AT the Yes Inverclyde campaign hub, volunteers have been busy in action helping to organise the huge task of delivering thousands of pro-independence newspapers to every home in the area.

The operation is one of many under way across Scotland as independence supporters join the drive to distribute a million copies of the eight-page newspaper.

The special edition has been produced as a collaboration between The National, the SNP and Believe in Scotland.

Mary Mcglashan, of Yes Inverclyde, said the group was aiming to deliver 35,000 copies to every home in Inverclyde – from Port Glasgow to Inverkip.

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She said: “It’s going smoothly – so far it’s going pretty well and we’re pleased we can process that amount, it’s good practice hopefully for the next step of the campaign.

“We’ve got seven wards so we’re trying to organise it by ward – we’ve got about 100 volunteers recruited and we’re getting more people coming in and offering to help every day.

“The advantage of having the hub to do this is amazing because people know where to come. We’ve had it open since 2019, so we’ve had a lot of time to prepare the ground and it’s now putting it into practice, which is very exciting.”

Mcglashan believes the newspaper would make a huge difference to the independence campaign.

“It’s showing unity of purpose, so all of the difficulties that we’ve had really are going to be placed aside,” she said. “Now the serious work is getting done.

“We’re getting a high-quality product which we can put out there and that’s turning it into an efficient and effective campaign.

“It sends a signal that we’re back – it has a good feel to it.

“We’re really grateful to The National for masterminding it and for Believe in Scotland and the SNP to have come together and done a great job.”

Other volunteers worked in smaller groups to cover local areas, such as Kay Frew, from Aye Inverness, who delivered around 1000 papers with a group of six friends.

She said: “It’s been good – we’ve gone out each day and everyone has delivered around 100 papers each. They’re going no problem, they’re a good read and we haven’t had any bad comments or anything.

“I think it’s definitely going to help, we needed something like this and it’s time for it.

“It’s good to get the positive message out and The National has done a fantastic job to get that amount of papers out to us.

“We got them Wednesday morning. It was all out from then on, and we got the 1000 out by Friday.”

An unexpected outcome of the newspaper delivery drive for Frew is that it has led her Aye group to meet up in person again.

She added: “We had a face-to-face meeting this week and that’s the first time we’ve done that – probably prompted by the newspapers coming out.

“We’ve always been having a Zoom meeting every week and it was really good to meet in person, following all the Covid protocols. That’s what we’ll do once a month from now on.”

For Tom Mathers, Prestwick SNP branch organiser, the operation to deliver nearly 8000 papers across the town has involved storing thousands of paper in his garage.

He’s been weighing them out to get the right quantities for a team of 26 volunteers to distribute in their allocated areas.

He said the newspaper was important as the people who begin to read it may be “marginals” in the independence debate.

“It’s getting the message across and giving people something to read,” he said.

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“It makes people begin to think and believe that we could actually achieve something ourselves.

“We’ll deliver around 8000 newspapers in Prestwick – the fact it could potentially influence people when indyref2 does come about is significant.”

He said: “Sometimes there has been disquiet at the lack of [independence campaigning] happening at the moment.

“I feel this is one of the reasons this newspaper is so significant – it’s triggering that momentum. Now let’s keep that momentum going.”