ALL was quiet in Croy yesterday. The day of celebration to mark the Queen's 50 years on the throne had not reached the small, famously Celtic-supporting village in North Lanarkshire, despite a local politician's claim to the contrary.
Cathie Craigie, the Labour MSP for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, brought a momentary stunned silence to the Scottish Parliament with her suggestion last month that a Celtic supporters' club in Croy would be likely to mark the jubilee. It turned out she was right, sort of. But, the only jubilee being celebrated there is the supporters' club's 50th anniversary.
Apart from a few teenagers in the green and white hoops of their team, the streets of the village were empty yesterday.
The first signs that Ms Craigie's remarks might in fact have been well-founded came from the match secretary of Croy's Bowling Club.
''Oh yes, I think they are doing something for the jubilee. I'll make some phone calls and see if I can find out what it was.''
As John Buchanan kindly started trawling through the phone book, William Tierney, his colleague and the only other Croy resident in the club yesterday, cast doubt on his claim.
''I really don't think they'll be doing anything round here,'' he said. ''We haven't got anything against the Queen, we're just not really interested.''
They were both right. Mr Buchanan returned from his calls with details of a quite different golden anniversary event: ''The only celebrations we're having here are for the Celtic supporters' club down the road.''
Coatbridge, another town inextricably linked with republicanism, was also rather subdued.
Many of the shops were still open, but without the royal memorabilia on sale in other areas, and Coatbridge residents were out enjoying the sunshine and a day off work.
There was a scattering of yellow jubilee balloons, but celebrations and street parties were nowhere to be seen.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article