My story
Iain Gray is the Scottish Labour Leader and Labour's candidate to be Scotland's next First Minister.
He spent his early years in Edinburgh - his family are originally from Leith - before moving to Inverness.
He was dux at the Royal Academy before returning to study Physics at Edinburgh University.
He taught maths and Physics at Gracemount High School in Edinburgh before teaching in an agricultural technical school in Mozambique during the civil war.
Iain then joined Oxfam as Scottish Campaigns Director. Over the next 12 years his work took him to the minefields of Cambodia and villages in Zimbabwe decimated by HIV/AIDs.
Iain Gray then stood as a Labour MSP for the Scottish Parliament in 1999. He held four Ministerial posts, including Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning.
He then spent four years as a Special Adviser to the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Alistair Darling. Iain returned to Holyrood as Labour MSP for East Lothian in 2007. He held the post of Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance until he was elected Leader in September 2008.
Iain Gray is Scottish Labour Leader
"When I was elected leader I contrasted my story with Alex Salmond's. Both Scottish, but our stories different.
"I studied science in the centre of the Scottish enlightenment. He studied economics in the centre of Scottish monetarism.
"I taught children in a council scheme and then in Mozambique. My Minister was Graca Machel – now Graca Mandela.
"He worked in the Scottish Office as an economist. His minister was George Younger.
"I moved to Inveralmond community high school – he moved to Royal Bank of Scotland.
"I spent 12 years leading campaigns for Oxfam. He spent 12 years at Westminster.
"Our paths to politics have been different. Everything I have done in my life has been driven by the same values which drive me today.
"Twenty years of supporting the efforts and the aspirations and the potential of people - whether they were kids in my class learning science, a village in Africa building a community dam or a tenants group in Wester Hailes.
"All that I have done informs and inspires my politics today and fires the vision of the future I want to see.
"Thirty years ago we were together resisting the rise of Thatcherism.
"Twenty-five years ago we were together on the picket lines with the miners, or collecting on our high streets to support their struggle.
"Twenty years ago we were together fighting the poll tax. And for all of those eighteen years, Labour councils were people’s only protection against the Tories as they are now against the SNP.
"Difficult times for Labour. Difficult times for Scotland. Sometimes they seemed like impossible times.
"But they did not break us. We drew on the lessons. We took strength from the resilience of the communities they scarred.
"Our belief that if we work together then we will be strong and we will prevail was tested but they did not break us. Afterwards many are strong in the broken places."
