Nicola Sturgeon a "frustrated rock star"
First Minister talks about her childhood love of books
Nicola Sturgeon has told how she went from being “an odd child” who never contemplated being a politician to becoming Scotland's first female First Minister and a “frustrated rock star”.
The SNP leader said she was “a bit anti-social” as a child, hiding in books while other children were playing, and aspired to be a children's author.
In a conversation with Scots Makar Jackie Kay at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Ms Sturgeon told how she moved from Enid Blyton to gritty Glasgow crime writer William McIlvanney before going on to study law.
As First Minister she is one of the most high-profile politicians in Europe, but she said being in the public eye has been very difficult for her family.
Ms Sturgeon admitted she calls political events “gigs'' and that she is “a very frustrated rock star”.
She also expressed admiration for former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's quote: “There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.”
Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women's Aid, quoted Ms Albright before asking what support the Makar and First Minister had from other successful women.
Ms Sturgeon, who appointed the Scottish Government's first gender-balanced cabinet, said: “That's a great quote.
“Politics could learn a lot from other disciplines about being supportive, even across the political divide... there is more that we can do to hold out hands of support and friendship, particularly to women of whatever political perspective we come from.”
Ms Albright later apologised for the quote, made at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in February, insisting she believed in what she said but that it was at the wrong time and in the wrong context.
Kay asked Ms Sturgeon: “You were telling me the other day that politicians call events 'gigs'.”
Ms Sturgeon replied: “Yes, because we're all frustrated rock stars, really. In my case very frustrated, but yes it's true.”
The First Minister sold out the 13,000-capacity Glasgow Hydro concert venue in a campaign rally ahead of the Scottish election.
Asked if she always wanted to be a politician, she said: “Absolutely not, it would be an odd child that always wanted to be a politician.
“To be fair, I was quite an odd child but maybe not that odd.
“I wanted to be a writer of children's books and I thought I was going to be the next Enid Blyton, but JK Rowling got there slightly before me.
“Then later I wanted to be a lawyer, and I did go on to study law at university. But I would never have contemplated when I was a child that I would go on to be a politician.
“There was no such thing as a first minister growing up.
“It's maybe different today. I think we've got a more politically engaged younger generation today, so maybe being a politician or being a first minister is something that young people are more able to visualise and aspire to.”
She added: “It can be very difficult for your family, I think, if you're out there in the public eye but, speaking personally, the support of my family is indispensable in my life.”
Ms Sturgeon said all of her best childhood memories stemmed from reading books.
“I love Enid Blyton and as I got older, in my teenage years, Willie McIlvanney was hugely influential,” she said.
“I was one of these kids who would read anything and everything, and I'm still a bit like that.
“I was maybe a bit anti-social. I spent my fifth birthday party under a table reading a book, refusing to come out while everyone else was playing Ring a Ring 'O Roses.
“I did say that I was an odd child.”
Kay asked Ms Sturgeon where she felt most at home, adding: “Wouldn't it be funny if you said England?”
Ms Sturgeon said: “That's not as far-fetched as you might think. My paternal grandmother came from a village near Sunderland called Ryhope, and it's a place I spent many childhood summers.
“That came to feel to me, not as home, because home was here in Scotland in Ayrshire, and I would now describe my home as Glasgow, but a little part of me comes from there.
“It's somewhere, even now in the rare occasion I get to visit, I feel a real affinity to.”