It’s really quite amazing, the difference in attitudes over my lifetime. You think 75 is old, but looking at history, it’s really not. In that short space of time, so much has changed.
I had a very happy childhood – a ‘Janet and John’ Ladybird book childhood, you could say. I was born just at the end of the war, and our generation was very privileged in many ways. I grew up in rural Scotland and I had an amazing amount of freedom with huge sandy beaches, golf courses & outdoor play – so different to many childhoods nowadays.
I was sent away to boarding school in Edinburgh when I was quite young, and that was quite traumatic because it was a long distance to travel. It taught me resilience. It was a very ‘Miss Jean Brodie’ approach – tweed skirts and felt hats and that sort of thing. I grew up there really. I had crushes – I must have known my sexuality as quite a young woman. But I didn’t really use any language about my sexuality or discuss it with anyone.
I managed to convince my mother she was wasting her money and to let me do my Highers in our local school, and then I went on to become a teacher. I trained in Aberdeen, where I lived in a boarding house full of women, but that was perfectly comfortable for me. I had friendships with both sexes. I fell in love with a young man called Rod and we got married when I was 21. He was a lovely bloke but he felt like a friend. We had two lovely daughters, born in 1971 and 1973, and I was married for 20 years.
I knew I was attracted to women and I had a couple of flings. I think my husband knew – at least I’m pretty sure he did. In the late 1970s we moved to London when my husband was headhunted for a role there, and that was when I had a big epiphany. I got involved with the Greater London Council and the Inner London Education Authority, and it just blew my mind. I got so caught up in it. I was elected as a councillor, and I just realised that I had to change my life. I stopped working and became a councillor full time.