Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Tennis coach and British Fed Cup captain, best known as the mother of Wimbledon champions Andy and Jamie Murray.
On the island
Eight records
it's one of those songs, I just love the tune of it, and I'll play it over and over and over again in the car, just press the repeat button.
Well, this is Bay City Rulers singing Shang Alang, and this reminds me of my school days.
Okay, this is Bruce Springsteen Born to Run and this reminds me of when I was at Edinburgh University. I studied French and business studies and in my first year there I would go over to the Union at T V at Row and I would have the same thing to eat every night which is quite sad and it was chicken chasseur and chips which the lady behind the thing always called chicken chasseur and chips and I would put Bruce Springsteen Born to Run on the duke box.
I bet you've never had this on Desert Island. Well, you're gonna get a bit of the Singing Kettle. And the Singing Kettle is a collection of great fun very Scottish songs for kids. And uh I had a tape that we took in the car, so whether it was football training, rugby training or their tennis tournaments ultimately, this would be the tape that we would put on. But it kept them entertained for hours, and this was probably the favourite, the the Geely Peace song.
CaledoniaFavourite
Okay, this is uh one of my favourite songs, and it is sung by Amy MacDonald, who is a fabulously talented young Scottish singer. It's just everything that I feel about Scotland.
Oh my. This is Michael Bobley singing Beautiful Day, and this reminds me of Andy's Wimbledon win, because a couple of days after Wimbledon I went to watch Michael Bobley in concert at The O Two, and when he opened the show, he said Two nights ago I stood up here and I told you you've been waiting seventy seven years for Wimbledon champion, I know you have one, and he said Sadly, Andy can't be with us tonight, but behind every good man is a good woman, and I've got his mother, and my picture was up on all the screens at the side of the stage, and I was in an absolute dream thinking, I do not believe this is happening There was twenty thousand people in the O two and I felt like a complete But it was just one of those moments where you never ever would have dreamed that something like that would happen to you. Michael Bibley bowing to you. I mean, my word doesn't get much better than that.
Oh, Proclaimers, uh Sunshine on Leith. My dad used to play for Hibernian Football Club. The family is all big Hibs fans and uh the Proclaimers are huge Hibs fans and this is their kind of tribute to Hibernian and the Leith area in which Easter Road is situated.
Okay, final one, uh Beautiful South, Prettiest Eyes. It's a song about, you know, as you get older, it doesn't matter about all your crow's feet and all the rest of it. Your eyes don't change. Your eyes can still be really pretty and you can look gorgeous through your eyes. So I kind of identify with that.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:46How does it actually feel to be in the moments watching one of your sons play?
Yeah, it hasn't got any easier. In fact, it's probably got worse as the level of expectation ha has increased. But the best I could describe it is a kind of a mixture of a heart attack and severe nausea all going on at the same time. But I do try not to show it because your kids pick up on everything f from you. So you will never see me be anything other than positive. I might look like I'm terrified and I'm really serious and I probably am, but that's just how I am and I don't think that will ever change now.
Presenter asks
2:20What were you doing at that point [when Andy won Wimbledon]?
Oh crying. Yeah, I was sitting next to Leon Smith, he's the the British Davis Cup coach, and uh we've worked together for years, so he kind of gets me and when I watch the boys playing, I don't want anybody to talk to me. I'm just totally focussed on on what they do, and uh I really just turned to him and put my head on his shoulder and I couldn't look. And he was saying, You gotta look, your son's just won Wimbledon, you've gotta look and then uh, you know, I did manage to look, but you know, by that time he was starting to come up towards the the player box, which was lovely.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
Moisturizing cream (anti-wrinkle device made with argan oil)
it would have to be my anti-wrinkle device, which is my moisturizing cream, which is made on the kitchen table of a lady in Fife and includes argan oil. And I think it would make me feel a whole lot better if I had that with me.
The charm in what you seem to have pulled off as a family is that you are very much the family who does what they always did in spite of the fact that you've got these two top flight players. How do you manage that?
Yeah, I mean when I was small my mum was the the the person who did the Saturday morning coaching at our tennis club. She did it with her best friend and we were always brought up as part of the community. So whether that was the golf club or the Babington Club or the tennis club, my mum and dad were always very involved and very community focussed people and I think that's kind of probably made me how I am.
Presenter asks
8:12Tell me something more about what being on that circuit was like as a teenager.
Well I think the first thing to say is that tennis was and probably still is a very small sport in Scotland. About one percent of the population played tennis and it wasn't really so difficult to be the best in Scotland at tennis because actually the pool of players was very, very small. But you didn't have coaching in those days. I learned a lot from just from playing the game in tournaments and in club and county competitions and from playing with my dad. But when I finished school I wanted to have a go at playing tennis. I was one of the best juniors in Britain and I was ranked I think eight and uh the top six girls were selected to be part of a squad that was based at Queen's Club and got all the opportunities. So I kind of just missed out on that. So anything that I wanted to do I had to do on my own. But I wanted to try and I think you know looking back because I didn't last very long at it. when I did get the chance to become the Scottish national coach. I was really driven to create opportunities for the Scottish kids.
Presenter asks
13:02What was it about being the mother of two toddlers that drove you round the twist?
Well, we'd moved back from Glasgow to Dunblane, so I'd left all my friends behind and and the tennis club that I played at, which was part of my social life. I had no car, and uh I was like, I'm stuck here with these two little kids and it was, oh we had no money in those days, so you know, you know how expensive it is taking your kids out for a day out, and especially if you've got no car, you're limited in what you can do with them. So I became quite an expert in making up games that we could play in the house. And I think because I played with them so much, and so did their dad and so did their grandparents, they became very well coordinated at a young age.
Presenter asks
19:09And what about you? Because at the time you did understand what a huge thing it was [the Dunblane shooting].
Yeah, it was um. It was impossible to accept I remember going down to to get some milk, I think, from the high street, and there were just journalists all over the place and everybody was just looking for somebody to ask for a comment or whatever. So w we we left town after that because I thought just don't want to be anywhere near that. I still find it hard to believe that it did happen, but very, very grateful that the town has recovered so well from it.
“a kind of a mixture of a heart attack and severe nausea all going on at the same time.”
“I'm a very, very bad loser. And my sons will both tell you stories about me playing mixed doubles with them when they were very young in kind of fun family tournaments and how I used to swear under my breath and at the back of the court.”
“I've always been one of those people that when there's a problem or an obstacle, I like it.”
“those four or five hours waiting to find out were terrifying because you didn't know if you were ever going to see your children again.”
“if it's a struggle, you work hard. I and also there's part of me that wants to prove people wrong.”