YOU WIN SOME, YOU LOSE SOME
8.“The euro is hopeless — just look at Greece,” one man scoffed. “Aye, but we can’t keep the pound if England is outside of Europe, can we?” his friend replied. “Scotland needs its own money,” a third concluded, prompting more earnest chat about who should be featured on the notes. (William Wallace, Scotland’s most celebrated freedom fighter, who was born just outside Paisley and hanged, drawn and quartered by King Edward I of England in 1305, is a clear favorite; followed by Mary Stuart, beheaded by Queen Elizabeth three centuries later.)
9. On the second floor of Paisley Museum, Dan Coughlan, the curator for textiles, is more skeptical about secession. Leafing through an 18thcentury pattern book, Coughlan told the story of how Paisley had benefited from the 1707 union with England, which gave its weavers and cotton mills access to foreign markets, ideas and technology and made it one of the most productive towns in the British Empire.
10.“Paisley was at the frontier of globalization before the term ‘globalization’ was coined,” Coughlan said. He backed independence in 2014. But now that Britain is leaving the EU, he is not so sure. “Who knows whether the European Union will still be there in a few years’ time?” he said. “Scotland could be on its own, outside the U.K. and Europe.”
BLASTS FROM THE PAST
11. George Adam, who represents Paisley in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, wears only ties that carry the Paisley pattern, or the black and white colors of the local soccer club. He joined the nationalists in 1987, a time when Margaret Thatcher, then the Conservative prime minister, left her mark on Scotland with regressive taxes and anti-union policies, even though few Scots voted for her. “Scotland felt like a different country then,” he recalled. “Today, it does so more than ever.”
12.Paisley is competing to become Britain’s City of Culture in 2021. The designation could bolster local pride and confidence, officials say. But by then, Scotland might be an independent country. Adam chuckled, adding, “We could be the first City of Culture in a newly independent Scotland.”