SHE looks out towards a patch of Scotland spotted by an unconvincing Caledonian sun.

It is the Thursday of hope. It is the day when a future will be decided and Winifred Margaret Woodburn Ewing has to be led back to the past.

At 85, she leans forward, almost as if her entire being is hard-wired to move forward. The past for the politician known widely as simply Winnie holds loss, triumph, celebrity, hurt, pain, extraordinary achievement, and death. She does not shrink from any of that, her mind is still bright, her words still tumble forth in an easy articulacy. But Mrs Ewing has a vision. The view from the care home at Quarrier's Village in a corner of beautiful Renfrewshire entrances her momentarily but then she returns to the vision.

"I have never had any doubt that Scotland will be independent. None," she says. This is still hopeful Thursday for the Yes campaign. She adds: "I am not daft. I know this is on a knife edge. But this can not be stopped. It is a movement, a process."

This quiet anticipation of what may happen in the event of a defeat is a Ewing trait. She is a politician and a personality scarred by loss but a character forged by learning from it, overcoming it.

Her residence in this part of rural Scotland is bound closely to death. She came to the home to be with her sister, Jean, who died there. "I was with her and we talked a lot about death," says Mrs Ewing briskly. "I am glad I did it and now I want to move on. I have a flat in Edinburgh and want to get back there."

The loss was just the latest of many. "I suppose that is one of the consequences of age," she says. Her husband, Stewart, died in 2003, she lost a daughter-in-law in Margaret, the former MP, and a host of friends who launched Madame Ecosse on the world stage.

The first steps of the road to the referendum can be traced back to the Hamilton by-election in 1967. The Scottish National Party, previously ridiculed as a cult, won it handsomely. Mrs Ewing went on to become a Member of the European Parliament, an MP for Moray and Nairn and finally a member of the Scottish Parliament.

She is the figure who epitomises the rise of the SNP but who also characterises a strong Scottish trait of overcoming circumstance by force of will and deployment of intelligence. Her father, George Woodburn, lost his right hand at 21 when he was a turner. He used his compensation money to pursue political causes while also setting up a wholesale paper business in Glasgow fish market.

The Ewing family - that now counts her children Fergus, as Energy Minister, Annabelle as an MSP and Terry, as a financial adviser -- can be viewed as part of a privileged dynasty, but Mrs Ewing points out: "We come from Dalmarnock Road."

Her journey from the east end saw her bullied in Westminster by Labour MPs from the central belt. "When Harold Wilson heard of this he looked at his watch and told me: 'From this moment it stops'." It included a friendship with Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel, and an entry into the political corridors of Strasbourg and beyond.

She acknowledges her life has been out of the ordinary but adds: "There are no accounting for certain moments. Hamilton in 1967 was a marker of where we are today but we had no doubts about the justice of our cause and, curiously, we all thought we would win."

A successful solicitor in 1967, she veered on to a different path. "I could not have done it without Stewart." she says of her late husband. "He was immensely supportive, politically astute and very funny. I miss him. But you have to do without," she says.

The last sentiment is both poignant and pragmatic. There is emotion in Madame Ecosse but there is the realisation that fate deals blows that can only be endured. Yet she has never craved for another life. "I never have had one moment of regret over committing my life to independence. Not one," she says.

This acceptance, forged in the crucible of personal loss, makes Fateful Friday bearable after Hopeful Thursday. Mrs Ewing did not watch the results coming in. "I voted by post as I always do," she says. "It was then just a matter of going to bed and seeing what unfolded." She awoke not to an independent Scotland but certainly one that was changed by the events of the referendum, particularly by the Westminister panic of the past fortnight.

But has the moment passed? The watery sunshine of Thursday has been replaced by the sombre cloud of Friday. The brightness does not fade from Mrs Ewing. "This is only a postponement.When they say this is the last chance for independence, have they not looked at history? This was just the first chance. This is a movement and it will continue. There is a desire for more fairness for less fortunate people that can not be addressed under the present system. The English parliament will not consider it."

She adds: "I have always been convinced Scotland will be independent. There is emotion in that but there is thought too. It is a matter if studying history, appreciating the process. It will happen. We are on the road."

With that, she raps her stick on the floor and walks to me the door, ushering me towards the new Scotland. It is what she does, what she will continue to do.