r/Glasgow Tools

I have a memory from around where this was taken.

Many years ago when I barely a teenager an Uncle of mine whom I’d never met passed away.

He had moved to New Zealand before I was born and one of his dying wishes was to have his ashes spread in the Clyde.

His remains were shipped halfway across the world to his homeland and a gathering was arranged to enact the ceremony.

Three generations of my very dysfunctional family lined up on the banks of the river along a railing on a dark and moody night. The glow of sodium street lamps illuminated the group of a dozen or so people none of whom really wanted to be there.

A few words were spoken, my 4 foot nothing Grandmother tipped the container over and cast my Uncle into the brooding water below.

I mentioned it was moody right? It was windy as well. At that moment a gust of wind blew up the river...along the line of people. The remnants of the relation I never knew swirled around us, filling nostrils, settling on clothes, invading mouths like a sandstorm in the Sahara.

My poor tiny Granny (an old battleaxe of a woman we were equally scared and fond of) bore the brunt of it. She looked like an extra from The Mikado, covered from head to toe in the powdery vestiges of her eldest son.

The dusty ensemble stood there in silent horror for what seemed like an age. Old Madge, the perpetrator of the atrocity, was the first to crack. She burst out laughing and before long the whole group were in tears, covered in some old guy’s ashes. Good times.

Disclaimer: True story with a only little embellishment.