the tone and urgency in his voice, it was something we both did immediately.

It was then we saw what was making him anxious. A nuclear submarine back from its half yearly patrol was menacingly rising from the deep. And the sight of this monstrous, black metal tube crashing to the surface was not only terrifying but absolutely amazing to behold.

It was the first time I’d ever seen a submarine up close, nuclear or otherwise, and the memory of that day to this left quite an impression on me. As for going back in the water after it had passed. No chance. I mean, if it was deep enough for a nuclear sub what other horrors were hiding down there? In fact it took many years before I could whip up enough courage to stick a toe in the Largs boating pond, yet alone the sea, such was my irrational fear of what lurked below in the deep salty abyss!

But as we all know I shouldn’t have been scared so much of the imaginary dangers of the sea but what was actually stored in the bowels of the submarine nightmarish weapons of mass destruction. Polaris thermonuclear inter continental ballistic missiles weapons and delivery systems that were stored underground only a few miles up river at Faslane on the Clyde Estuary. The UK’s first likely target in any world war, a silo and arms dump based only 30 miles from Scotland’s largest city and population centre, Glasgow.

In the intervening years, as the threat from our then enemies decreased, the spending on this deterrent went ballistic with billions of pounds lavished on replacing Polaris with the more deadly and destructive Trident, The scaremongering of why we need such a deterrent went nuclear, with the biggest lie proffered being the tens of thousands of jobs Trident supports when the reality is that only 520 are directly affected.

What riles me about this whole situation is that no-one in Westminster seems to give a damn what we here in Scotland think about these weapons. As the referendum approaches, yet more spin, lies and half truths are told by all Westminster parties in an effort to keep them. The fact that we in Scotland might actually vote yes in next year’s referendum and consign these weapons to the nuclear dustbin where they belong seems to have gone right over their arrogant heads.

When one of the UK’s top respected broadsheets (The Times of London) carries a leader titled Britain’s Deterrent stating that replacing Trident with a comparable system makes strategic sense without once mentioning Scotland, we should be very concerned that, if we vote Yes whether the warmongers in London will grant our parliament the powers of self determination and governance, especially on matters such as the removal of their nuclear deterrent…. I’m beginning to now doubt very much that they will .

Only one way to find out vote Yes!

As for diving off of boats into the freezing waters of the Clyde, it’s been a long time since I did that so maybe I’ll wait a few more years before I again take the plunge. At least until the nukes have gone.