Meeting of the Parliament 02 April 2025
Christina is the best of us. She was a force of nature, a warrior for those she served and a rock for those she loved.
Christina gave a great hug. They were indeed powerful, and I will cherish the memory of our last hug. Christina gave more than just physical hugs, though. The way that she built relationships with her staff, her friends, and those she met as an MSP and a minister was by metaphorically putting her arms around you and pulling you in.
Rachael Patterson, Christina’s most recent private secretary, shared the following with me:
“from the moment I met Christina, I felt a warmth and noticed she was like this with everyone she came across—it didn’t matter who you were. She taught me so much in the time we spent together.
I will visit the bench in St Andrew’s Harbour that you told me your Mum loved and I hope you will be sitting right beside me.”
Rachael is right: Christina was always there. I have heard so many stories of people Christina quietly supported through their cancer journey while she was going through her own. Christina lifted those around her—friend or stranger—with her love, her kindness and her generosity. She drove those of us around her with her wit, her fire and her principled determination.
I will very much treasure Christina’s messages of encouragement and pride when I joined her in government. She put her arms around me and built me up. Her long-time office manager, Martha McAllister, told me that that was the way she was with her staff, too. She made sure to surround herself, as Martha put it, with similarly bolshie, trade union-trained staff. Christina was clear in the way that people should be treated.
I am so sorry to all those across Government, her constituency and civic Scotland, who will miss her dearly. Most of all, my heart truly breaks for Keith, Jack and Lewis and Christina’s family: while we have lost one in a million, you have lost your world. I hope that they can take comfort in the wave of messages and tributes that have been paid to Christina—all testament to her ability to build and forge relationships.
A perfect example of that is from a member of the Gypsy Traveller community, who wrote the most beautiful poem about Christina. This paragraph encapsulates what I mean:
“A Gypsy man once lost, unheard,
Found strength in her promise, her every word.
She showed me I mattered. She taught me to stand
With wisdom, with laughter, with a gentle hand.”
That came to Christina instinctively through who she was—her generosity, her gallusness and her graft for people.
Christina is the best of us. While we will not see her again or get that hug, Christina’s legacy lives on in all those she sought to serve. She gave them hope and she left the world better than she found it. Thank you, Christina. We will miss you desperately. [Applause.]
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