For all the highs and the lows, the laughter and tears, the good, the bad and the ugly.. I thank you for sharing them with me. All of life has appeared in this column. Now it’s time to turn the page
Lockdown has changed us all. There’s nothing like the spread of a deadly virus and the deaths of millions of folk to focus the mind.
Life is too short, right? If you’re ever going to make a change, you’d better do it now. If there’s a challenge you’ve been contemplating but always put off to another day, maybe now is that “other” day. This is how the pandemic has affected me.
So after 22 years – on and off – working at this newspaper, this is my final column for the Sunday Mail.
I’m walking the walk, practising what I preach, grasping a fresh opportunity and accepting the chance to do something completely different.
Even writing that makes me feel a little nervous because I’m stepping into the unknown. Not exactly a giant leap for (wo)mankind but as close to it as I’ll ever get.
What a privilege it has been to spend so much of my career filling the pages of this paper where the news agenda is set week in, week out, and where speaking truth to power is a way of life.
In nearly eight years as a columnist, the world has been turned upside down, given a good shake and thrown together again in ways that are still difficult to comprehend.
I’ve been able to vent my spleen on the issues of the week, rant and rave at the bloomin’ infuriating and downright appalling behaviourr of politicians, celebrities, footballers lers and anyone else who’s rattled my cage. I’ve made it my business to support the underdog and – more than anything, I hope – champion the rights of women. All too often, the underdog is a woman. .
There have been truly momentous events to discuss. s.
Scotland went to the polls in the independence referendum and rejected the opportunity. Wrongly, in my opinion, and what’s a column about if it’s not t my opinion. But the country was as evenly split. If it made both sides es work harder in future to prove the validity of their position, then real good could come of the vote.
Better still, Alex Salmond stepped down as leader of the
SNP and his more-than-able deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, took over. Who could have known, at the time, how that relationship would change or where Salmond would end up?
Two years after the indie vote came the Brexit referendum. Suddenly we were out of Europe and struggling with the realisation that Nigel Farage and his swivel-eyed followers had taken over the nation. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried. Less than five months later Donald Trump was elected president. Two-and-a-half years on and Boris
Johnson had
become leader of the Tory party and Jeremy Corbyn was busy destroying the challenge of Labour.
The result of this perfect storm still boggles the brain: Johnson is PM. I can’t count the number of mornings I’ve woken up to the news on “column writing day” and wailed: “What the hell do I say about this without swearing?”
However, we’ve also had the MeToo movement, a seismic
shift in women’s rights and a global amplification of female voices, so it hasn’t been all bad. I genuinely believe my daughter will grow up in a better Scotland than I did.
In other news, I’ve been to a royal wedding – Harry and Meghan’s – and witnessed at first-hand the crazed, Union-Jack waving adulation that welcomed this young couple. How they managed to throw it all away comes down to their personal vanity and self- obsession.
But what lives with me most is the acerbic verdict of the Windsor local who gave me his opinion, while propping up a bar in the hours after the marriage ceremony: “I give it three years. They’ll either be divorced or she’ll drag him back to the States.”
Back in Glasgow, I took my kids to a rally in George Square, one of the huge gatherings across Scotland that protested at the visit of Trump. There were grandparents, children, teens, every generation represented in rejection of that vile man. That was a proud day, indeed.
While chucking in my tuppenceworth on the big events of the week, I’ve also shared some of the everchanging challenges of being a mum of three with an elderly mother and a crazy dog to look after. Over the past eight years my kids have grown up, sat exams, left school. My son was one of thousands caught up in the SQA’s disgraceful decision to downgrade estimated exam results based on the school attended. It was such an injustice perpetrated on young folk trying to get on in life, betraying the old attitudes on class and ambition which persist at the heart of our institutions. The public outcry and U-turn told a different story: we won’t be put back in our box.
I lost my sister, struggled with grief and found our family tortured by broken systems of health and social care.
So it is no exaggeration to say that all life has appeared in my column. I’m an over-sharer and proud of it. Then came Covid and everything changed. Locked in the house, day in, day out, deprived of the social and professional interaction of an office full of creatives leaves a lot of time for contemplation. That’s nothing compared to the number of people who lost their lives or loved ones over the past two years. But life can be snatched away too quickly. I’m not done with trying new things but I’d better get on with it before “new things” are done with me.
So thanks for reading, folks. I hope I’ve made you smile or think or even throw the paper across the room in fury because opinion and debate make the world a much more interesting place and change things.
If I could make one small request before I go, please support journalism. Without it, the toerags run riot – unchecked, uncensured and uncaring.
With a final shameful plagiarism, I’ll borrow a line from the late, great British journalist Bernard Levin: “The pen is mightier than the sword – and much easier to write with.”