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Promises That Cannot Be Kept

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I am making this fraternal appeal for solidarity to all trade unionists, socialist friends and ‘comrades’ in Scotland on the Left, who care about defending the marginalised and fighting against inequality, because this issue is truly a social justice issue. I appeal, not on behalf of social conservatives or religious fanatics but on behalf of ordinary families with elderly relatives who are concerned about the new Assisted Dying Bill. I appeal on behalf of parents and grandparents of disabled children and grandchildren, who are deeply worried about the future implications of this proposed legislation and the message this most recent Assisted Dying Bill sends to their loved ones. At first glance, the Assisted Dying Bill Scotland looks and sounds a little like the type of good end of life care that goes on in all our fine hospices, with its somewhat misleading language around freedom from suffering being made available to all those who are terminally ill. Or assisted dying only being off
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Death To The World

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Someone recently asked me why I don't write columns and articles for magazines and other publications anymore and why I now mostly post banter, junior football, hiking, cycling and music stuff on my socials, rather than serious theology and political content.  The answer is simple, the climate of online debate within both faith and political circles, is increasingly toxic and I am done with rancour and resentment, it is totally unhealthy and unfruitful. I am done with theological bickering and polemics, it is embarrassing for us Christians to be slagging each other off so much (myself included).  Especially, while we all sit back and watch an ongoing genocide in Gaza unfold and wait to see how Iran will respond to Israel's recent strikes against Hezbollah. Or how Putin will respond to Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory in the last few days, or how the UK race riots will eventually play out, or what the diabolical Trump-Musk alignment means for the world. It is also
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Have Gourock’s Catholics Brought The Bands To Town?

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  It’s probably worth stating from the outset that I am not actually opposed to Orange Walks and I didn’t submit an objection to the upcoming parade through Gourock. This is because, like many people on the west of Scotland, my own identity, religious heritage and ethnicity is a rich mix of Scottish Free Church Presbyterian, Irish Catholic and German Lutheran, alongside Episcopalian, Welsh, Ulster Scots and Highland Gael on my wife’s side.  As such, I can generally see things from both perspectives and I often suspect that much of the tension which surrounds marching season, is rooted in suspicion, rather than reality. For instance, a significant number of Scottish Catholics feel that those banging the big Lambeg drum outside the chapel each summer, are the descendants of the very same ‘Peep-o'-Day Boys‘, who once carried out the mass wrecking of Catholic cottages and burned their Irish forefathers out their homes, centuries ago. For some within the Catholic community, these se
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Social History In 50 Objects Number 6. - John Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress

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  Today's object is my 1842 edition of John Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress which was first published as a Christian allegorical work of theological fiction in 1678. The Pilgrims Progress is important and significant for some Christian Socialists because it influenced the Beveridge Report. William Beveridge’s lifted Bunyan's same allegorical language contained in The Pilgrim’s Progress, to inspire his own ‘Beveridge Report’, written in 1942. Like Bunyan, Beveridge speaks of slaying the five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. The Beveridge Report, together with Archbishop William Temple’s ‘Christianity and the Social Order’, formed the basis of the post-war settlement and the creation of the Welafre State, NHS, Council Houses, National Insurance etc all implemented by Clement Attlee’s 1945 Government. Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour Government’s was quite Christian in both its ethos and origin. All the new council houses built after 1945 were rega
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Social History In 50 Objects Number 5. - Glasgow Corporation Peace Medal/White Poppy

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  The other day I wrote about my Granda's Pacific Star medal from the war and how he struggled to find work after WWII . By way of contrast, today's object is a Glasgow Corporation Peace Medal from 1919, to mark the ending of hostlities, set into a white poppy. These brass peace medals were issued by nearly every town and local authority across Britain to commemorate the Versailles Treaty and given out to children as part of the Peace Day public holiday of 19 July 1919. It is perhaps helpful for us to remember just how unhappy the British public were about the various military parades and extravagant victory celebrations which took place immediately after WWI. Especially when so many ex-servicemen were now unemployed, ex-soldiers suffered greatly after the war and also during the 1921 economic slump. In Manchester, demobilised soldiers marched with banners proclaiming ‘Honour the dead - remember the living’, and ‘work not charity’. Just like their forbearers before them, f
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Social History In 50 Objects Number 4. - A Gourock Communion Token

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  I mentioned in yesterday's post, the history of the strict Presbyterian Highland Gaels in Greenock and in a previous post, I discussed the history of the temperance movement Inverclyde. My Papa Robert 'Robey' Ritchie Ahlfeld was also a lifelong teetotaller who never touched alcohol. We think this was possibly due to the fact that he was descended from a long line of strict Presbyterians on his Mother’s side, Margaret ‘Meg’ Ritchie. Although, others in the family did enjoy a drink.  The Ritchies are a very old Gourock family who joined the dissenting party during the great disruption of 1843. It is said that Gourock’s Free Church adherents belonged to families descended from Covenanters. As such, they spent sometime during the early days of the disruption, holding their services of worship at old conventicles out on the open moors above Gourock, just as their ancestors had done centuries earlier during the ‘Killing Time’ of the 1680s. The location of one such conventi
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Social History In 50 Objects Number 3. - The Pacific Star

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  I mentioned in yesterday's post that my Grandfather Dennis Haggerty worked as a docker for period after the war. Granda Haggerty was in the Royal Navy during the war and was awarded the Pacific Star but he never wore any of his medals or ever wore a poppy either. This is because Granda was still fighting the Japanese in the Pacific right up until VJ day and by the time he got home, he couldn't get his old job back or find any other work or receive any financial help from the Earl Haig fund. For Wee Dinny, post-war Scotland wasn't 'a land fit for heroes'. However, my Granda came back from the Pacific Campaign with a deep respect and admiration for Australians, and he actually wanted to move to Australia but my Gran didn't want to move way. The other thing my Granda brought home from the war was a dislike of what he called "Teuchters' and 'Wee Frees' from the Isles and this antipathy towards Highlanders continued into his working life at the
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