Susan Murray MP: 'Jo Swinson was so delighted with my win'

After winning her stripes as councillor for Kirkintilloch East, North and Twechar, Susan Murray became the MP for Mid Dunbartonshire in July. She tells us about her journey through life to the House of Commons.

What’s your earliest memory?
Getting lost in Bradford when I was about two or three. We lived in Aberdeen, where I was born, but my mother was from Bradford and we were visiting. It was a Sunday and I had some money, and I had been told all the shops were shut but I didn’t believe it. I was looking for a sweetie shop and I remember being found under a bridge by a female police officer. I remember my motivation and I remember the officer. 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
To be myself. It goes all the way back to my teenage years, because I was very shy outside the classroom, where it was a safe environment. I’m quite comfortable, I’m not trying to be somebody else; I’m me, trying to do things.

What were you like at school?
I was bright and I enjoyed school and climbed to be the person with the smart alec remarks at the back of the class. Someone once described me as a wild child at secondary, but I got my five Highers and got a place at university.

We lived in Bucksburn, which in those days was outside the [Aberdeen] city limits, and went to primary at Stoneywood. I’m the grand old age of 67 so all of this is a long time ago. For secondary, my parents sent me to St Margaret School for Girls because they wanted to send me to the equivalent of a grammar. They sent both my brother and me to private schools. 

My dad was from a Labour home – his granddad was the secretary of the railwaymen’s union in Inverness, and my Inverness grandmother was very political and a big fan of Arthur Scargill –  and my mum came from a single parent family. My grandmother lived next to a wool mill in Bradford and they were very, very much working-class people but my grandmother got my mother to college, where she trained as a primary school teacher, and my father had been determined he was going to university, where he did a degree and came out as a research scientist.

What skill should every person have?
There’s been research that found that if you smile, your body responds internally to that smile, because it’s associated with happy feelings, with not being scared, with being in pleasant surroundings. Part of the way I’ve overcome my nerves all of my life is I have just smiled at people. I have had a lot of times in my life when things have been a bit difficult, a bit tough, and I’ve deliberately smiled more, and it honestly means people respond to you differently. The whole atmosphere changes.

How did you celebrate your general election win?
It was such a whirlwind for all the family – we held onto the champagne into recess. After the count we went down to Pacific Quay in Glasgow, because [ex-Lib Dem leader] Jo Swinson had been commentating on the night and she had been so supportive of the campaign. She was so delighted with the win, so there was a celebration with her, a celebration with the party and a celebration with the family. My sons are both in their 30s. My eldest works in Amsterdam and came over and got involved in the campaign. My youngest has mental health problems so he wasn’t quite as involved but I was very well supported by both my boys and my husband Ronald.

Tell us about your career before politics.
I went to university for a year without success, and had too good a time, you could say. I worked for a few years in the hotel industry then in personnel. When I eventually screwed the head and decided I would get properly qualified, I looked at the people who had been at university with me. One was a bus driver and one worked in a restaurant, so I decided to do a vocational degree, trained at Robert Gordon University as a dietician and worked in the NHS. After being in the commercial world, I didn’t enjoy the NHS. I did an MBA at Edinburgh University and went to work at Johnson & Johnson in medical devices. It was a fantastic job. I worked with different companies and ended up as a European marketing director. 

After I had my children the company I worked for went under and I got a payoff and could afford to stay at home. My husband’s job had moved to Glasgow, and we’d moved to Kirkintilloch. At this point Ronald had a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage, which changed absolutely everything. We’d had a conventional middle-class existence and suddenly we were in a position where we could have lost our house. I didn’t know what help was available, but I took control and made sure we didn’t. I was carer for my husband when he came out of hospital and he is doing very, very well. It was a life-changing haemorrhage, but he has recovered remarkably. 

What was the last book you read?
Isabel Allende, A Long Petal of the Sea, based on people’s experiences of the Spanish revolution. I’m a politician who never studied history or politics, so I like novels that fill in the gap in an entertaining way.

Who would be your dream dinner date?
Dustin Hoffman. He’s somebody who comes across as having a character and being attractive.

What’s your greatest fear?
Being stuck in a small place. I’m not a big fan of lifts. The Houses of Parliament aren’t claustrophobic because there are so many routes through that it doesn’t feel like that.