Natalie Don MSP: Getting to Know You

What is your earliest memory? 

I think I must have been two when this happened. I hurt myself by grabbing something off of the countertop and bashed myself on the head, and I remember my dad picking me up and sort of shooshing me and telling me it was ok. And that’s probably the only memory I have of my dad, so that is a nice first memory to hold, I think.  

What were you like at school? 

So, at primary school, I was a bit of a swot, and I still am, I love my studies, and I was quite intelligent in school. But when I got to high school life got a bit harder, and yeah, I rebelled a little bit. But it was nothing out of the ordinary, I still did really well in my exams. 

What were the subjects that engaged you the most? 

I loved maths, so much so it is still a favourite of mine. I love getting my head stuck into a problem. But other than that, I loved history, and I went on to study it at university and I had one of the best history teachers at the time. And I loved art as well. 

Did your interest in history spark your interest in politics or did that come from somewhere else? 

I think yes, but studying history is so vast. There are so many political regimes or times that you look back on that were relevant to me. But I would say it is more sort of events in the current day that inspired me to get into politics.  

Who would be your dream dinner date? 

This is a really hard one, and I don’t know if it is a cop-out to say my fiancé. But it’s because we have such busy lives and between our jobs and we have two young children, a three-year-old and a one-year-old, we are lucky if we get to sit down to dinner with each other at least once a month, and even then, it’s a rush to eat then tidy up. So just a nice, peaceful dinner date with my fiancé would be great.  

What is your greatest fear? 

That is quite hard. I have always been scared of spiders, but I don’t know if I would call that my greatest fear.  

I think now that I have two children, you look at life in a whole different way. There are things that have happened through me growing up or things that you think I should have done the other thing, or acted in a different way. I want to teach my children good lessons, and I want them to be who they are and not to be afraid of that, and to speak out and stand up for themselves in ways that I might not have been when I was younger. Ultimately, I want the best for my kids.  

What is your most treasured possession? 

I am not really that materialistic. I don’t have lots of fancy things, but the first thing I thought of is I have a watch that was my grandpa’s. I have a really small family, but I was really close with him, and he passed away when I was 18. 

I used to go on quite a lot of drives with him and he used to tap it and shake it when we were singing songs in the car. It takes me back when I look at it, so I have got that in a little special box kept hidden away. 

What is your most guilty pleasure? 

I suppose that chocolate would be the obvious one because I eat a lot of it, but I am a big fan of wrestling. 
Like the WWE? 

Yeah. And I have bordered on watching other companies before, but it always goes back to WWE. When my fiancé and I first got together 19 years ago now, he introduced me to it, and it is just something that has never gone away.  

Have you ever been to see it live? 

We went to see a house show which isn’t televised, but there is actually a pay-per-view coming this year and we are waiting for the tickets to come out for that.  

If you could go back in time where would you go? 

Having studied history, there are so many periods in time that I would like to visit. The reason that I love history so much is that when I read things, they take me back and make me feel like I am almost in that place, smelling the smells, and feeling the feels. 

I don’t know if I can name one specific period, but I have mentioned that I have a really small family, but I do have a larger family in the past and it would be really nice to go back and visit some of them and hear about my ancestors and things like that.

Do you know much about your ancestry? 

There are quite a few gaps, my gran comes from Harris, so I have a whole side of the family up there that I really don’t have much contact with, and I would love to know about them. Similarly, on my dad’s side, he was from Dundee but passed away when I was really young, so I don’t really have much contact with them. I would love to fill in all of these missing gaps.  

Actually, when I first thought about how I would answer this I wasn’t sure if I would go back to the past because I think that some of the things that we are doing just now are so important for the future. I am worried about the future for my kids, and I am worried about what that will look like in ten or 20 years’ time. So, I think it would be really worthwhile going forward to see if some of the things that we are doing now are making an impact.  

What specifically are you worried about? 

Climate change and the way that world economics work. We are in an awful situation right now with the cost-of-living crisis, but life just seems to be getting worse and worse for people. And on the flip side, you have billionaires that are just getting richer and richer, and I don’t see where that ends under the current system that we are living in.  

What is the worst pain that you have ever experienced? 

My babies probably. Before I had them I had never been in hospital, you know, never broken a bone, never had blood taken. I was totally innocent to the whole medical side of things, and then I had my two babies, which was by C-section, and the pain after that for the next six weeks was incredible.