Former Moray councillor Tim Eagle was winding down at the end of his working day when the phone rang from his political friend, Douglas Ross.
“I was basically told the press release is going out in 90 minutes, do you want the job?” says the man who is now Scotland’s newest MSP, representing the Highlands and Islands region.
Mr Eagle, who lives in Buckie with his family, had quit as a councillor in 2022.
He was happy to be back working the farm and as a land agent.
That all changed thanks to Scotland’s electoral system.
Long-serving Highlands MSP Donald Cameron had just been appointed by the prime minister to service in the UK Government and made a peer in the House of Lords.
It left a vacancy in Holyrood which is filled by the next person down the Conservative party’s regional list from the 2021 election.
That’s where Mr Eagle landed.
“I knew I was next on the list but I didn’t think any of these guys were going anywhere else,” he says at the end of his first working week in Edinburgh.
“Then all of sudden I get the call saying Donald Cameron’s off to the UK Government and Lords, and you’ve got an hour and a half to decide.
“It was about 4.30pm and he said the press release was going out at 6pm.”
He had a quick chat with his wife and said yes.
“If I’m honest with myself, I missed politics. I enjoyed being on the council and I shouldn’t have stepped down in 2022. I’ve always regretted that.
“I’m in now, I’ve got two and half years, and I’ll give it my very best.”
Mr Eagle has a background in farming and served for a couple of years with the police as part of the old Northern Constabulary, based in Wick after training.
But he gave that up to stay in the north-east where his wife, Rachel, was training to be a doctor.
The couple have three children, Hannah, 13, Sam, 11 and Callum, 8.
They have a farm of about 80 acres with sheep.
Mr Eagle says he didn’t have an early desire to go into politics until realising how it overlapped with his life.
He stood for Moray council in a 2015 byelection but lost. Success in 2017’s election was quickly followed by promotion to leader.
“I didn’t fully recognise what I was getting into”, he says.
“I didn’t realise I would be leader or anything and I had a young family, and it had a toll on those early years.”
‘I had to step away’
The experience of Holyrood’s 2021 election, when he was on the list of regional candidates for the Highlands and Islands, was tough.
“So when it got to 2022, I decided I just had to step away from it,” he adds.
A byelection comeback bid failed later that year.
But now, he’s had his first week in Holyrood. He was officially sworn in on Tuesday and met the presiding officer, Alison Johnston, who oversees the business of parliament in the debating chamber
He made his first speech then sat through the first high-tempo first ministers’ question session on Thursday, dominated by argument about the future of energy jobs in the north and north-east.
Mr Eagle now hopes to join a parliamentary committee and raise local topics where the decisions are taken in Edinburgh.
Constituents are already getting in touch to ask about the NHS, a topic he hopes to focus on.
But he also wants to improve funding and support for councils.
“That’s where it all happens,” he says. “A lot of policy agreed here is for councils to do, and they don’t get the funding to do it.”
He also wants to focus on preventative spending in health and wellbeing, improving local sport and leisure.
“Learning from my mistake in 2022, I want to stand again in 2026 and be here again,” he adds.
Conversation