In our new regular Sunday feature, we ask Scots what were the 10 things that changed their life ...

1. Seeing Jerry Sadowitz in 1984

The National:

I HAD a pub called The Weavers Inn in the Calton. My brother Jim, who has since passed away, was friends with Jerry Sadowitz and brought him in one night saying “this guy does comedy and magic”, and we’re like “we’re a pub in the Calton, we don’t have comedy or magic”.

It was the first time Jerry had done a gig. It kind of made me realise that comedy isn’t all just men in frilly shirts talking about their mother-in-law, which was what the early eighties felt like in comedy.

LAST WEEK: Nicola Sturgeon: 10 things that changed my life

It was ground-breaking and strange at the time. He was amazing and watching someone do what was then called “alternative comedy” and close-up magic definitely changed how I looked at comedy.

I wasn’t a big fan of comedy back then because it was just men in suits – English men in suits – who looked like bankers. And then this guy walks in with long hair and a top hat and made me realise that comedy doesn’t just have to be a woman in a sparkly dress singing beside a man.

This was 10 years before I started out in comedy. I never thought at that point that one day I would support him at the King’s Theatre. He was just incredibly different.

2. Diamonds and Pearls by Prince

The National:

I REMEMBER hearing this for the first time and thinking that “I’ve finally found my person”. I loved Prince, and Diamonds and Pearls symbolised everything about the nineties. It had everything; it was great music.

I was a big Prince fan from the early eighties right through. We had a jukebox in the pub – my house, my rules, my jukebox – so if you didn’t like Prince, Hall and Oates or George Michael then you didn’t get to play anything.

I never saw him in concert but I did eventually meet Prince at a party in Amsterdam, which is quite a long story* but it ended up he liked my husband more than me so we won’t go into that.

*So we were in Amsterdam and one of the guys in the sauna in the hotel said to my husband “do you want to come and see our band”, and my husband came up and told me, and I said what band is it, and he said he didn’t know so we never went … and it was Prince! But we did go to the private party with Prince afterwards and Prince had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever, but he wanted to be pals with my husband who didn’t know who Prince was!

3. Laughing with my dad

The National:

ONE of the most wonderful things I’ve had in my life was my dad, who died last year, and we cared for him at the end of his life.

He had vascular dementia, and I put him into a care home next door to me. When you read about people caring for their parents with dementia you read about the fear and the horror and the worry about care, but they don’t talk about the laughter, and me and my dad fucking laughed and laughed and laughed.

He had a really good sense of humour. One time we were watching Cagney and Lacey and one of them was pregnant. So I go to make a cup of tea and when I come back he says “oh that’s a shame, she lost her wean”, and I’m like “aw, really?” and he’s like “No!”.

Laughter and being with my dad right up until the end really changed me. It was facing up to what was going to be the most horrendous death that I would ever face as an adult woman. It was about being able to be with your parent and make the end of their life bearable.

4. Donald Trump

The National:

DONALD Trump did change my life – because of him I became a political activist. I was just so angry. And my protest led to my first death threats, from Christians – American Christians and British Christians.

I do love the pictures of me holding the sign. I think that to be outspoken is incredibly important, and to be an outspoken woman is incredibly important.

And protesting Donald Trump has given me a great memory as well – although I think my favourite memory was when Margaret Atwood retweeted my daughter.

Ashley had made a comedy video called If the Handmaid’s Tale was Scottish and Margaret Atwood, her favourite author, retweeted it. And that was something that I’ll never forget, watching my daughter being so happy because Margaret Atwood had seen what she’s done. If Trump came back to Scotland I would protest him again, I’ll always be here!

5. Billy Connolly seeing my show

The National:

I WAS in Wellington in 2012, I was there at a comedy festival with Ashley, and Billy Connolly was staying at the same hotel as us. We spent the day together having a good old chat.

He said he would come and see my show that night and I thought he wouldn’t be there, but he turned up and him and Ashley sat with a pizza and a pot of tea between them and he watched my one-hour show.

It was terrifying knowing he was there, I was standing backstage thinking “what if I die in my ring? I’ll have to kill Billy Connolly so he doesn’t tell anybody about it …” but it was a great show, I was happy with it.

Like a lot of comedians I travel all over the world to do a show, I would be happy to do comedy anywhere, to any room of people.

I’d do a show for three people at a bus stop. I went to Kuala Lumpur one night for a 20-minute slot.

Billy Connolly was another of those people doing comedy who were different, this guy with long hair who spoke like me.

And my comedy is based on very common ordinary stories. I’m not even really a comedian, I’m just an overly friendly cleaner who talks too much.

6. Having a child

The National:

I WAS 25 when I had Ashley [Ashley Storrie, stand-up comedian and viral video maker].

She was great fun, she was funny as a kid, she was talkative and engaging and she kept me company.

We used to pretend we were doing TV shows together, the two of us would sit there watching morning TV and pretending we were presenting.

It was good having a funny wean and she still makes me laugh to this day, she can impersonate people from when she was really young.

I never wanted to be a mother, I didn’t think it was something that I would be good at.

I had a history of childhood abuse, so I was reluctant to have a child because I thought “I’m going to be a really crap mother”, but she was brilliant and she still is.

My husband and I had been married for five years when I had her. We lived above the pub. It was the 1980s, people would come and take your wean out for a walk for an hour or two while the pub was busy.

It was good having a child who was bright and engaging, she was a rare conversationalist and we could have a right good laugh together.

7. Kramer vs Kramer

The National:

WE went to Ayr for our honeymoon for a weekend in September 1980. Some Celtic player’s father-in-law had a bed and breakfast that one of my husband’s relatives got us booked into. There was an Alsatian dog that (a) bit me, and (b) peed one me, and then we went to see Kramer vs Kramer, a divorce film, on our honeymoon.

It was Ayr in 1980 and it was either going to see that or look at the puppet shadows on the side of the wall. Fish supper, the only film that was on, and then back to the bed and breakfast for the untamed will.

But I’ve chosen this because it is a great film. It was very sympathetic towards men looking after a child alone, which was ground-breaking back then, and I like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. I haven’t watched it since.

8. Taking my uncle to court

BACK in 1996 it was a different time and child abuse was really hard to prove. Going through with it was such a long process.

Putting your faith in the legal system was quite frightening. If the outcome had been “not guilty” then it meant nobody believed you and my whole lived experienced would have been negated.

It was quite traumatic. I had to tell two male police officers and then I had to tell my entire family and break everyone else’s silence.

It was a complete watershed because it made me realise that I shouldn’t be ashamed, that the shame isn’t mine. It’s not the victims that have to be ashamed.

It was petrifying and I don’t know how I had the strength to do it, but I had a big network of family who were incredibly supportive, and them saying “we believe you”, that made a huge difference.

He was found guilty of sexual assault.

9. Live Aid

The National:

ON the day of Live Aid I found out I was pregnant with Ashley. It was a great day. We hired a big TV for the pub, and it was fantastic.

And of course my hormones were everywhere and every time I saw the pictures of these small starving babies I wept buckets and then threw up everywhere.

Earlier this year at the Rewind Festival at Scone Palace I met Bob Geldof (pictured) and Midge Ure and the man from Status Quo, the one that’s alive, and they were all lovely. Bob Geldof even got up on stage and said I was his hero because of the Donald Trump “c***” sign. It was weird seeing them all together.

10. Writing my autobiography

The National:

I WROTE my autobiography [Handstands In The Dark] in 2004, and it was published in 2006, and that changed my life.

Someone came to see me at the Edinburgh Festival and thought I was telling lies about my life and the stories I told on stage. When I told him it was all true he put me in touch with Ebury Press and Random House and I got a book deal before I even had a literary agent.

I wrote my book while I was on tour, and I was writing at night. I think putting all these memories into one book was quite a profound thing to do. It was easy to write it because I had lived it.