The Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini has revealed publicly that she was a passenger on the ill fated Glasgow Edinburgh shuttle train that crashed at Polmont junction in 1984.

In an interview with the BBC’s Edie Stark, she said that nine people in the carriage she was travelling in, including two passengers seated next to her, were killed in the derailment.

Angiolini was 24 years old at the time. She told Stark that she very narrowly escaped with her life.

“Philosophically, every day I have had since then, I have looked on very positively,” she said.

She added that she suffered “survivors guilt” afterwards, but came to see that life was about getting through challenges “however they face you”.

“With your own resilience, and the stores of ability and creativity that each of us have, and with support from friends and family, you can get through immense challenges in life.

“It is an event in your life which makes you very much appreciate the transience of all of this. It certainly has left a very strong view of the necessity to make the most of what you have got.”

Stark’s interview focuses on personal and family issues, and touches on Angiolini’s admission to the Faculty of Advocates, her career as a prosecutor and her predecessor Colin Boyd. The interview can be heard in full here.  

The Firm’s “Legal Casebook” retrospective on the incident can be read here.