The Mound in Edinburgh is a busy thoroughfare: the middle of the three routes from the higher south side of the city to Princes Street and then down to the New Town, Leith and the Firth of Forth. Its most prominent building is the spired New College, the main theology hall of the Church of Scotland, and behind it, the General Assembly meeting hall. In 1982 the courtyard of New College was the setting for an historic meeting when leaders of the Church of Scotland, under the eyes of a statue of John Knox, greeted Pope John Paul II on the first papal visit to Scotland. Outside and behind a line of policemen, two famous Protestants protested. One was Ian Paisley, founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and leader of the Ulster Democratic Unionist party. The other was the man habitually described as ‘Scotland's Ian Paisley’: Pastor Jack Glass. Paisley eventually led his party to victory in Northern Ireland and twenty-five years after his Mound protest took office as First Minister of a devolved assembly. Jack Glass continued to lead his tiny band of followers in street protests and remained a figure of fun for the Scottish press until his death in 2004.

I am not sure that he was playing at the Mound that day – his health had been poor – but had Alan Cameron been busking with his bagpipes at his usual spot, his presence would have perfected the symbolism of the Pope's visit to New College, for it encapsulated the main themes of this chapter's discussion of Protestantism in Scotland.