Airdrie welcomed a special visitor making a long-awaited trip of a lifetime – a transatlantic tourist who is the sixth generation of her family to be called after the Lanarkshire town.
Canadian woman Airdrie Thompson Guppy, nee Bell, is named after the town where her great-great-great-grandfather Reverend William Bell was born and from which he emigrated to Ontario more than 200 years ago.
She enjoyed a whistlestop tour of the town during her first-ever visit to Scotland, calling it “bustling and interesting” and praising its “very pleasant and helpful” people who were interested to hear her unique story.
Airdrie was born and raised in Montreal and now lives in Toronto, and her family has long retained an association with their ancestor’s Scottish home town.
The 83-year-old said: “In our line of the family, if the first born is a girl, she is named Airdrie; and if the first born is a boy, he is named Graham Airdrie.
“A lot of people had difficulty pronouncing my name – Aidre, Dedree, Adrian! It was crazy, but as I got older I was quick to correct people and through the years I did a lot of media with my work and people caught on.”
She enjoyed spotting as many signs as possible bearing her name around the town centre and at locations including its leisure centre, football stadium and even from the motorway.
Airdrie visited Sir John Wilson town hall, and told Lanarkshire Live how she “just loved the houses” including bungalows and sandstone properties around the town centre.
Her trip also included a special visit to the former Wellwynd church building – now converted into the One Wellwynd enterprise centre – which was the last in Airdrie to have been served as a minister by Rev Bell before his move to Canada.
Airdrie said: “I didn’t know anything about the town except I was determined to visit while in Scotland this year, and I was just so excited to be there.
“We drove all around and the people I met were very pleasant; the waitress at lunch was very chatty so I told her my name and why I was there, and when I was leaving a man jumped up and opened the door for me.
“I only had one day in Airdrie but I would like to return and stay for a few days; I don’t know if it is possible but I would like to meet some Bells who were related to Rev William.”
She told how the Presbyterian minister, born in 1780 and who moved to the Ontario town of Perth in 1817, was “revered” among his Canadian descendants.
His life story is recorded in diaries and books, and he is honoured with an Ontario Heritage Trust provincial plaque in his adopted home town which calls him “one of the most influential Presbyterian clergymen in Upper Canada” and describes his “indefatigable energy and missionary zeal”.
Airdrie’s eldest uncle and cousin are both named Graham Airdrie in line with the family tradition; while as the eldest of four siblings, she was named after the town – and although she is “the last of the Airdrie Bells” on the family tree, both her granddaughter and goddaughter have Airdrie as their middle names.
Now retired from her careers as a social worker and therapist, Airdrie also presents the Airdrie Thompson Guppy award of excellence, given annually at a ceremony in capital city Ottawa to recognise a staff member at the hospital department which she founded.
She set up the social work service at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario when it was built in 1974, spending more than a decade there; and the excellence award to honour the work of current staff is now permanently named in her honour.
Airdrie has also visited her Canadian namesake town, more than 2000 miles west in the province of Alberta, and said: “Initially it was a very small place but then it grew into a significant bedroom community for Calgary. Lots of people ask if I am named after that town!”
She added of her long-awaited trip to her ancestor’s birthplace: “I was so excited to be there; I wasn’t in Airdrie for very long but I hope to return next year and would certainly plan to spend more time there.”
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