My Glaswegian Roots

Sunshine, galleries and finally some visuals to add to the stories I've been told of my family history - what an amazing trip to Glasgow! My trip would not have been the same without my great-uncle Harry and great-aunt Margaret. These two have a reputation that precedes them. My grandparents often warn the younger traveling Rews that Harry and Margaret are aging and can't take visitors (what with their hearing aids and recently replaced knees.) But for some reason we never listen, and every time one of us makes our way to Scotland, we're sure to pay Harry and Margaret a visit. Over the years I've heard so many stories of Harry's habit of kicking back in his chair as he laughs at his own jokes, and of Margaret's grandmotherly love. It was time for me to experience them for myself!

Harry and Margaret may be aging, but that hasn't dampened their spirits, or reduced their mobility! When Harry met me at the Gallery of Modern Art, fashioning the blue Angus tartan cap he promised he'd wear so that I would recognize him, I was the one who had to keep up with him as he raced back to his car without the slightest indication of his 86 years. When we made it home, after several rounds of his favourite game "Hit That Pedestrian," Margaret welcomed me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek - she filled the void in my life in a way that only a Scottish granny can!

Over my 4 days in Glasgow they had me over for tea and shortbread, roast beef dinners and took me to explore outside of Glasgow where my family lived before the war. We went to Clyde Bank to my great grandpa and granny's grave (eerily on the exact day David Rew Sr passed away 61 years ago), the houses where my Granny and Grandpa lived before World War II, when the Clyde Bank Blitz forced them to relocate, then to Doune to the family mill where my great great grandpa was a barley miller (you may remember this mill from a few scenes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail!)

Seeing where my grandparents lived before the war brought me in touch with a different side of them. I've been a part of their lives as grandparents in Winnipeg - stopping by for chocolate digestives during their early retired years in Osborne Village, and meeting for coffee at the Bistro at the Shaftesbury Retirement Residence. In 2008, I got in touch with their lives as parents and professionals when I made my way to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to see where they raised my dad and the projects my grandpa worked on as an architect during the colonial years. Now I can visualize them as young people. I saw their homes, stood on the bridge where my grandpa would sketch during his early artistic days, and I learned that my grandparents were, in fact, once my age.