MAYBE I’m unusual.

Maybe the word eviction doesn’t bring other people out in a cold sweat. Maybe it seems a bit distant when applied to folk living in the sticks, like Scotland’s tenant farmers.

But I’d guess enough Scots know their clearance history to care. My own family do – they are Wickers whose idea of summer entertainment was a holiday picnic amongst the ruins of cleared crofts, or by the monument at Bad Bea where a generous “improving” landowner employed families to build a stone dyke keeping sheep safe from the perilously high cliffs at the Caithness Sutherland border. The people of course had to live on the other cliff-side of the dyke. Lucky sheep.

Crofters got some protection from arbitrary eviction when the Crofting Acts were passed in 1886, but since crofts were hopelessly overpopulated it didn’t really solve the underlying problem of land scarcity. And of course, wily landowners in Aberdeenshire managed to insist on an exemption for those counties not visited by the Napier Commission, whose damning evidence proved to be the catalyst for change. It’s one reason Aberdeenshire, Banff and Buchan are as empty as parts of the Highlands.

In 1903, tenant farmers were given the right to buy and the money to do it with under a 60-year payback period. It’s the reason Ireland – north and south – is populated and well-farmed with few of the empty glens and doffed caps so common to Scotland. The First World War interrupted plans to extend the same revolution to Scotland.

So we waited. A Land Reform Act was the first real legislation passed by the new Scottish Parliament – though as usual, the people had beaten the politicians to the chase, forging ahead with community buyouts in Assynt, Eigg and Knoydart without any help from the formal political process.

It was a start, but it only made community buyouts easier. Scotland’s 5,000 tenant farmers were probably the largest group who didn’t fit the community buyout model. And that’s why the Rural Affairs Minister Ross Finnie decided to try to help them in 2003 when it became clear they needed protection following a spate of notices to terminate “limited partnership” tenancies during the passage of legislation designed to strengthen farmers’ rights.

But the Government made a drafting mistake that allowed the legislation to be challenged by landowners and pronounced defective by the UK Supreme Court in 2013. The Scottish Government were told to rectify the situation via a Remedial Order, which meant the tenant farmers who thought they were safe could be evicted. The first eviction – of Lothian farmer Andrew Stoddart – took place in January and the Paterson family on Arran are due to be evicted in two weeks’ time. I wrote about their plight some weeks ago and OurLand campaigners hoped the Scottish Government would re-employ the mediators, recognise their partial responsibility for the Patersons’ predicament and consider if any kind of emergency legislation could halt the evictions. Veteran land campaigner and Green MSP Andy Wightman produced a motion to that effect hoping for cross-party support particularly from SNP MSPs recently elected on a genuinely “radical” land reform platform.

But a few days later, the Patersons’ own MSP Kenny Gibson amended Andy’s motion, removing mention of the tripartite mediation promised by the Scottish Government and shifting all blame onto the landowners.

This is a shocking betrayal and it’s the reason OurLand has joined the campaigning group 38 Degrees and the Scottish Tenant Farmer’s Association calling for a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament today at 1pm. The current evictions can still be stopped – but it looks as if people power is needed to stiffen the resolve of MSPs and ministers.

If the Patersons are chucked out on Monday, November 28, like Andrew Stoddart and his family nine short months ago, they will be devastated – and they will not be the last. Five other families are in the same situation and the next facing eviction are actually the Paterson’s neighbours on Arran, the McMaster family.

Richard McMaster, 55, is a second-generation beef and sheep farmer who has lived on Arran all his life and farmed the land for 16 years. His wife Fiona has a job on the island and they have five children. They will not automatically be homeless if they are evicted from the 500-acre Kilbride farm they rent from Arran Estate owner Charles Fforde next November. In 1988, they bought the much smaller, neighbouring, 100-acre Springfield Farm and live in a farmhouse there. They won’t have a living though.

According to Richard: “Springfield is not viable on its own. It’s half the size needed to support one person let alone three or four.” One of Richard’s three sons will be homeless though. Niall currently lives in a caravan with his new wife on Springfield Farm and was hoping to build a house there this year. But there’s no point if there’s no land, no work and no income. It’s more than a shame. Niall gave up a promising career as a sports coach in Ayrshire because the family believed they had a secure farm tenancy. Their youngest, Stuart, trained as a mechanic. He’s gone to work in Canada for the winter because there may be no point coming home to Arran as he intended. All their lives are on hold.

According to Richard: “We are still hoping we won’t have to move. We’re daft as a brush that way.

“If money was the driving factor we wouldn’t be farming. A friend came out of farming and became a joiner. He works half the hours he used to do and earns twice the money. I asked: ‘Would you ever go back?’ ‘In a heartbeat,’ he said. It’s like having kids – it’s not a thing you do for the money.”

So how does it feel watching the Patersons five miles down the road preparing to leave everything behind?

“The Paterson’s are still hoping [their landowner] Charles Fforde will give them something – even a five-year tenancy. It’s terrible seeing what it’s doing to the family and thinking we’ll be next.

“It’s stressful and sad. The Paterson’s have been good friends and neighbours. We do each other’s sileage and we work together. They’ll be a big loss. The average age of farmers is getting older and older – these are the young folk who should be the next generation, but they are being chucked out instead. All of us who are fighting for our rights are fighting for the next generation.”

And he’s damning of the SNP Government’s no-can-do attitude compared to the help offered by the former Lib-Lab government.

“In 2003 the Scottish Government did all they could to keep tenants in place. OK – they made a drafting mistake. But Ross Finnie put in infinitely more effort to help us in 2003 than the present government is doing today – this government is talking a good game about helping but actually doing the opposite. Why haven’t they brought this back before Parliament? It seems SNP MSPs can’t tolerate any criticism of the Scottish Government. So it’s just a few officials who’ve decided this stance with their lawyers. It’s not the will of the Parliament.”

Fiona McMaster’s thoughts on the prospect of their own eviction next year are clear-sighted and heart-breaking.

“The SNP talk a great story about supporting young people in the countryside but the reality of our experience is sadly and devastatingly different. We have been given hope only to have the rug pulled from under us time and time again. We did not ask to be in this position. Everything the Scottish Government has asked of us we have done. We have produced all the information they have asked for, we have, willingly, made ourselves available for meetings and mediation but they have consistently moved the goalposts to the point where they are now blanking us completely. They appear to be listening only to their lawyers. The same lawyers, who, I understand, drew up the flawed legislation.

“The most ridiculous aspect of this whole debacle is that the original legislation was intended to strengthen our status and allow us the security to plan for the future and farm well. It is now having the absolute opposite effect. We have only insecurity and are facing ruin. Why?

“The Paterson family and ourselves have invested a great deal of time, toil and money improving and supporting the land we farm for the wonderful, diverse wildlife here on Arran.

“It is and has been a joy and a privilege – though we made many sacrifices such as family holidays to invest in the farm – but who will do that when we’re gone? The ecology of the south end of Arran will be changed if we go. Many people come hoping to see hen harriers and eagles in the hills – their numbers are the highest they’ve been in recent times because of the way we’ve cared for our land. I wish the Scottish Government had told us at the outset that they were going to hang us out to dry instead of stringing us along for all these years.

“At least we would have saved all the time, money and heartache we’ve spent meeting all their requests. All that false hope. I’m a once-proud SNP member, now heartbroken.”

There is no doubt that landowners are to blame for evicting farmers with a great track record and with little prospect of any financial gain. It seems plain spiteful. But there’s a big difference between the eviction of Andrew Stoddart and the situation facing the Patersons and McMasters – a “radical” Land Reform Act has since been passed, an act whose letter and spirit are nonetheless not radical enough to afford these families any support.

I care about that. If you do and can come to the Scottish Parliament today at 1pm, we can try to persuade politicians, lawyers and civil servants again that their job is to protect Scots against heartless evictions that fly in the face of decency.