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 This presentation of medals here in the Scottish Parliament by the first Minister of Scotland is a victory for the determination of the few in the face of many, many obstacles.
The passage of the campaign to get there was long and by no means straight forward.
Because of the endeavours of my Parliamentary Press Officer Mark Hirst I was made aware of how progress had been blocked by the MOD and indeed had been fruitless at Westminster. But Scotland and its young parliament was to prove different and to gain interest as it learned of the fate of the Lancastria and those on board a ship which had been born on the Clyde as a Cruise liner before commissioned into war service.
So in May 2005 I which had the privilege in a debate in this parliament ito give an account of Mr Walter Hirst’s survival in those oily machine gun strafed seas.I think it was the first our MSPs had heard of the Lancastria and the thousands who perished.
Then there was the petition I presented by Fiona Symon and Lieutenant Commander Chris Walsh who together with Mark Hirst gave a passionate and moving presentation to the Public Petitions Committee of this parliament overcoming resistance that this medal would be beyond this parliament’s powers.
In between there were presentations in the corridors of the parliament with books of remembrance, which even the Presiding Officer signed though I believe it is frowned upon by protocol.
The very moving ceremony last year when poppy petals were scattered across the floor of that parliament’s stairway to the sad strains of the Last Post
All who campaigned like others have never given up in their determination to see the Lancastria and those on board recognised for the price they paid that day some 68 years ago, thousands with their lives.
Today is a bitter sweet evening of success and sadness but vindication that with determination, with will, the words “lest we forget” are honoured and this presentation also honours the words engraved on the parliament’s mace; wisdom, justice, compassion, integrity.
It also somehow was just right that Scotland which had been first home to the ship, should be first to publicly recognise that pain and loss through all those years that it should find some solace here, in Scotland, where that journey began.
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