Scotland's lost son: The child migrant sent to Canada who reunited with his family after 83 years

LITTLE Scott clung to his granny's hand as he stood shivering on the doorstep. He turned to wave goodbye to the family he'd never see again as he was sent away from Scotland, aged just three.

More than eight decades later, a faded memory of the scarf wrapped around his neck would help reunite him with the family he never knew he had.

The little boy who disappeared from Scotland

It was 1938 and Scott was to become one of thousands of British children sent overseas through child migration schemes, he was separated from his family and eventually sent to a Fairbridge Farm School in Canada.

Like many children, he was led to believe he was an orphan. For more than 70 years, he believed he had nobody left in Scotland.

It was only after his son Brian began some family research that he discovered he did have living family – siblings, cousins and more – who didn’t even know he existed.

Before Scott left Scotland, his teenage cousin Andrew Aitken quietly handed the little boy his scarf for the journey. He never knew who the child was or what became of him, but told the story often enough that his daughter Judith Johnston never forgot it.

Kept alive in memory and family stories

Decades later, while reading about Britain's child migrants, she suddenly realised the little boy with the scarf might have been one of them.

“We believed him to be in Australia. I could never speak to anyone about this through a mixture of sadness and guilt. It all happened long before I was born, but I still felt shame that this had happened in my family,” she said.

In 2019, however, Judith came face to face with that same young boy after she found a post on Dumbarton Memories Facebook page from Scott’s son, asking for information about his father’s family.

“One evening, I came across an entry from someone called Brian Hewitt, resident in British Columbia, Canada. He was seeking relations of his father,” said Judith.

As Judith read his plea, a realisation dawned on her,

“I truly turned cold when I read Brian’s post. Jessie, my father’s aunt, had been married to Charles Hewitt and had a child called Aileen. We were also told about an illegitimate baby she had in Glasgow in 1935.”

Judith and her brother Alisdair made the connection to the little boy with the scarf and got in touch with Brian.

How a Facebook post reunited a lost Scottish family

Brian, a Canadian-born son of a Scotsman, was also spurred to investigate his family history after seeing a social media post.

“I was scrolling through Facebook in my truck, when I came across a friend’s post about British Home Children. Knowing my father had come from Scotland via England to Canada as a child, I was intrigued.

“As I was reading the article, a photograph appeared. The chapel at Fairbridge Farm School There was my father at 10 years old, along with the other children sent in his party to Fairbridge Farm School. I was blown away!” said Brian.

“I’d never seen this picture in my life. I knew it was my dad right away. I was shocked!

“This unexpected discovery on Facebook was just the start of a whirlwind of events that quickly led me down an amazing path of discovery.” Brian’s father, Scott, had always been proud of his Scottish heritage but knew little else about his family.

Brian inherited this sense of Scottish pride and had always craved more information about where his father came from. After discovering his father’s photograph in the online article, Brian showed it to his parents.

“Dad had never seen it before but he gave me a large envelope of paperwork and said, ‘here, it’s all in there, read about it if you want to.’

Searching for a father's Scottish roots

“It was his file from the Fairbridge Farm School Society. Dad had been sent it in 1985.”

Scott had never looked in the envelope as it related to his time at Fairbridge Farm, which wasn’t an easy time.

“Dad was bullied at Fairbridge and his cottage mother was not a nice person. He told me he felt like a complete outsider. ‘The Lone Ranger’ as he put it,” said Brian.

“I took the envelope home. I spread it all out on the table, put it in chronological order and started reading. It was heartbreaking.

“Dad had been sent to the Fairbridge Society in 1938 when he was just three years old. I cried. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“There was information about dad’s family and that he had been put into care by his granny. The first question I had was, how does someone just give their child away?

Genealogy reveals the truth after 80 years

“That question lead to several hundred more, so I started making notes. I had a list of names relating to my dad and dates associated with his admittance into care.”

Brian then turned to the internet for answers and this is where he connected with Judith. Brian received many responses to his online pleas. “My phone just started buzzing like crazy!,” said Brian.

“It was on the Dumbarton Memories page that I got a post from a lady called Judith Johnston. “On that same thread I got a message from Margery Froome, who also said that she had information for me.”

Brian also heard about a lady on genealogy website ancestry.com called Maureen Baker whose family tree listed a couple of names from his father’s family.

Brian contacted Maureen asking if her mother was Jessie Lottey and if her grandmother was Mary Smith from Dumbarton – which would make Maureen his aunt and Scott’s sister.

A family reunited

“Then I waited,” said Brian. He didn’t have long to wait, however, as the following day Maureen contacted him from Australia.

“She confirmed everything I had suspected and I now had proof that my dad had siblings and that they were alive! It was an incredible moment,” he said.

“Maureen was shocked to say the least. They never knew about my dad. She confirmed that Margery was her sister and that my dad’s oldest sister Aileen was still alive and living in Detroit.”

Judith also got in touch and confirmed that she and her brother Alisdair were Scott’s cousins once removed. “Everything started falling into place from there,” said Brian.

“But how was I going to tell my dad that after 83 years of being an orphan, I had found his entire family in less than two days?

“I went over to mom and dad’s house after work and told him everything. I showed him pictures of his mom, his grandparents, his sisters, everything!

“Dad was absolutely floored,” said Brian. While chatting, Brian’s phone rang. It was Maureen from Australia. “I pushed the FaceTime button and she and her sister Margery appeared on the screen. I handed the phone to my dad.

Emotional phone calls

"There was a moment of silence and gasps, then the love and the tears flowed,” he said.

“That was an amazing moment in my life. Truly one I will never forget. Then my phone rang again. This time it was Aileen. Same thing again. I pushed FaceTime and there she was! Aileen is a few years older than my dad and remembers him when he was a baby,” he said.

“She let out a gasp and then said, ‘my wee baby brother’, and then we all cried again. I’m crying now just thinking about it.

“Word got out to the family and they all were calling to hear the story and welcome us to the family. I have never felt more love in my life. It was amazing!”

While giving evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh early in 2020, Scott said of discovering he had family,

“It blew it off the face of the earth. I do live. I do exist. I do have family. I thought I was all alone. It was a real big shock.

“I’d say it was like being broke all your life and then you buy a lottery ticket and it’s a $50m lottery ticket,” said Scott.

The untold family tragedy behind Scott's childhood

Although there are still many unknowns surrounding how Scott ended up separated from his family, Brian’s efforts uncovered some important details.

Judith said, “One of the many tragedies of this story is that Scott’s father, Andrew Paxton Scott was killed in a motorcycle accident and looking at the dates, he probably didn’t know about Jessie’s pregnancy.”

“The stigma attached to an illegitimate child in the 1930s explains why the family took Jessie to Glasgow to have the baby. Baby Scott then lived with Granny Smith.”

“I tried to find reasons for Scott being put into care. I think it was hard for Granny Smith to be left with a small child,” said Judith. “Her family was very dependent on her and she had to step in as a helper a great deal.

“I also found out that the adoption agencies at that time were dishonest with the families. Granny Smith and Aileen – Scott’s half-sister – tried repeatedly to make contact with Scott, but their letters were not passed on,” she said.

Scott finally comes home

The child abuse inquiry heard that Scott’s granny wrote asking how he was doing in Canada, but Scott was not told about this and he never received her letters.

Taking part in the public inquiry into the abuse of children in care gave Brian and Scott the opportunity to return to Scotland in February 2020.

“I heard from Brian that he and Scott were coming to Scotland to give evidence,” said Judith. “We immediately made plans for a family reunion.”

The moving event took place in Dumbarton and included many cousins from Scott’s mother’s family and descendants of his father.

Unfortunately, Scott’s siblings live in Australia and America so could not attend. With a kilted piper to greet them, Brian and Scott made their entrance in style.

As the cousins hugged, drank tea and whisky, and got to know one another, the sadness of a lifetime feeling alone began to lift from Scott.

“I thought I was alone,” he said. “I was just me. Now, I have family and it’s wonderful.”

In a room of smiling faces, ready to greet and get to know him, Scott was rather quiet and let Brian do most of the talking, he said, “It’ll take a while to settle. I’m beginning to come down from it all.”

But, when asked if he was looking forward to going home the next day, he said, “No, I want to stay here.”

The Scottish family reunion 83 years in the making

Brian said, “I’ve never felt more connected to a place than I do in Scotland. My soul feels at home in Scotland. I cannot wait to come back and bring my family.”

Judith simply beamed throughout the reunion, she said, “I never dreamed I would meet the little boy from my father’s story and I am only sorry that he was not there to meet Scott once more."

That reunion in Dumbarton took place in February 2020, just weeks before lockdown made such gatherings impossible.

Scott died in 2023, but he did so knowing something he had been denied for most of his life: he had family, he was loved, and Scotland had not forgotten him.

📸 Ailsa Kerr, Brian Hewitt, Shutterstock