I spent most of my youth trying to make music my career, enduring all the associated trials and tribulations. Going up and down the country, sleeping on disgusting floors etc. Things you eventually get sick of having to do.
During that time, I worked in Glasgow libraries. And that’s how people knew me. Whichever library you’d go into, you’d probably see me there. People thought I was everywhere at once. (Spoiler, I wasn’t).
Then at 24, I discovered I had a baby on the way. I panicked – bringing a child up in a one-bedroom flat without enough money wasn’t for me. “Oh no!,” I thought. “How do you make good money? Science!”
Scientists making the most money was perhaps a juvenile thought, but that’s what pushed me towards starting an immunopharmacology degree at Strathclyde. Simultaneously, I began leading Bookbug at the library. Singing and reading stories to children would be great practice for dad duties.
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And I absolutely loved it. Work was fun! As quite a creative person, I was finding the degree quite stifling, so discovering you can have a career actually doing something you enjoy made me reconsider my future.
“What do I really enjoy?” The answer was coffee. I adore it as a consumer, so I decided to learn as much as I could to get into the industry and actually have a fun career.
So alongside studying I worked at Space, one of the UK’s best specialty coffee shops. Funnily enough, all the young parents from Bookbug who liked coffee started flocking there to see me and I’d get updates about how their children were doing while I watched my own son grow.
Although moving from immunopharmacology to coffee came with a monetary hit, I wanted to show my son it’s possible to work on what you love. For me, that was specialty coffee. And through working in cafes and being interested in coffee, I was aware of Cairngorm.
But I also knew Robi, the owner, because we both used to play in bands. He also put on gigs, so we were vaguely connected. And it was us having two mutual interests that really ignited my interest in joining his roastery. Now I run to work every morning.
I started in July as their wholesale manager, so if other cafes are interested in using the coffee we roast, they come to me. Or much more likely, I seek them out.
I’m the only Glaswegian at Cairngorm (they needed a friendly West Coast accent to sell their coffee) but I go through to Edinburgh a lot. Probably more than I should — two or three times a week. It’s all about being around people. That’s why I’m at Cairngorm — I’m a people person through-and-through. So if that means I have to travel, I’m more than happy to do so.
Wholesale has expanded rapidly since I joined. We’re now having to roast an extra day a week. So all heads are down as we grind to get Cairngorm into as many hands as possible and demystify specialty coffee.
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