Viral parish council star Jackie Weaver has revealed she was born in Motherwell and says Scots would not have let her now-famous Zoom meeting turn into chaos.
The nation has been entertained by footage of a bizarre community meeting in Handforth, Cheshire.
The summit became an internet hit and 62-year-old Jackie – who kept her cool in the face of adversity with her nonchalant attitude when it came to booting people out of the meeting – has become an overnight star with cakes, T-shirts, mugs and birthday cards created in her honour.
And, just like Eva Peron and Jesus, Jackie has had a song written about her by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, while fans are clamouring for a film and play to be made of her life, potentially called I Am the Authority.
Now, the Daily Record can exclusively reveal Jackie is a Scot who is proud of her roots.
And she reckons a Scottish community meeting would have turned out very differently.
She said: “There is a warmth about Scottish people and a personal opinion and bluntness that I miss down here.
“It’s difficult to describe. It doesn’t make the English or the Scottish people sound very good from that description but there’s more formality in the English.
“At a Scottish council parish meeting, I don’t think it would ever have got to that stage.
“Us Scots would have sorted it out long before it got there. I like to think they would have come to verbal blows – and moved on. There’s something no-nonsense there.”
Jackie was born in Motherwell’s Draffen Street in 1958 then moved to “upmarket” Wishaw. The family switched to England when she was 10.
She said: “My maiden name was Davidson. My mum’s family come from Forres, in Moray, and my dad and his family come from Motherwell. They met up at RAF Kinloss, not far from Forres.”
Asked if they fell in love over the planes, she added: “I suspect it was saucier than that. My dad fell in love with the local lass and was an engineer from the RAF. Later, he studied at night school and started working at the iron and steelworks at Ravenscraig. But we moved to England when I was 10.
“I don’t sound Scottish. I’ve got quite a chameleon accent. If I talk for long enough, the Scottish will come in again.”
Jackie admitted the last week has been “surreal”.
She said: “I still don’t understand it. Why this has captured people’s imagination, I just don’t know. I make dull look exciting. I think maybe everybody is missing their mum and I’ve become a surrogate mum.”
