It was spring In 1961 when the Proteus the American nuclear submarine sailed up the Clyde and into the Holy Loch with her Polaris missiles, and sparked off a wave of demonstrations and songs which were to make headlines all over the world for the months ahead’.

In fact the singing campaign was reported, from the BBC to Radio Moscow.

The arrogance of the Americans who had selected this spot in Scotland because it would both serve their military purposes and provide ‘a pleasant environmen’t for the dependants billeted there, caused an unprecedented political uproar.

Demonstrators from all walks of life and from disparate organisations came by train, boat and car. Quakers came with their own particular brand of conviction and groups like the Gorbals Young Socialists hitched or arrived in rattletrap lorries.

At every available opportunity,on station platforms quaysides on the march and on improvised platforms they sang in protest, standing up or sitting down, an. with particular conviction, to the ruffled Americans who had to pass them at Ardanadam pier.

They sang songs which aimed to get over the idea that Scotland was being pushed around and then, hammer it in. The words were balled into slogans like

The idea was to plant them in the collective unconscious.This may well be one of the reasons that although the campaign itself could hardly be counted a success (we’ve still got Trident contaminating Faslane), it has had a lasting effect on spirit of the times

Every event was grist to the mill.

The very first protesters had arrived in canoes causing Commander Lanin to write them off as nothing but ‘a bunch of Goddamn eskimos’

He didn’t know the well known Glasgow song: ‘Ma maw’s a millionaire’

‘Up among the eskimos,

The writers took a partisan tune and changed it into a rousing rant which went straight into the repertoire.

‘We’ll gaff the nyaff ca’ed Lanin

For we are the Glesca Eskimos’

The eponymous Rev. George Macleod, the leader of the Iona Community at the time spoke at the first demonstration held near George Square in Glasgow and warned his audience that ’You cannot spend a dollar when you are dead’,

Morris Blythman, aka Thurso Berwick, and John Mack Smith then initiated a process that aimed to shape, sharpen up and simplify the words into songs that would go straight to the point and into the heads of the listeners. And so was produced the still well known

The songs came from a communal political commitment and a creative process called ‘workshopping’.

Many of the songs had multiple authors though generally the original notion would come from one of a small group of writers. including, Morris Blythman, John Mack Smith, Freddy Anderson, Hamish Henderson and Jim McLean who all had a good ear for words. They then went to what was known as the anti Polaris Singers’ comprising Josh Macrae, Bobbie Campbell, Nigel Denver, Gordon Mc Culloch. Ray Fisher. Jackie O’Connor and Hamish Imlach who would give it the characteristic compelling beat and driving rhythm The songs were dynamic and grew and developed with the campaign and so had both an immediacy and a conviction which captured the public imagination and have done so much to keep them in the contemporary folk canon.

Many of the songs had specific targets in the tradition of the Scottish’ flytins’ and the writers made no apology for this. ‘We were on the side of anything that made the Americans mad’ and it is interesting that when the songs were recorded and published by Folkways the American company they couldn’t quite stomach ‘Cheap-Jack the Millionaire’ or ‘Up with the the Rampant Lion’ because they were too anti -Kennedy. Of course these songs were cheeky and were aimed to cock a snoot particularly at politicians who should have known better than support a nuclear submarine in the Holy Loch

Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour leader, copped it once when at a May Day demonstration he was foolish enough to :

‘Ca’ the folk ( anti polaris hecklers ) peanuts

The only nut there was himsel’’

The humour was wicked and yet good humoured. The police learned to play a part:

Like Yogi Bear

He was rumoured to have sent a constable to buy a copy of the Ding Dong Dollar record.

These songs played an irreplaceable part in the Anti Polaris campaign Their great strength lay in their determination to speak out to and for the people of Scotland, uncompromising and rooted in our tradition of invective and irony, powerful weapons in any political struggle.

Marion Blythman