It's a Wednesday evening in Easterhouse and the first of a series of mass canvases organised by the Radical Independence Campaign.

Easterhouse has been targeted because it is among Scotland's most deprived areas: the ideal focus for a campaign whose slogan is "Britain is for the rich, Scotland can be for us". The group aims to draw out the yes vote they believe is waiting to be tapped in this area among people not yet registered to vote - since it is an area of low electoral registration.

There's an 80-strong turn-out of campaigners from across Scotland, and even the wider UK. Fiona Higgins is a cardiac physiologist who, as she works in London, can't vote herself. She has been paired for canvassing with Eachann Gillies, a politics graduate who has never knocked doors before.

Gillies is not alone: organiser Jonathon Shafi estimates around 40% of those who have turned up are canvassing the first time. They have been given no briefing on what to say. "There were no instructions," says Shafi. "People can say what they like. I believe that if you go to a door with a line, often that's immediately alienating."

However, the group is armed with electoral registration forms. Arthur Miller, a retired former joiner, tells the campaigners he is a defiant yes - but his concern is the currency. "It's the only thing that is outstanding," he says. "And the pound is as much ours as theirs. I think it would be foolish of them to not allow us to keep it." His antipathy towards Westminster is clear. "They're certainly not a government we voted for," he says.

Margaret Stewart, a local walking her dog, is a "don't know". She is a cleaner, owns her house and feels totally disaffected. Hard-working people like her are always let down, she says. "I just feel people like myself generally don't benefit, whatever government. I see a lot of people who are unemployed and a lot of people who are on benefits and they're all better off than I am. And it's hard to swallow at times."

Even when the idea is put to her that independence will help the working class, it does nothing to change her opinion. "I don't think it'll make any difference to me."

Of the nearly 300 people who were asked that evening, 50% said they were voting Yes, 16% No and the rest were undecided.

Jonathon Shafi notes that most people he talked to were not interested in the issues that dominate the news. Few talked of currency, he said - most were more concerned about welfare cuts.