Anas Sarwar reveals the life-changing 'act of kindness' by a stranger in Lossiemouth
EXCLUSIVE: The Scottish Labour leader says he would not have been born in Scotland were it not for a woman helping his grandfather in the 1940s.
Anas Sarwar has said a random “act of kindness” by a stranger in Lossiemouth was key to him rising to the top of Scottish politics.
He said his family would not have settled in Scotland unless a woman had given his grandfather shelter in the Moray town over eighty years ago.
Sarwar has led Scottish Labour since 2021 and is in a two-way fight with John Swinney to be First Minister after the Holyrood election.
The MSP is Glasgow born and bred, but he told the Record Lossiemouth is the place that shaped his family.
He said his Muslim grandad Ghulam Mohammed arrived in England in the 1940s by boat from Pakistan with the aim of earning money and returning to his homeland.
He travelled to Lossiemouth - where Labour’s first prime minister Ramsay MacDonald was born - with the intention of working temporarily as a door-to-door salesman.
Sarwar said of Ghulam: “One act of kindness defined my entire family’s story in Scotland.”
“There was a lady one night who looked out of her window. It was outside on the bridge and pouring rain. She saw this young Asian man carrying a briefcase of clothes.
“She said to her daughter 'it’s a shame that man is all alone in the rain, we should tell him to come up and let him stay over for the night’. They let him, he stayed there and fell in love with Lossiemouth and fell in love with Scotland.
“She kept him and treated him as one of her own sons. He called her mum and many years on her great grandchildren called him grandad.”
Sarwar said his grandfather then brought his family to Scotland, including the MSP’s mum Perveen, to live permanently: “They made Lossiemouth home.
“My parents actually got married in a Christian service, done by a local minister, Reverend Watt, as well as the Islamic Nikah wedding.”
Sarwar said it was “100%” fair to say he would not have been born in Scotland without the woman helping his grandfather out of the rain.
The MSP opened up to the Record during one of his regular family holidays to Lossie:
“This is where Scotland became home. This is where they brought their family back to Scotland. This is where they set up and started to make a living for themselves.”
“I love Lossie. It’s the most beautiful part of Scotland. I’ve still got family here. I’ve got uncles, aunties, cousins here. My best friend is here. I was best man at his wedding.”
Sarwar’s late grandfather went from door-to-door salesman to running his own shop and locals regularly stop the MSP to speak about Ghulam:
“Every single person I have spoken to today has known my grandad and spoken about Ghulam, talked about what he used to do and talked about where his shop was.”
“He would probably have been the first Asian person they had ever seen in their lives and they embraced him. He became one of them.
“He was a fellow Scot, a fellow boy from Lossie.”
Sarwar said small towns like Lossiemouth face depopulation issues, adding that six of eight cousins moved away from the area:
“The challenges facing communities like Lossiemouth are not that different from many communities across Scotland, where so often the opportunities for young people are elsewhere, or at least they feel they are elsewhere. Many people leave and never come back.
“We need to create good jobs here. We’ve got to create better public services here. We’ve got to get better local training and skills development here, so people can make a life for themselves, bring up families and retire here.”
At a time of rising tension over immigration, Sarwar said he is instinctively sympathetic to people who come to Scotland legally, play by the rules and contribute to their communities.
“My family’s story is the story of Scotland - of opportunity, belonging, fairness, hard work, love of place, country, people.
“That’s what drives Scotland and that’s what drove my family.”
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