Experience has taught me when I am shaving of a morning to keep watch over my thoughts because if a line of poetry strays into my memory my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.

My experiences have taught me a lot and I'm happy with my learnings if not with what I went through to learn.

Bitter experience has taught us how fundamental our values are and how great the mission they represent.

Scotland is my country the nation that shaped me that taught me my values. A nation whose achievements inspired and inspire me a community whose failings drive me - drive my overwhelming desire to fight for social justice and equality.

When I look at my daughter who's 24 she is much more confident than I ever was and her expectations are higher. But I worry that there is a backlash brewing against progress on equality.

Unless we keep this planet healthy everything else is for naught.

At different times I taught humanities social sciences and pre-vocational education.

I was taught by my father. He was head of the primary school so I went to his school until I was 11 - I was the youngest of four daughters and we had all been taught by him. But I didn't really enjoy my secondary education that much probably because I am a very physical person and don't enjoy sitting at a desk all day.

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice theory humanities. And nowadays music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.

I would have been about seven years old when the formative years of my competitive football education began. I was playing in the local leagues around Manchester playing against lads from tough areas who had been taught they had to fight for everything.