Annie Wells only has to look out of her living room window to remind herself why she does her job.

She’s in a unique position – a politician still living in the deprived area she now serves as a Tory MSP.

It was from her sofa one day last summer that she watched two men in the grip of heroin addiction struggle to walk along the pavement.

This was a familiar sight for the 45-year-old who has lived in the same home in Glasgow’s Springburn since she was a baby.

So Annie isn’t fazed by Scotland’s drugs battle – she’s been surrounded by its casualties her whole life.

But she revealed her desire for change in the area recently got personal after losing another childhood friend to addiction.

Last month as she left her flat for Holyrood, she spotted emergency services in her street.

Her old school chum succumbed to drugs. He was the second playground pal of Annie’s to die in those circumstances.

(Image: Getty)

The Tory health spokeswoman said: “I grew up with this guy. We played together, we were in and out of each other’s houses.

“His family lived on the same street. They were like my family.

“This boy was so full of life, so good-looking when we were young.

“And then it changed. I’d see him from time to time and he’d always say hello but looking at him was like looking at a familiar face who had changed to an old dying man.

“I was told later that his partner had tried to resuscitate him but he had died from a cocktail of heroin and methadone.” The man’s death came 20 years after Annie lost her best friend to drugs.

(Image: PA)

The young woman, only a couple of years older than Annie, had grown up in the same block of council flats in the shadow of the city’s notorious and since demolished Red Road flats.

Annie said: “She was a lovely girl. I remember playing after school, marking out a tennis court with spray paint at a nearby industrial estate when Wimbledon was on. We played for hours on end.”

The girls grew apart and she became aware her friend has started taking drugs.

Annie said: “She had a child and not long after I had my son.

“My mum called me to say she’d been found in a close, dead from an overdose.

“I remember the funeral, handing my son over to my mum so I could go. It seemed surreal. It’s stayed with me. Her mum and dad took in her child but they were never the same. It changed the whole family.”

Statistics show that more than twice as many people are dying from drug use in Scotland than a decade ago.

A total of 867 people died last year after using illegal or prescription drugs.

Heroin contributed to 55 per cent of the deaths. Heroin substitute methadone was implicated in 42 per cent of fatalities.

Most victims had more than one drug in their system when they died.

Annie said: “We have people who’ve been on methadone for 25 years. They’re also using heroin and other drugs.

“What we’re doing is not working and we need to change policy.

“I’ve been criticised for saying this by the Government, who claim that addicts are assessed every six months. But I live here. I see the reality.”

Annie admits she often asks herself why she never felt tempted to try drugs in an area where so many are easily available.

She said: “It’s a difficult one to answer. My friends’ parents loved them as much as my mum and dad loved me and my brother. I used to think that it was because my friends had more siblings, there were more people to look after.”

The incongruity of a Tory trying to help a community who have long blamed the Conservatives for the demise of its heavy industry which led to unemployment and other social problems is not lost on Annie.

(Image: Facebook)

For years, the Tory party was a four-letter word. To such an extent that Annie admits telling her family and friends she was standing as a Conservative candidate was more difficult than ­revealing she was gay.

She said: “It’s the word Tory. It’s still used as an insult. But my face is familiar around here and I talk the same so people think nothing of it.”

Perhaps it’s her struggles as a teenager, coming out as gay, being bullied at school and then retreating back into the closet when everyone else could not cope.

Annie, who only revealed her sexuality after a short marriage and the birth of her son, is now seen as one of the Conservative party’s rising stars.

It’s not difficult to see why. She’s smart, straight-talking and non-judgmental and appears more interested in getting things done than just talking about it.

The politician still affords herself a quiet smile when constituents come to her for help and have no idea of her politics.

She said: “People come to my surgeries for assistance with their benefits or housing and I do what every MSP does and see how I can help.

“Often it’s only at the end of the conversation it becomes clear they think I’m SNP or Labour. Some people are confused but I work for everybody."

(Image: Daily Record)

Annie said that becoming a Tory wasn’t a natural decision for her. She joined the Better Together campaign during the independence referendum and saw Ruth Davidson speak.

When Annie decided to stand as a Conservative candidate, the former Marks & Spencer store boss did not tell her family, including mum Maria, 73.

She said: “Mum called me at work after someone in a shop had told her.

“I just said, ‘Mum, I’ll call you when I finish work’ and hung up.

“I sat her down and explained why I felt my values fitted with the Conservatives. I felt I needed to try to make a difference and the Tory party represent opportunity.

“Mum said, ‘I agree with everything you’ve just said, so I must be a Tory too’.”

Maria, who once worked for local Labour MP and former Commons speaker Michael Martin, is now a Conservative Party member.

Annie also believes her Labour -supporting dad Alex, who died four years ago, would have been equally proud.

She said: “He was Labour all his life but I know he would’ve accepted my views. He would’ve been proud of me and defended what I’m trying to do.

“He and my mother were all for my brother and I trying different things as children. I did dancing, swimming and gymnastics.”

Despite being in the job for just 18 months, Annie has ambition.

But first she has a wedding to plan after getting engaged last year to partner Angela Stephen.

She said: “I’m still finding my feet. But I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t want a bigger role. You don’t go into any job to stand still. But there’s the little matter of getting elected.”