The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 17

COMMENTARY: TIME FOR ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE B7 CANADA mm FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 2014 r40 Cl SCOTT HEPPELLTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS Ballot boxes are opened as counting begins in the Scottish independence referendum for the Aberdeenshire council area in Aberdeen, Scotland on Thursday. As the polls closed late Thursday and the vote counting began, many Scots settled in to stay up all night in homes and bars to watch the results. A nationwide count began immediately at 32 regional centres across Scotland. hwm Women get OK to join St. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.

Andrews in Scotland, home of the rule-setting organization for the sport outside the U.S. and Mexico, has voted to allow female golfers to become members. Eighty-five per cent of its members voted for letting women in, the club said in a statement Thursday. "This is a very important and positive day in the history of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club," club secretary Peter Dawson said. The has served the sport of golf well for 260 years and I am confident that the club will continue to do so in future with the support of all its members, both women and men." He said the club would be adding "a significant initial number characteristics of the Yes campaign are balloons, razzmatazz and yes, some intimidation." Asked about the absence of signs proclaiming support for Scotland's union with the United Kingdom even on referendum day, Yes supporter Stanley Reilly said jokingly: "They're a bit shy, you see.

They won't even speak about it." But even Reilly, who worked as a photographer for 35 years in London, was uneasy about how things might turn out. "Much as I want independence, I don't think we'll get it," he said. "But it will be close." After Reilly spoke, a man whose identity papers showed that his name really was Elvis Presley hobbled by on his way to cast his ballot. "I'm Scottish but British also and I wish to remain Scottish British," Presley said. "I Hearts on sleeves Scotia nc faces as moment of truth Independence vote: Will pragmatism trump emotion? For many Scots, the decision is agonizingly difficult Scotland's other vote: MATT DUNHAMTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Sweden's Annika Sorenstam and other women can now join St.

Andrews golf club. about why the kingdom must remain united. "I am sick of all this talk about Scotland the Brave and all that shite," McTighe said, adding that nobody could intimidate her. But a moment later she confessed she had "not put a No sign up in my window because something might come through it." Such threats had been grossly exaggerated, Orr said, an opinion echoed by the Scottish police. "The No campaign has not been well organized," said Cameron Rose, a Tory city councillor who sported a pin with the Scottish flag and the Union Jack on his lapel.

"Three political parties are involved and it has not been easy. I hope the Yes campaign has overreached themselves a bit with their rhetoric. The Andrews golf club of women to become members in the comina months." 1 ne cnange comes two years after Augusta National Golf Club in the United States let women in as members. Augusta National, which is host of the a a i ivicoi.t-i: 111 ueuiyia eaumpiii, invited former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore, a Rainwater Inc. financier, to join its ranks in 2012, ending a decade of controversy over its all-male membership.

Although Trish Johnson, a winner of the Scottish Open, said inTenerife the vote was "not an important thing to me," she went on to say that a possible rule change would be "a very important thing in general for women." Danielle Rossingh, Bloomberg haven't voted on anything in 27 years but I am here today because I felt I had to." At a nearby swimming pool a brief but spirited discussion took place between male and female octogenarians who did not know each other. The man said that against his better judgment he had voted Yes because that was what his grandchildren were doing and he wanted to do this for them. The woman, who was holding her own grandson in her arms, tersely replied: "I voted for my grandson's future and I voted No." Matthew Thompson, who works in a fitness club, said that before he voted he had held his breath for about 30 seconds. "I had to decide between my heart and my head," Thompson said. "And my head won." within a few minutes' walk of the Scottish Parliament Building and Queen Elizabeth's Holyrood Palace.

"It is time," said Jim Orr, an independent Edinburgh councillor who lives in the area, as he handed out Yes stickers to people as they walked by. "This used to be a staunchly Labour place. But no more. People don't want the London parties anymore." "No more Tories and no more Thatcherism. Everyone will vote Yes," another man shouted after he and his three generations of his family came to vote.

Care worker Katherine McTighe disagreed strongly. Standing among a clutch of Yes supporters on the stairs of the Braidwood polling station, she declared she was "a No because I do not think Scotland can go it alone. If it is a Yes, I think we will be left with nothing." The race was thought to be so close, with a turnout so big, that tabulating the final result may not be finished until Friday morning. A flurry of recent polls has indicated that the Yes side has stunned even itself by overcoming a 20 per cent No lead since July. Travelling around Scotland, you could be forgiven for thinking the Yes side was poised to win a landslide victory.

Gauging voter intentions has been difficult because Yes organizers, with their placards and stickers, and leader Alex Salmond have seemed to be everywhere. Adding to the Yes campaign's sense of momentum, the separatists have appropriated for themselves Scotland's blue and white colours as well as St. Andrew's flag. The No campaign may have been virtually invisible because it had been so far ahead in the polls for so long. But that changed during the past few days, when the who's who of national politicians finally figured out Britain was in peril.

That led them to rush north to make passionate speeches us on to MATTHEW FISHER POSTMEDIA NEWS EDINBURGH A funereal fog cloaked the Scottish capital Thursday, but nothing could dampen the ardour of Edinbur-ghers to have their say about Scotland's future. Scots turned out in huge numbers to cast ballots in a referendum on whether the rugged, resource-rich northern rim of the British Isles should stick with the United Kingdom or go its own way. "Should Scotland be an independent country?" was the simple query voters had to answer. Those words elicited sharply contrasting opinions among a few of the almost 4.3 million registered voters outside a polling station tucked under the misty Salisbury Crags and Postmedia Raise' a Render The Vancouver Sun (k enter for iFj a chance to great prises! enter: raiseareadervan Visit Like No twtfw ftasy Con 10 war ol British CoUntM. 6arn must be met the on ol maw ity Mr twice 9 wmry Odd.

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