Jackie Baillie has told how she thought someone was “pulling her leg” after receiving a letter telling her she would be made a dame – saying she will accept her top honour on behalf of the communities she serves.
The Dumbarton constituency MSP receives the damehood in the King’s first Birthday Honours in recognition of her political and public service.
The veteran MSP has represented Dumbarton since the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999.
She is understood to be the first sitting MSP at Holyrood to either be knighted or be given a damehood – the female equivalent of a knighthood.
Speaking to the Lennox Herald, the Scottish Labour deputy leader said the honour was “totally unexpected” and told of the “surreal” moment she found out.
She said: “I didn’t think it was real at first. It felt really surreal.
“It was a letter and I thought that somebody was pulling my leg so I waited for a bit but no one admitted to pulling my leg!
“It is incredibly humbling.”
With recipients of honours sworn to secrecy about their awards ahead of the honours list being made public, the politician told just two people about the award – her daughter and the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.
She said she was pleased she no longer had to keep it under wraps, telling how she has received an “incredible” number of phonecalls and emails from well-wishers since the honour was made public on Friday night.
And she insisted the award would not change her.
She laughed: “I was out campaigning in Castlehill yesterday and I got my leg pulled quite a bit.
“Nothing about me has changed whatsoever.”
Ms Baillie is one of only three MSPs at Holyrood who have represented the same constituency for the lifetime of the Parliament – the others being former deputy first minister John Swinney, and the SNP’s Fergus Ewing.
Having represented the area for 24 years, she has been recognised for working “tirelessly” in local communities, with her involvement “exposing and campaigning for a public inquiry” in the Vale of Leven C.diff outbreak highlighted.
In her time in Holyrood Baillie fought for a public inquiry to be held into the outbreak at the hospital.
When the inquiry was held it highlighted “serious personal and systemic failures” at the hospital, finding that C.diff was a factor in the death of 34 out of 143 patients who had tested positive for the infection there over the course of 2007 and 2008.
She is also recognised for “not always taken politically convenient or comfortable positions, but instead has always put principle and the good of the country first”, as well as “major contributions on homelessness and disability rights in Scotland”.
Ms Baillie however insisted her work is a “collective effort” and her doing the job she was elected by constituents to do.
She continued: “It’s not just for me. It’s for everyone in the area because the reality is we are a team and when I go into the chamber, I take their views and concerns in there with me.
“Being nominated by my constituents is doubly satisfying because it means I am doing something right but the reality is everything we have achieved in the constituency has been done collectively.
“It’s taken a huge number of people coming together.
“The letter I received mentioned the length of time I have been an MSP, the C.diff inquiry at the Vale of Leven Hospital and me standing up for constituents, which is essentially doing my job.”
She added: “There are many, many more people in my constituency who are much more deserving of this honour than me.
“The NHS staff I know, the care staff I know, who went above and beyond during the pandemic to care for us.
“I think of all the people in my constituency who are always giving of their time freely to help others, whether it’s volunteering with Chas (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland) which is in the constituency, or raising funds for cancer services – all of that they do all the time. So they are far more deserving than me.
“This is less about me, this is for them.”
