When Mary Scanlon’s husband walked out on her and their two young children, it was to be a defining moment in her life.

“I was deeply hurt at the time,” recalls the former Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP.

It is now more than nine years since she stepped away from the arena of the Scottish Parliament where at her political prime, she served at various times as her party’s spokesperson on health, education and communities as well as being deputy convener of the public audit committee.

At her home near Inverness - where she is recovering from a recent hip replacement - the 78-year-old nostalgically recalls the good, the bad and the funny times at Holyrood - and reflects on the possible outcome of next year’s Scottish Parliamentary elections.

And yet, as she reveals, she never set out in life with any ambitions of a political career - it was the breakdown of her marriage which propelled her in that direction.

Now a grandmother to four granddaughters, also recalls the joy in raising her son, who lives in Moray, and her daughter, who lives in Montana in the USA.

She grew up in a working class background in Montrose - her father was a farm labourer from Morayshire and her mother came from County Donegal in Ireland.

As a child, she would help on the farm picking fruit and potatoes with the money earned going towards the cost of her school uniform.

“I left school at 15 with no qualifications or ambition whatsoever and no idea where life was taking me,” she recalls.

“We were taught to cook and sew so we would be good housewives.

“It was probably assumed I would work until I got married and that would be it.”

Her first job was making up orders at a wholesale warehouse for delivery to shops.

The family later moved to Dundee where in between working she went to night school, eventually gaining several Highers and a typing qualification and going on to teach night classes herself at Dundee College of Commerce.

She also married and had two children who were aged about two and three when the marriage broke down.

“My husband decided he wanted to leave and go off with another woman - and he did,” says Mary who recalls being told the other woman was “a professional person”.

She the implication that she was not a professional was hurtful but also catalytic.

“My children were the only children in their class at school who didn’t have a father,” she says. “That really hurt me.

“But looking back on the pleasure and joy I had from my children, it has really been a privilege.

“As a single parent, I had to be more assertive, more independent and I had to stand my own ground.”

She applied to UCAS, figuring it would suit her domestic circumstances as she would be able to get by on a grant and have the school holidays with the children.

She was accepted to the University of Dundee to study politics and economics - her subject choice shaped by the times of lectures to fit in around her children rather than any ambition.

That said, she joined the Conservative Party and later stood unsuccessfully to become elected to Dundee Council as a representative for the west ward of Broughty Ferry.

After graduating, she taught at Dundee College of Technology – later Abertay University – then Perth College and the University of the Highlands and Islands where she worked until her electoral success in 1999 when she was one of two Conservatives elected to represent the Highlands and Islands in the original intake of 129 members of the new Scottish Parliament.

“You were aware you were a part of a tremendous moment in history,” recalls Mary who acknowledges her own party was the only one which did not campaign for a Scottish Parliament.

“We had to prove ourselves.

“I remember our leader David McLetchie saying the country had voted for a Scottish Parliament and as Conservatives, we would work constructively to make it a success.

“That was something I carried with me - we had to earn respect.”

As a member of what was nicknamed the White Heather Club, she would meet SNP firebrand Margo MacDonald - who later became an Independent - and her colleague Christine Grahame in the bar to discuss issues of the day and other matters.

“I think the expectations of the parliament were that it would be closer to the people,” she reflects.

“It would be more consensual and so much less adversarial than Westminster.

“It would a parliament which would be more courteous and respectful to each other rather than hollering across the benches which happens at Westminster.”

She thinks it achieved that in the early days but feels that politics have become more polarised.

“There is no doubt about it, the Independence referendum in 2014 changed things,” she maintains.

She cites “just being elected” as her proudest moment and being among the original intake to make up the Scottish Parliament in almost 300 years.

“I was proud to represent the party that my parents had always supported,” she says.

As she relates numerous anecdotes, she recalls one of the funniest moments when she and Christine Grahame were at a parliamentary event attended by Princess Anne.

“It had always been drilled into us that it was the people’s parliament, not the MSPs’ parliament - that people from all over Scotland should be welcomed because it was their parliament.”

Noticing a man standing on his own, they decided to approach him and invite him to join them for a glass of wine.

“Our invitation hit stony ground,” she recollects. “It then became known to us, he was a member of special branch. He was Princess Anne’s bodyguard!”

When she announced she was standing down in 2016, Ruth Davidson, then the party’s Scottish leader, described her as fantastic servant to the parliament, a real grafter and a fearless champion of the Highlands and of her beliefs.

Having previously been busy, Mrs Scanlon admits she found it difficult to adjust to retirement for the first few years.

“I missed the routine and the structure of the worked and I missed the camaraderie and friendship,” she says.

“You go from everything to nothing overnight.

“One day you are getting hundreds of emails and the next day, nothing.

“It is quite brutal in a way. Once you are out, that is it and I suppose it is right.”

But she was disappointed that as a member of the original intake of MSPs she was not to be invited to be part of the parliament’s 25th anniversary celebrations last year.

“I would have loved to sit in the gallery but none of us were invited,” she says.

Tomorrow: Mary Scanlon gives her thoughts on the possible outcome of next year’s Scottish Parliamentary election.

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