Contents
- Scottish Parliament Wednesday 1 October 2003 (Afternoon)
- Time for Reflection
- Mainstreaming Equality
- Committee of the Regions (Membership)
- Business Motion
- Parliamentary Bureau Motions
- Motion without Notice
- Decision Time
- Transport (Southern Edinburgh)
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Erik Cramb, co-ordinator of the Scottish Churches Industrial Mission.
At about half past six on Christmas Eve in 1969, I was in a bus queue in Argyle Street behind a wee woman—she wasn't very big; five foot nothing of pure Glasgow aggression. I remember it well. I was trying to buy Christmas presents and was skint. She was loaded up to the oxters with bags and parcels. The bus came along. It was one of what everyone in those days called the new-fangled, one-man-operated buses; it was not a kneeling bus. This wee woman struggled up the high step and she turned round and said to nobody in particular—you know how Glaswegians can mutter out loud—"Good grief, it's a sin tae be born wi short legs nowadays." We all laughed.
She started to make her way into the bus with all these parcels when the driver said, "Yer fare, missus."
"Ma fare?" she said in utter disbelief, "How in the name o the wee man am Ah supposed to get ma fare oot? Dae ye think Ah'm a bloomin octopus?"
"Ah cannae help it," the driver said apologetically.
"Ach, Ah know son," she said. She dropped her bags and parcels to the floor and started fishing in her purse. She turned to everyone behind her and said, "Ah bet the guy that designed this bus disnae travel in it. Ah bet he's probably the guy in that Jaguar at the back!"
Again, everyone laughed, but I have never forgotten that wee woman's insight. It is a truth that the people who design our buses do not travel in them, like the people who designed our high flats never lived in them.
At the heart of the Christian faith is the notion that, in the life of Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth, God has walked in our footsteps. I think that that is a challenge to those of us, like me, who sometimes get into pulpits and talk from 10ft above contradiction—you would love that. It is also a challenge to you up here on this hill who legislate. How much do we walk in the footsteps of, or share life with, those whose lives we profoundly affect? If I may say so, the Public Petitions Committee is a wonderful tool for keeping in touch with daily life. Thank you and God bless you.