Gil Paterson: Retired Clydebank MSP on his 10 years in the job

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During the 2014 referendum, Gil Paterson insisted that he wouldn’t walk away from knocking a voter’s door without getting a handshake, regardless of how they would vote.

The idea of shaking hands might not be allowed thanks to Covid, but the retiring MSP is still sticking around on Clydebank’s doorstep for the work he’s got left to do.

Now 78, Gil steps down from elected office this week as one of the SNP’s elder statesmen, having been campaigning for the party in Scotland long before they became the ruling establishment.

He had the distinction of ending nearly 90 years of Labour dominance in the area when he became MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie in 2011.

But Gil was a long way from winning when he first joined the party.

Born in Springburn, Gil describes the area as having the same history as Clydebank, with the exception of the Blitz.

“It’s the same people,” he says.

He was the youngest of seven children, all living in a room and kitchen - outside toilet, black hob. His dad, Boab, was an engineer and an organiser for the Labour Party while mum, Babs, had two jobs.

From the age of four or five, he would be posting newspapers through doors, and later going with his sister to pay his dad’s union dues. And that’s where he’d hear the men - and it was, then, always men - speaking about the world.

There was no sudden moment he became political, he says, though in retrospect, he was a nationalist from the age of 12 or 13, even if he wouldn’t have known the word at the time.

He describes how he met an SNP member when he was about 16, in the era when the party’s activists were thought of as “Tartan Tories, nut jobs, or all that carry-on”.

Gil Paterson, far right, campaigning with other SNP members in 1985

Gil was a card-carrying Labour Party member, like the rest of the family, but he was interested in what the man was saying.

When the family moved to the Milton scheme, he met residents complaining about the lack of shops and facilities.

“They were complaining to the Labour MP at the time and he was talking about Liverpool,” recalls Gil.

“I thought to myself - because I tended to sit quiet, young, not very confident - ‘hold on, our guy in Liverpool should be talking about Liverpool, why are you not talking about us?’. 

“A couple days later I went into Elmbank Street, where the SNP had an office, and I joined. I remember that moment very well.

“I was going in to change all these nutters into my way of thinking. And when I met them, the first guy I met was just an ordinary person like me. It wasn’t what I thought it was.

“From then until now, I’ve been very comfortable.”

How did his dad react? He nearly threw Gil out of the house.

“He would hector me about the SNP,” he recalls.

“I became a target for my dad and it got to the stage I just couldn’t communicate with my dad any more.

“My mother was a great listener. So I confided in my mother and I convinced my mother about certain aspects of the big picture.

“And eventually, before he died, my dad did vote twice for the SNP. That was a big moment in my life.”

Gil first trained as a radiotrician, then worked at Singers Sewing Company - but in Glasgow, not Clydebank - fixing the interference suppressing the pedal would cause on a TV.

He went on to work for the gas board and then for a paint company.

That got him into automotive, marine and aircraft paint, ultimately securing a franchise for nothing and building his business from there.

His political life was a challenge at first. In his own words, he “got humped” the first time he stood for election.

“I was a bad, bad fourth,” he recounts.

Six months later, he won elected office for the first time, securing a seat on Strathclyde Regional Council in a by-election in Bishopbriggs with 51 per cent of the vote.

But in the next election, he was out again, beaten by just 73 votes.

“They did me a favour,” admits Gil, for whom defeat allowed him to concentrate on his business.

He spent a number of years on the party’s National Executive Committee, helping other people get elected.

He built the polling booths for shots. He created the “Snappy Bus” campaign vehicle, which helped SNP candidate Jim Sillars win the Glasgow Govan seat in a famous by-election in 1988. Much later, in the run up to the 2014 referendum, he did it again, creating the “Margo Mobile” - a converted ice cream van - in memory of the late Margo MacDonald. And he took a choir to the Scottish Office to sing political Christmas carols.

“You might call it a stunt - I called it an event,” he says.

“I was a doer to get things done.”

Westminster never appealed. But when the Scottish Parliament arrived in 1999, Gil was elected on the regional list for Central Scotland.

Later, when he and wife Sheila adopted daughter Lucy and they decided to move closer to son Glen, who runs Gil’s business, they settled in Strathblane. And in 2011, Gil became the candidate for Clydebank.

“I wouldn’t want to be a candidate without having the commitment ... I don’t do things in half measures,” he says.

“I don’t do things fast. I do things methodically, with an intention it might take years and years to come to fruition.”

He cites the example of the “hard damn work” to get millions invested in Dalmuir Wastewater Treatment Works in 2013 to combat the smell. And his years of campaigning to reduce the aircraft noise affecting homes under the flightpath in Whitecrook.

Gil spoke to residents of Whitecrook at a meeting about aircraft noise - an issue on which he plans to keep campaigning after he retires

Gil’s political philosophy has to go with the community.

“There’s no point in my rattling on about something if I don’t have someone standing beside me that it’s got an impact on,” he says.

“I have never achieved anything on my own.”

Some of the causes most important to him have been the ones that will never get publicity. Like much of an elected representative’s work, these might not always make national news, but they can make a real difference to lives.

So while his best achievement is a private one, his second was one that could, at least on first glance, appear to be a failure.

He had pushed for the Post-Mortems Examinations (Defence Time Limit) Bill in response to the death of schoolgirl Paige Doherty, and the significant delay faced by her family because of a second post-mortem.

The Bill failed to progress at the Scottish Parliament in January. But Gil was successful in his push for a protocol that establishes a similar time limit on post-mortems. It just lacks the legislative force to ensure guidance is followed.

But Gil can point out one of his other significant achievements by simply pointing to any Saltire.

The flag was the only one in the world without a defined colour. When a petition went to the former Scottish Executive on the issue, the government said it was azure blue.

Gil, with his “exceptionally good eye for colour identification”, took his “thousands” of colour swatches from his work, all called “azure”.

Pantone 300. That’s the colour, Gil told them.

“I’m happy with most of my work,” he says. “I think some of the things I have managed to do have made a difference to people’s lives, either as individuals or as a community.”

Gil says he’s a forward-looking person, whether that’s a “weakness or a strength” and learning from mistakes. But does he have any regrets?

“I missed my son growing up and almost missed every moment, caused by the politics,” he says.

“I really, really regret that and I could’ve done it better.

“And I decided I would not let that happen with Lucy.

“I can count on one hand the number of times I stayed in Edinburgh. It’s a long journey, and you’re up early and back late at night, but it wasn’t a sacrifice for me because I made my mind up: I made a mistake with my son and would not make again with my daughter.

“I would really have liked to go to art school. But when I put everything together, with the ups and downs of politics and business and putting it all in one big bundle and putting it against what might have been, I might have been okay if I made it.

“But I wouldn’t change anything - I’m happy.

“There’s pressure on politicians, because some people, unfortunately, don’t care about your personal circumstances. ‘Just get the job done for me.’

“But if you’re going into politics and taking umbrage at it, you better not be in politics. It’s just human nature and you’ve got to recognise that.”

Gil Paterson took up snowboarding at the age of 54, a sport he continues to enjoy with his wife Sheila and their daughter Lucy, centre

So now what? What comes after a life in politics? Gil offers one word: snowboarding.

The grandfather of three picked it up while visiting Alaska at the age of 54, and he, Sheila and Lucy have enjoyed the sport “everywhere you can think of”.

And there are still issues on which he intends to campaign. Pushing for noise mitigation measures for Bankies living under the airport flightpath is one. He is also chair of the new Ship Yard Trust, aiming to establish a world-class museum, hopefully in Clydebank, celebrating the Clyde’s shipbuilding heritage.

And he’ll never stop advocating for Scottish independence.

“Whatever you think is best for you and your family, and your community, is exactly what drives me,” he says.

“I’d be a hypocrite to criticise someone whose motives were the same as mine. It’s just that our journeys are different.

“I never walked away from any door without shaking somebody’s hand.

“There’s one one guy who didn’t want to. But I stood there until he shook my hand. And we ended up having a conversation afterwards.”

After 10 years as Clydebank’s MSP, Gil can’t shake everyone’s hand. But he still plans to have conversations with Clydebank on the journey.

Gil with Sheila and Lucy on the snowboarding slopes