sitting in a little cafe a couple of hundred yards from the statue of Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle last Thursday afternoon, the conversation was a source of considerable pride and joy.

The company comprised my younger son, his friend, and a young man from Germany whom they met during a recent holiday to the country.

They were talking energetically about what they saw as the great opportunity that referendum day represented. To their even greater credit, they were undeterred by the negativity from the fourth person in the company, a middle-aged bloke who had missed no opportunity over the past two years to warn anyone who listened that there was little chance of a Yes vote. Whatever way things would go, the consensus seemed to be that things were changing for the better.

When I spoke to my son again the following day I expected his mood to be somewhat deflated, but not a bit of it. He was resolute in his view that there is now a real sense of momentum and a determination among the majority of young people to make this a better place for them to live in. Later that day, both his enthusiasm and my pessimism seemed reflected in the tale of how another young Scot had shown fortitude in expressing his hopes for the future.

Andy Murray, in a tweet last week, said: "Huge day for Scotland today! No campaign negativity last few days totally swayed my views on it, excited to see the outcome. Let's do this!"

Expressing a real joie de vivre, Murray had decided he could no longer hold back on his views.

Asked for his opinion on the matter in the immediate aftermath of his Wimbledon triumph last year, he had recognised the question's validity. "When the time is right I will probably say something about it," Murray replied. "I'm going to get asked about it all the time.

"I will think about it, speak to some people and try to see what is best for the country."

Thereafter he seemed to back away from that position, perhaps based at least partly on experience that it would only invite trouble, as had been the case following the response to his comment that he wanted "anyone but England" to win the 2006 World Cup.

The impression, too, was that some in his entourage were urging him to keep quiet. Those advising silence may have felt some sense of vindication following a backlash that was nothing short of horrific yet, in many ways, the only mistake Murray made was in leaving his intervention so late, with minimal time for such people to expose themselves in all their vileness.

The most revolting of the anonymous messages sent to him should never again appear in print other than on courtroom papers. However, almost as despicable was the fact that even after that had been published it did not deter the clowns, some of them in the public eye themselves, who heaped further insult and scorn upon Murray and sought to label him a hypocrite.

Presumably, they would level the same charge at his great rival Novak Djokovic who represented Yugoslavia at the Junior Davis Cup but now proudly represents Serbia on the international stage.

Should he require further advice Murray might seek it from another tennis-playing contemporary in Sergei Bubka, the son of a rather more famous athlete of the same name who dominated the pole vault under the Soviet Union banner during the first decade of his career, before doing the same for his native Ukraine over the next 10 years.

Murray may not thank anyone for keeping this in the public domain of course, having sought to draw a line under the matter this week, by saying he did not regret expressing a view, but suggesting he might have done so in a different way.

However, that he did so spoke to both the sort of courage, passion and spontaneity that saw him achieve - first at the US Open, then at Wimbledon - what one insipid British hopeful after another had failed to do over the previous seven decades and more.

My sincere hope, then, is that no amount of pressure from critics will cow this particular young Scot who must now wear a Union Jack to play international team sport.

In his example, as well as that of Cat Boyd, a young, self-proclaimed "working class" girl with dyed red hair who told BBC news reporters last Friday that the genie is now out of the bottle and cannot be recaptured, there really is still a chance for a better future for my lad and others of their generation.