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© MND Scotland 2025
I’m determined to have a good time this Christmas, but because of MND, Christmas might look a little different this year.
I’ll be spending Christmas with family, including my two children, Lauren and Adam. We usually eat lots, have a glass (or three) and play games. But MND has taken my ability to swallow. I am very limited with what I can eat and will soon have a feeding tube fitted.
We have a family tradition of hanging up our stockings and opening them first thing. Then, after breakfast, we sit around the tree and take turns opening presents. Ziggy, our little dog, gets presents too, and we have lots of fun watching him tear the paper off. MND has taken my ability to move my right arm, so I may need a bit of help opening my presents.
I also won’t be able to sing Christmas carols because MND has taken my voice.
Losing my voice is the cruellest of all because performing in the West End is how I built a successful career.
I was diagnosed with MND on 20 November 2024. My symptoms started a year before when I noticed my speech starting to slur, and I couldn’t say certain words. I put it down to being tired as I was a super healthy person. After many tests, I was diagnosed with Bulbar ALS, the type of MND that affects the face, neck and throat. It was absolutely devastating.
MND Scotland has helped me in every way. They have helped me with funding, sorting out grants and getting my finances in order, they have supported myself and my family with counselling and emotional support. And they have made sure that my affairs are in order after I’m gone.
MND Scotland is always at the end of the phone, and the team has been an amazing support. It means we can breathe a little knowing that those things have been taken care of. They do a wonderful job.
Support from MND Scotland means I am not facing MND alone.
My mum gave my sister and I a wonderful childhood, and we started dancing at Betty Stewart’s dance school in Clydebank from a young age. I went on to join Minerva Juniors Amateur Dramatics Society, and it gave me the theatre bug. I did my first professional job aged 11. The West End production of Annie was touring the UK, and I was lucky to be cast as one of the orphans. It was such a special time, and I’m still in touch with the girls now.
At 16, I moved to London to train for three years. Followed by 15 amazing years in the industry performing in the West End, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, regional and touring productions. My first big job after college was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard. From there, I went on to perform in Oliver, Martin Guerre, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins for Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Beauty and the Beast with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Beautiful and Damned directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood, South Pacific at the National Theatre directed by Sir Trevor Nunn and many more.
When I returned to the industry after having my children, I turned my attention and love for the theatre to teaching. I taught at the highly acclaimed Stellar Performing Arts in Glasgow and Clifton Hall School in Edinburgh. All the staff and students have been wonderful and so supportive when I received my MND diagnosis.
I had started to dip my toe into the industry again and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in a musical production of Making a Murderer and performed at Leeds Playhouse in a play called Blow Down.
MND has been around for over 200 years, and still we haven’t found a cure. It is so unpredictable. Average life expectancy is just 18 months from diagnosis. It is unbelievably cruel. Every day, I notice a change in my ability to do things.
MND Scotland works tirelessly to raise money and awareness, yet it still seems to be a disease that people don’t know about. Please, please donate to MND Scotland this Christmas.
Thank you,
To honour those we have lost, you can leave a message on our online dedication page.
This will be a special space where you can share pictures and meaningful messages for your loved ones who are no longer with us. It will serve as a cherished memorial, allowing us to hold onto those precious memories together.
£10 could help us keep in touch with people with MND, provide information, and even arrange practical support to make living with MND easier.
£50 could help our Advocacy team to resolve issues many people with MND are experiencing, and take stress away from them and their family.
£100 could bolster our efforts to fund world-leading MND clinical trials which aim to develop new treatments to fight back against MND.
Please send a cheque payable to 'MND Scotland' to: MND Scotland, 6th Floor,
Merchant Exchange, 20 Bell Street, Glasgow, G1 1LG.
Please include a note with your full name, address and details of your donation, so we can thank you.
Call us on 0141 332 3903 to make your donation.
Please have your credit or debit card to hand.
You can transfer money straight from your bank account to ours or deposit the money at any Bank of Scotland branch.
Please contact us for bank details and a reference code.
Have a question? Contact us for more information.
