IT would be very easy for me to frame the words that follow around nostalgia. The enormous campaign teams, the friendships made in 2014, the inspiring events, the hope, the optimism, the belief that we were about to return Scotland to being a normal independent state.

And a large part of me wants to do just that. But when I think about the independence referendum, and the many months leading up to it, I’m afraid that my gaze is often simply drawn back to one thing, and one thing alone. The fact that we lost. (And maybe that’s been entrenched further by the fact that I have to suffer Westminster most weeks!) Because the reality is that in politics there are no prizes for second place.

The relief on the faces of the victors at the referendum count in Aberdeen is something that I will never forget, and nor would I want to. I knew many of the people in the room who had campaigned for the Union and know many more of them now.

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They were entitled to feel a sense of relief. Our nation is their home as much as it is ours, and they celebrated just as I would have done had the result been as I had so badly hoped.

It broke my heart a fair bit at the time but in the end, it’s simple. They won, we lost.

For those of us involved in, and intrigued by, politics, we will have all spent hours discussing where it went wrong. Was it the debates, the answers to some key questions, the Vow? Or was it simply that the public just weren’t quite ready to make that final, definitive step?

Whichever answer you’re drawn to is important, but not nearly as important as what happens next. Because just as we can’t dwell on the past, neither can we sit around having these same discussions for the next decade and beyond.

And in that context, two things give me enormous cause for hope.

The first is that we know the dial has not shifted. Give or take a percentage point here and there, the Scottish public remain roughly split down the middle on whether they want to create an independent state, or not.

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That starting point should fill us with optimism that we can, and will, win in the years to come.

But it should also concern us a little too because it shows that we haven’t yet convinced enough people.

The same, of course, is true for our counterparts – indeed it’s clear that the only stable thing in Scottish politics in the last decade is the fact that neither of us has yet triumphed in the hearts and minds of a clear majority of the public.

The second is that for the generations following my own the settled will appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of independence. With that foundation, we can complete the journey that binds all of us together.

But again, this cannot be taken for granted. The right to their lasting support must be earned and it has to be the catalyst for what comes next.

Someone once told me that our movement is like the sea. The tide will come in and out, but each time our water mark reaches a higher point in the sand.

Our movement will stumble and falter because our mission is so massive. But we should take hope and heart from the reality that history is washing our way.

Our history has been, and our future will be, carved out by the Scottish people.

Ten years on from 2014, we must remember that, and when they choose the time to be right, we had best get on and deliver for them.