Life and loves
I have a guilty pleasure: Star Wars. It was in my teenage years that I became obsessed with it. It was just that whole escapism and fantasy thing, the different world that grabbed me.
I love Nina Simone, pictured, and if I’m in the house and trying to relax I play some of that. I also maybe play some piano music.
The Elegance of a Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. It’s a brilliant book, I just like the way that the characters connected.
My dark sense of humour gets me through a lot of things. When my mum was ill that was what got us through. Stubbornness. I share that with my mum.
Be humble. It was always my mum who said that. Be humble, remember where you’ve come from.
I never met any of my grandparents. They had all passed away by the time I was born, so I would really love to have them round. training sessions, working late until 11pm, and the launch of her television drama. She’s not a moaner, though. Indeed, she doesn’t seem to believe she has much to complain about. “I love my life,” she says.
The middle child of those five siblings – her parents divorced when she was young – Fay confesses to “middle child syndrome”. Like her character in Rubenesque, she was always fighting for the affection of parents. “I relate to that whole thing of trying to make your father proud, trying to do something you know makes him proud and just say well done, I love you, you did great.”
However, Rubenesque is not something she expects him to watch. “He lives in the Brecon Beacons,” she says. “They probably won’t even get Sky there.” Her mother, the actress, also will not get to see her daughter’s television performance. She died five years ago, after seven months battling lung cancer.
If one were to be casting for sporting role-models for young women, it’s hard to imagine anyone more inspiring than Fay. Her work schedule is breathtaking. When she was shooting Rubenesque, she broke off from filming to play against Wales, and was learning her lines as she was training.
Yet it’s clear where her heart and commitment are. Though she is witnessing some hype build around her television show, she doesn’t get distracted. “I think ‘That’s great.’ But I’ve still got a job and I’ve still got football, so I don’t get myself too involved in it,” she says. LAST-MINUTE preparations are under way to ensure the successful first-ever visit to Paisley of the Royal National Mod, Scotland’s annual Gaelic cultural festival, which kicks off on Friday with a procession down the High Street.
The Paisley Mod has attracted 3000 international competitors and is expected to bring more than 8000 visitors to the beleaguered town throughout nine days of music, dance, drama, art and literature.
Organisers are hoping it will bring a much-needed buzz to Paisley, which was once a booming mill town producing the famous Paisley Pattern shawl. In more recent times its status as the retail hub of Renfrewshire has suffered from the arrival of two out-of-town shopping malls at Braehead and Silverburn. The Mod could bring in about £2.5 million to the local economy.
Paisley has a Gaelic heritage that can be traced to at least 1793. Many Highlanders arrived there for work, and they built a Gaelic chapel to worship in. There’s a Gaelic cemetery, and at one point the town even had a shinty team. As a nod to this oft-forgotten chapter of Paisley’s sporting past, Bute Shinty Club will take on Glasgow Mid Argyll for the Mod Shinty Cup Final at Thornly Park Campus on Saturday for the very first time.
Paisley’s most famous link with the Mod comes from the Bard Domhnall Ruadh Phaislig, the Mod Bard in 1938-39, who is recognised for his outstanding contribution to Gaelic poetry and song.
Eight years ago Renfrewshire formed Clann Gaidhlig, a vibrant and active group that seeks to bring people together to celebrate their language and culture. Renfrewshire Council supported the creation of a branch of An Comunn Gaidhealach, Meur Phaislig, to promote the Gaelic language and culture across Paisley. The Renfrewshire Junior Gaelic Choral Association has been formed since Paisley was announced as the Mod host.
Outwith the Mod competitions, there’s to be a ceilidh at the Town Hall with music by local lad Grant McFarlane – a Scottish Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2013 finalist who won the competition to compose the “Paisley welcomes the Royal National Mod” tune. There will be a fiddlers’ rally and Gaelic service at Paisley Abbey, a retrospective with the Lewis and Harris Association in Paisley Arts Centre, and a Strip the Willow on Paisley High Street to mark the end of the competitions.
It’s not known whether Paisley’s best-known singer Paolo Nutini will make an appearance. www.modphaislig.org www.renfrewshire.gov.uk