Finding my roots in Scotland

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve done an episode in this diary… I suppose one is well due, I am even considering doing some “post-event” entries, but that’s beside the point.

Something pretty awesome and thought-provoking was going to have to occur to encourage me to write again, as I wasn’t quite sure I could follow up on the last one. Having had so many intense experiences, and being surrounded by both incredibly challenging circumstances, and inspiring people and projects… it just didn’t feel right to post something while I was on my Contiki tour around Europe, seeing all of the beautiful cities, the historic places, the art etc.

Of course there should be nothing wrong with writing these things down, after all it doesn’t change the good that was done while I was volunteering, or my desire to continue doing this work. But I felt that perhaps some people might look accusingly at the juxtaposition of my trip, going from seeing the poorest nations in Europe (Romania and Moldova) and communities of poverty, to seeing and travelling among its richest areas and enjoying my time travelling and experiencing the world.

I think now that perhaps I was the one that felt the most concern about how this would be perceived. I can only conclude that anyone who has put as much thought as I have over the last few months into how much a person should sacrifice and give vs. how much they should reward themselves and the fruits of their labour… must have as many  conflicting emotions as I have at the moment.

Sadly I think there is no answer, and only each individual gets to decide what they’re comfortable with, and hope that when they look back over their life at its end, they’re happy with all they’ve done and given.

So, I’m onto the travelling part of my year off, and as my time in the UK is very soon up due to Visa requirements… there was one trip in particular left for me, that I could not leave without doing.

Over two years ago I visited Scotland when I was on my year exchange with the Canadian Navy, sadly we didn’t end up getting that much personal time to see the place, but I got enough of a taste to promise myself I had to come back. The one thing I was really disappointed about was the fact that I didn’t have the time to search for the town where my grandfather (Ian MacDonald) had been born and had grown up. I’ve always felt connected to Scotland, and often thought the strong-willed, fiery side of my personality comes from this line.

Highland cows on the hills.

My grandfather has played an interesting role in my life, and affected me both as a child growing up, hearing his artfully told tales of adventure, and after his death as an adult.

You see he was also in the Navy, the Merchant Navy, which played a part in my decision to join… where I have just finished four years of service in the RNZN. But, to fully appreciate the significance of this story, I’ll need to go back to the beginning...

Forgive me if I get a few details wrong, the following is a patchwork of snippets of information put together over my life. My grandfather was born out of wedlock to a young Scottish girl, in a small town near Abelour, Northern Scotland. As a baby he was put in the orphanage and spent three years there until he was adopted out to the MacDonald family who lived in Elgin, a small town about 30 miles away. They lived in a small house down an alleyway off one of the main streets, humbly, but were a hardworking family from what I can gather. As he was so young at the time, he had no memory of his early years and believed he was the natural son of his adopted parents (which would later cause anger and a bit of resentment on his side).

Alleyway house was down

Somewhere in his childhood he was fortunate enough to meet the Lord of Pitgaveny, who was a Scottish Lord who owned a large Estate and House in the countryside outside of Elgin. I think perhaps his mother worked in the house for a while, and he would go visiting or helping her? I’m unsure… anyway, the Lord fell for my grandfather’s charismatic charm (as everyone he met did) and soon the two would play games of pool in the Lords house and struck up an unlikely friendship, due to the class differences.

Sooner or later the Lord must have seen potential and intelligence in my young grandfather, possibly encouraging him to join the Merchant Navy to have a chance at a different life out of the small town, though definitely supporting him. It was he who gave my grandfather the second-hand uniforms far too big for him at the time, which allowed him to save enough to get to the Port he needed to to join. And although (implied) my grandfather was teased by the other recruits on arrival and during his duties, through a combination of pure hard work, determination and intelligence, my grandfather became an Officer.

Number 39.

I grew up hearing wonderfully told stories of his travels around the world, one of my favourites being one where his ship was attacked by Somalian Pirates, and he was the first to wake up and raised the alarm when he saw an armed man in the same room he was in… those on the upper decks having already been killed.

Anyway, the shorter version of the long story finds the marriage of my grandfather and grandmother (whom he met sailing into a port in Scotland one day), their immigration to New Zealand, the birth of my mother (the youngest of four) and of course my existence.

Sadly my grandfather died of cancer soon after hearing that I had been accepted in the Royal New Zealand Navy as an Officer, he was very proud. Often I have thought throughout my years in the Navy, how much I would have liked to talk to him of what I was up to, the challenges I was facing, and compare them with his. Still, some things we can’t change no matter how much we wish it.

Walking through the forest to Pitgaveny

So, skipping further to the future, I missed out on the chance to visit where he came from last time, but wasn’t going to a second. After saying goodbye to my wonderful host family in England, I set off on the cheapest bus I could find to Edinburgh and after a few days of enjoying the country there, another to Inverness, the largest city (town really) that a Megabus would go to. From here I caught a local bus to Elgin.

I didn’t quite know what to expect. As I took the hour and a bit bus ride through one small Scottish village after another, my mind was reeling. I wondered whether finding these places would be an anti-climax, whether I would even find them at all, would I be allowed to see the Lord of Pitgaveny? The best answers came when I asked myself why I was even searching at all, in a country on the opposite side of the world, in a town where I had no real connections or relatives to visit.

Side of Pitgaveny House

Turns out I was worried for nothing, and had the most amazing and rewarding day.

Elgin it turns out is a small sleepy town, not really that beautiful or remarkable. I had arrived early in the morning however and it was a beautiful sunny day (first time ever this trip in Scotland), the adventure began with a lovely local lady who pointed me in the right direction (after I discovered the visitor information centre didn’t open for another hour and I only had a rough idea from an Aunts description of how to get to the house he used to live in).  I found the house after some walking around, it was down a small alleyway off a street, a small house behind another, it was definitely occupied, by what looked like a family, so I left quickly.

I headed in the general direction of the countryside where I knew Pitgaveny house would be, with only the hope of discovering where it was at a corner store and perhaps how likely it would be I’d be able to get a look at it. The man I asked at the petrol station had grown up in the area and knew it immediately, after hearing my story he offered to take me to the gate of the Estate. Turns out it was a few miles out of town, and pretty big.

The walk into the house was beautiful, oak trees lining the driveway, forest all around. Thankfully when the road divided I took the wrong turn and ended up at the stables where I chatted to a woman who must have worked for the family, she told me both that the lord had died recently and his son was not using the house, apart from the housekeeper (who she rung and asked if I could look around) the house was empty. So I got freedom to wander around the property, through the gardens and look at the house. It was pretty awesome, almost like having a storybook come to life… seeing the REAL house from my grandfather’s stories. I can see why he liked the place, not only was it a luxurious escape from the small town, the surrounding fields, winding garden paths and forest would have been the perfect place for a child to play in.

Me in the gardens at Pitgaveny

On the walk back in to town I thought about how all of the twists of fate had resulted in both my Grandfather succeeding in life, and me getting to see where it had all started. From being adopted by a good family, to meeting the Lord of Pitgaveny, to getting the chance to travel the world, moving to New Zealand etc. etc. I think God loved my grandfather to keep handing him those wonderful twists in life…

If any one of these chain of events hadn’t occurred, I probably wouldn’t have existed, and it would be a different world.

It goes to show how anyone, no matter their situation or station in life, can achieve amazing things and a great life if they’re willing to work hard for it. I also felt super blessed to be in that town, thinking about how my life was playing out similarly to his (with the Navy/travelling that is ;) I wondered how many of those defining moments had happened to me, where someone had helped me out or had faith in me, taken a risk on me to get me where I was in life. I felt so grateful to my parents and family, and all of those other nameless people who’d had input in my life.

It kinda makes you think about how complex life is, with everyone making their life-changing decisions simultaneously :)

The butterfly effect and all that.

Walkway by the Spey River

So the next part of my trip took me on an even smaller bus where I’m pretty sure everyone ON the bus knew each other, and thus that I was not from around here. There were two old Scottish ladies sitting in-front of me chatting and laughing and it took me about 15mins of intense listening to decipher their “English” :) This time I was heading out to Abelour, the small town where the orphanage originally was.

This time the town was actually really beautiful, placed right next to the Spey River, which wound its way through the countryside with numerous walking tracks and footbridges across it. As luck would have it I asked for directions in the one information centre in town, and the lovely lady there both smothered me in pamphlets about the old orphanage and its history, and a map of the town to get my way around. Following my Aunts instructions again I crossed the bridge to a spot where an old Boat house would have been, which was where granddad was supposed to have been born. The area really was very beautiful.

Next I headed to where the clock tower, the only part of the orphanage still standing. Through this was a memorial of the Orphanage and the Reverend’s who had run it over the years. The statue and site was actually privately funded by a woman who had grown up in the orphanage all her life, afterward going on to marry and live a full life. As I walked around the plaques describing the founding of the orphanage, how it was run and the conditions… I was pleasantly surprised. To my gratitude from all accounts the orphanage was a good one, where those that cared for the children really loved them and cared about their welfare, they were schooled as well as being practically trained when they were older. The Reverend who began the orphanage did so to care for children either without parents or from very poor backgrounds, it said he held the “unpopular belief (at that time) that every child had the ability to grow up and flourish in society, notwithstanding the origins of their birth”, apparently he travelled for hundreds of miles preaching and raising funds for the children, and began annual jumble sales to support the Orphanage.

The monument went on to say a holiday home was purchased in the 30’s which meant every year 450 children would board a special train for a “holiday” by the beach.

Statue and plaques to the Orphanage.

I guess for me, having just spent a lot of time seeing orphanages in Moldova, where the majority are in extremely poor condition and the children are unloved, I had prepared myself for the worst. When I’d heard the orphanage was pulled down I assumed it would have been for bad reasons, but it turns out the overall view of the organisation changed, into small family homes and adopting children out.

I guess in a way this made me feel better about the memory of my great-grandmother, who put my grandfather into the care of the orphanage, I’d always given her the benefit of the doubt, knowing that a young single woman in those times wouldn’t have been able to support a child well, and he would have had even less of a chance in that circumstance… but knowing now that the orphanage had a good reputation in the surrounding towns and even Scotland, makes me feel like she was trying to give her son the best chance at life. Which I guess is what we would all want for a child.

 

So that ended my search for my roots, and after buying a local postcard off a nice man in a corner store (who it turns out went to New Zealand to attend his daughter’s wedding- to a local ;) I bought haggis from the local fish & chip shop and waited for the bus back “home”. After two hours of quite bus-pondering I was back in Inverness thinking of how happy I was the day had gone well.

So, to report what I learned;

Never underestimate the power of a good story and stepping forward in faith… so many times in my hunt I thought I was bound to fail- I had too little information, no maps, verbal directions and here I was with my bright-red-dyed hair and backpackers rain jacket trying to get into a Scottish Lords estate… and yet, at each crossroad my story would win people over and got me closer to where I needed to be. I think everyone I talked to understood. Where you come from is important, knowing how much those in your past struggled and worked to get you where you are this day. I grew up in a beautiful, free country with a good education and opportunities because my grandfather decided he wanted more than a labourers life in that small town. And I’m so proud he took the leap of faith and did it.

Circles… all life seems to be one never ending loop in time. The Reverend who funded the orphanage out of love, trying to prove to others “that every child had the ability to grow up and flourish in society, notwithstanding the origins of their birth”… did so unknowingly, years later with my Grandfather who ended up living comfortably in a beautiful house in Lyttelton harbour, New Zealand, and no doubt countless other children too.

I without realising it, had just spent some of my four months volunteering at an orphanage in Moldova… just loving the children and trying to show them they could hope for more than what their country had told them they could achieve (nothing) for so long. I never thought about the poetic irony of the circumstance, that the granddaughter of an orphan was searching internally for something which would prove to them they could achieve anything they wanted, that it was even possible for an orphan to become something great. There I was thinking there was no way I had a connection to their circumstance and yet the whole time I was living proof I was searching for.

Eilean Donan castle in the Highlands.

I think that perhaps we think too often that we own our lives, that we are owed them. Nothing in this life has been promised to us, no ammount of time, no circumstance or wealth. I think the last few months of my life and the soul searching is leading me toward focusing on serving others more, after all, if any one of those kind people who had an effect of my Grandfathers life, that Reverend, his adoptive parents, the Lord of Pitgaveny, had not helped him… I would not be here.

Perhaps I need to complete the circle and help others improve their future and the future generations.