BEFORE 2014, Olaf Stando found politics “quite detached” from everyday life. To the extent it held any interest for him, it was “abstract”.
But as with so many others that year, he became intensely engaged with politics, something which he says put his life on a different trajectory.
Stando, who moved to Scotland from Wroclaw, Poland with his parents at the age of 10, can pinpoint the exact moment things changed for him.
Early in the summer of 2014, before he left home to attend Aberdeen University, he received a knock on the door of his home in Craigmillar, Edinburgh.
An activist from the Radical Independence Campaign was canvassing in the area and the pair had what proved to be a life-changing conversation.
The campaigner was around Stando’s age, “very passionate about politics” and they spoke about the possibilities presented by independence. It was at that moment he realised: “This really matters.”
A few days later, he stumbled into an “impromptu rally” the Grassmarket. “It was that spirit of the 2014 campaign that was so DIY,” he says.
“It was people coming together, doing things without asking permission, talking about the possibilities of a different Scotland.”
He moved later that summer to study at Aberdeen University. Stando missed “the entirety of freshers’ week”, where newbie students gather to get drunk and make life-long friends before they begin their studies.
Instead of being in the student union every night, he found himself “campaigning every single day for Yes” with people he’d just met.
When September 18 rolled around, Stando made his way to his polling booth to cast his first ever vote.
He was 19 at the time, and had been too young to vote in previous UK and Scottish elections.
Stando found the defeat crushing – and thinks the independence campaign “made the mistake of drinking too much Kool-Aid” by failing to do enough to convince winnable No voters.
“The Scottish cringe which has held sway for decades, if not centuries, isn’t going to be washed away in a two-year campaign,” he says.
But for that moment, it felt like the country had “so much power in our hands to change things for the better”.
For Stando, the indyref campaign eventually led to a life in politics, joining the SNP and working in party HQ for more than four years. Others have similar stories.
The 29-year-old now works as head of communications at the green packaging firm Reposit – and says he believes the Yes movement’s best days are yet to come.
“Yes is holding up at around 50% at this moment, at the moment that the SNP have lots of problems, when the movement is divided, I think that’s a testament to our strength,” he says.
