So. A few words about me. First of all. I’m not your typical politician. I’m a woman. I’m a mum and a wife too. I didn’t go to a fee-paying school. I didn’t do a political science degree. And I most certainly never had a plan to get involved in politics.
My childhood was spent in Falkirk, Scotland, where I grew up surrounded by countryside, horses and hard working parents. School wasn’t my thing in those days but when I left I took advantage of a programme introduced by the government of the day designed to help young people like me transition from school into the world of work – Margaret Thatcher’s Youth Training Scheme, or YTS.
The YTS gave me practical skills and experience, but most of all it gave me confidence and belief that I wasn’t a failure, that there were other ways to learn, and that I could follow my dreams to wherever they might take me.
So I travelled, I worked on cruise ships, lived in far off places, I made lifelong friends and collected memories along the way. I saw the world for what it really was: the differences, the hardships, the power of the human spirit, the value of simple things often taken for granted. These experiences are still with me today and they shape my attitudes and, if you like, my politics. But more of that later.
Eventually I settled down in North Yorkshire, got myself a job, and bought my own place with the money I’d saved. I got married, I had kids, I moved to West Yorkshire where, once again, I was surrounded by countryside but this time I was the hard working parent. I set up and ran an online business to give me flexibility to fully participate in my childrens’ early years. But as they grew up I felt it was time I just did something for myself.
But what? And then I remembered as a child I was fascinated by biology and the human body. So I studied at home for GCSEs, I went to college on a government-funded access course, and then to Huddersfield University, and I became a physiotherapist. And that’s a picture of me, at the height of the pandemic, working in Calderdale hospitals doing what I could to help people recover.
