How agreeable are you?
I’m a total people pleaser. I have, oftentimes, let somebody else’s priority go ahead of mine. I’m mortally afraid of offending people. I hate confrontation. So, as a result, I find I take the path of least resistance, which is to be a people pleaser.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
Mary. I can’t offend all the women, and even some men, who have the middle name Mary, but I find it very unimaginative. I always admired people like Madonna for her cool name. Mary gets an absolute thumbs down from me.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
I have such a soft spot for Co Clare. The scenery there is amazing. I used to go to Lahinch, very occasionally, with a buddy of mine. And it’s where myself and Rob got married [Her husband, Rob Morgan, a corporate services professional, is a son of the late Father Ted star Dermot Morgan]. We got married in Bunratty. It’s just so incredible there. The food is great and it’s always lovely for an aul’ walk.
Describe yourself in three words
Has it started?
When did you last get angry?
I got really angry in my head, recently, about a gender imbalance issue, an absolutely grossly unfair decision, totally based on gender, but couched as some other reason. There was an element of me being at the end of my tether thinking, ‘Are they still actually doing this? In this day and age, are they rolling things back so much so that they want us women just to be a trad wife?’ This happened 30 years ago, at the start of my career. Why is it still happening now?
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
The gymnast-style flexibility that I had when I was a kid. I’d lie on the ground, throw my legs over my head and be able to bend my knees fully touching the ground.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
I was looking forward to getting to choose my own outfit for my Confirmation. Because, as the youngest of eight, very typically I wore hand-me-downs all the time, and I was so excited that this was going to be the first time I was going to get to choose something. And my lovely, thoughtful eldest sister bought me a dress that she saw somewhere, and she said, ‘You can wear this to your Confirmation,’ which was a lovely gesture, but I thought, ‘Oh, no! I was going to pick something.’
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
I am the eighth of eight. The first seven were steps of stairs, and then there was a five-year gap before I came along. I had the curious childhood where by times it was like the Von Trapp family, and then by times I was like Heidi, because I was like an only child. That has made me very comfortable in large social groups, because there were Christmases when there would be 30 of the extended Scott family sitting down to Christmas dinner – and that’s just immediate siblings, their spouses and their kids. And then there were other times when it was just myself and so I’m very comfortable on my own, and I’m very comfortable in large groups of people. It made me very independent, I suppose, seeing what the other seven had gone on to do, and then I was at home on my own. I was at home on my own thinking, ‘Okay, I can do this by myself.’
What do you expect to happen when you die?
When I die, that’s it. I will, hopefully, have a water resomation, which is apparently an environmentally way to be interred. And then whatever remains are there are buried. And that’s it. I don’t believe in any afterlife, because humanism is very much a belief in science and the provable. And it’s very much a belief in living the best life we have now on Earth, and not pinning our hopes on an afterlife. So it can actually be a bit grim sometimes: ‘Oh, well, when I’m gone, then that’s it.’ But that’s the reality for me. But there’ll be a deadly funeral for me. It’ll be one of my humanist buddies doing it. It’ll be a great celebration and then people will be sad, and will move on with their lives. They won’t be praying to me, but they may think of me.
I grew up in the west of Ireland in a Catholic family, with all the Masses, and all the readings, and the choir and all of that. Then, when I hit my teenage years, I thought to myself, ‘Wait a second. Someone’s pulling the wool over my eyes here.’ That’s when I started thinking about other possibilities, and I realised I’m an atheist. A full-blown atheist. No afterlife for me.
When were you happiest?
Recently I was happiest when myself and the husband were away on holidays. We went to a little town in Austria, one of these snowy spots. We don’t ski. We don’t snowboard. But we love to go walking in the snow. One particular day we decided to go snowshoeing and the guy who was guiding us brought us to a valley. It was pristine, with fresh, deep snow. It was twinkling. It was like somebody had come along and put diamonds every centimetre here or there. And it was breathtakingly gorgeous. It stayed with me. I was there with Rob. I was loving the snow. I love that bit of outdoor, blue sky, twinkling snow. It was just bliss. It was incredible.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I’m wrestling between Marian, from Bosco – she was a child TV presenter, as were the likes of Ryan Gosling and Selena Gomez. She was a childhood icon and she’d be well able for it ... The other person I’m wondering about is Carrie Crowley. Again, she was a presenter, now she’s an actress, and she and I have similarly crazy, wild, frizzy, curly hair.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
It’s both a career regret and a personal regret that, early on in my career, I didn’t learn/know the difference between a staff contract and a self-employed contract.
Have you any psychological quirks?
Any time I go into a shop to order a sandwich, I will always ask them to cut it in rectangles, not triangles. I am offended by triangular shapes. I just can’t, they don’t make sense. There’s nothing on the edges and all the filling is in the middle. I like an even spread of my sandwich filling. Also, my sisters tell me that I’m weird and paranoid because I’ll never put handbags or shopping bags on the kitchen counter or the kitchen table. They’ll ask me why and I’ll explain: ‘Well, you put that handbag on the ground, and now you’re putting somebody’s shoe dirt on your kitchen table.’
