Getting to Know You - Sandesh Gulhane MSP

Scottish Conservatives MSP for the Glasgow region since May 2021, and the Scottish Conservatives' Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.

 

What’s your earliest memory?

My earliest memory is at nursery, and I remember my shoes coming undone. I don't know why my mum thought it would be a good idea for me to have laces, but they came undone and I didn't have a clue how to do them up. I remember being quite upset about it and I think it was for a photo shoot. I remember being in the hall, and we were all dressed quite nicely, and my mum had ironed, and really taken care of, a uniform that day. I wasn't happy, but then this girl called Melissa just said, “just stop, come here,” and she basically put my foot onto her lap and then she did my laces up. I remember thinking, “oh, that's amazing, thank you”.

 

Did you ever learn to do the laces after that?

Eventually, yes, I have figured out how to do it. Apparently, it's not cool to have laces you know, my son doesn't have tie up laces, he's got these like, elasticated things that you pull. Apparently, laces are so 1980s.

 

What were you like at school?

I went to school just outside of London at a school called Haberdashers. I would suggest that I was quite hard working. I played rugby and hockey for the school and held a county record in athletics.

I was in the RAF, quite high up towards the end, in the Combined Cadet Force school. I was a prefect, I never had a detention, but had to work hard to ensure I had good grades because I wanted to go to medical school.

 

Did you consider joining the RAF?

I considered joining as a pilot. So, in school, on a Friday afternoon, we had Combined Cadet Force, and you could either join the Army, the Air Force or the Navy. And I remember somebody telling me the options: join the Army and you could go to a cornfield, join the Navy and you can go out into the cold North Sea, or join the RAF and learn to fly. And I was like, “well, that's not a hard one, I'll learn to fly!” I clocked up so many hours, it was in the hundreds, I think, of flying and I was a sergeant by the time I finished in it.

We had a great time, we ran assault courses, organised events – we learned how to march, how to clean shoes, how to make your bed using rulers and everything.

 

Do you still have an interest in flying?

As a teen, I had this big decision where I decided between going to medical school to become a doctor or joining the RAF to become a fighter pilot. I’ve always wanted to be a doctor since I was tiny, but then I had this sudden realisation - and it might have been after Top Gun – that being a fighter pilot is super cool. But, you might end up being a cargo pilot, not a fighter pilot, and so I decided medicine was the way forward.

 

What position did you play in rugby?

I was as tall as I am now at 13 years old, so I started off as a flanker, but as everyone else grew I didn’t really, so I moved on the wing because I was athletic, I’m very quick. I was actually top try scorer at Imperial College London for a year.

 

Who would be your dream dinner date?

I know this sounds awful, but it's my wife because I can't remember the last time the two of us actually managed to go out together alone.

 

What’s your greatest fear?

I’m absolutely terrified of dementia. My mind has always been my greatest asset, the thing that I've always been lucky with – I pick things up, and I like to think I’m relatively clever - and the idea of it not working properly terrifies me.

So is that because of somebody in your family had dementia or is it from treating people as a doctor that you've developed this fear?

Treating people and seeing what happens to them. The thing is, though, most people who have dementia are relatively happy, they don't really know they've got dementia. But that’s when it's full blown, but when it's not full blown, it's actually terrifying. Because you don't know who people are, you can you get lost, and then suddenly your memory comes back and you just go, “what a am I doing here?”

 

What’s your most prized possession?

A professional football winner’s medal – and it’s mine, I didn’t buy it. I was head of Queen’s Park FC medicine when we won Scottish League Two last year. I love football, I’m an Arsenal fan, and an orthopaedic surgeon, so I had both bases covered.

 

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?

For me, it’s listening to Grime. I'm a big hip hop fan and I used to like American hip hop but then I found Grime, some of the lines in it are just fantastic.

 

Who’s your favourite Grime artist?

Stormzy, before he became so commercial. I’m also quite a big fan of Giggs.

 

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

I would go back before the pandemic and tell myself to go on as many holidays as I possibly can and put some lottery numbers on as well. I’d much rather go forwards in time though, I’d love to see how far technological advancements will go, and how far our understanding of the universe will go.

 

What’s the best piece of advice you've ever heard?

‘Make sure your shoes are clean and shiny’, that was my mum. She said a man is judged by their shoes – the first thing anyone looks at is your shoes, so make sure they look good.

And also, ‘be yourself’, that was from a consultant. He said if you’re a GP and you’re not yourself, you’re going to have a whole bunch of patients that like the person that isn’t you, and you can’t keep that up for more than a couple of years. Eventually you’ll end up with a bunch of patients who don’t particularly like you because they preferred the old, fake you.

But, if you be yourself, you’ll grow a solid following of patients who like your style, who like what you do, who like who you are, you will like them in turn.

 

Binary politics

Salt and vinegar or salt and sauce - Salt and vinegar

Cats or dogs - Dogs

Pub or wine bar - Pub

Early bird or night owl - Night Owl

Full English or full Scottish - Full English

Coffee or tea - Coffee

Fame or fortune - Fortune

Book or film - Audiobook!

Night in or night out - Night out

Couch or gym - Couch