Favourite Holiday: Isle of Lewis. It’s my touchstone. My family are from there.
Favourite Film: The Third Man. So atmospheric in cinematography and mood. I even went on a tour of the film locations in Vienna.
Favourite Book: Dance Called America by James Hunter. The story of the Scottish diaspora in North America has always inspired me.
Favourite Music: Runrig gave me the connection between the Gaelic roots of my home and the pop culture around me. Elvis and Springsteen are very close behind.
Greatest Influence: On a personal level, my parents. Professionally, watching the late Kenny Macintyre reporting was a constant education. And Eddie Mair’s broadcasting is in a class of its own.
Worst Influence: I worked for a short time on a Sunday newspaper. The team were great and treated me really well, but the culture of the time was long liquid lunches.
Advice to 16 year-old self: You belong. Don’t think you’re not good enough. I wish every child at a state school was told that.
Greatest Regret: My only regrets are those that fate delivered and over which I had no control.
Best Advice Received:In TV terms, let the pictures do the talking.
Career High: Anchoring an STV News at Ten special in Edinburgh as the polls closed in the Scottish Independence Referendum. The hairs were standing on the back of my neck.
Career Low: Wearing my lucky white heather for St Andrew’s Day and having to apologise as we crashed off air because of technical difficulties.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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