by Gordon Craigie

Buachaille Etive Mòr

2014 WAS A momentous year for all Scots. For independistas we had the exhilaration of our momentum building towards 18 September – can any of us ever forget the rush of excitement when that poll came out a week before the event? – then the crushing disappointment of 19 September, and the realisation that we’d come so tantalisingly close to regaining our independence only to be taunted with EVEL instead of ‘lead don’t leave’. It was like a bereavement. Yet within a few days we all realised that it wasn’t the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. SNP membership soared to unprecedented levels, same for the Scottish Green Party, and it was clear that our fight to regain our independence was far from over – the Yes movement was alive and kicking and preparing for the next battle. Well, 2020 – bring it on!

His first job was as a butcher, yet he married a vegetarian!

In amongst all of this activism, of course, life goes on. At the start of 2014, iScot Magazine reader and ardent independence supporter Ian Bain was working away as an Environmental Health Officer by day and tramping around Forfar canvassing for Yes almost every night. His intensive triathlon training had been severely curtailed, not just by work and politics but because he just ‘wasn’t himself’ and medical investigations weren’t pinpointing the cause. Until one day they did, and the news was devastating – MND, Motor Neurone Disease. But Ian is a husband, father and grandfather, a son and a brother, a friend, a colleague and a teammate. He’s defined by who he is and not by what he does – his first job was as a butcher, yet he married a vegetarian! So, he most definitely was NOT going to be defined by MND…