Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - For an SNP politician, 2015 was dominated by our success in the May election for Westminster. While in 2016 we face the challenge of elections to our Parliament in Scotland.
Banffshire and Buchan Coast covers a large and varied area from Buckie to Boddam. It is intensely rural in parts but with major settlements. Employment is varied – farming, oil, fishing, engineering and education adding to the usual mix of professional and social services found in every area.
Today, as for more than a century, many “work away”. On oil production rigs off our own shore and on exploration rigs around the world. On fishing vessels from our own ports and from ports further afield.
We know we are a “get up and go” community with (probably) the highest proportion of self-employed of any constituency in Scotland.
We are a diverse community with all our secondary schools having around 20 or more languages in them. That's not new.
The Peterhead Post Office Directory for 1853 (you can read it via http://www.nls.uk) tells me that the population of Peterhead was then 8,242 of whom only 263 were on the electoral roll – simpler days for political canvassing in the 1852 election!
And we were international then with a Swedish and Norwegian consul, a Danish and Hanoverian consul and a Prussian consul in Peterhead appointed to look after those countries' local interests.
Although we will still have more employed in fish processing than five years ago after the planned and substantial loss of jobs at Youngs in Fraserburgh, the Government task force has a job to do.
We probably depend too much on our factories working for others and not enough on developing our own brands which customers can see on our supermarket shelves. It's a long term project to change that. Few buyers of smoked salmon in Sainsbury's will realise that by the end of 2016 it will have been processed in Fife and in Poland and no longer in Fraserburgh.
In our Parliament, as is common at the end of a session, we are intensely busy with legislation.
I have just taken a new Act through Holyrood that tweaks the way in which MSPs report their finances and tightens up the regime. This means The Scottish Parliament is leading the way in transparency and accountability. The Act will make the financial interests of members easier to find, hopefully to giving more confidence to the public in who they elect.
In 1853 Robert Anderson of Marischall Street in Peterhead were one of the shops advertising "Family Mournings" in the Post Office Directory. Nowadays many funeral invitations insist on bright coloured clothes to celebrate the life of the departed.
In 2016, it will be first time 16 and 17 years olds anywhere in the UK will vote for members of Parliament. They tell me they're looking forward to it.
Have a successful 2016.
