Donald Trump, who presented a trade agreement with Great Britain on Thursday, is proud of his roots on the wind -whipped Scottish island on which his mother grew up, but his residents are less enthusiastic about her famous son.
In contrast to the shine and glamor of the Trump brand, his parent company on the Isle of Lewis, Northwest Scotland, is pretty modest.
The house, about 200 meters (220 meters) from the sea, is built from light gray plaster with a slate roof according to the strict and rough landscape of Lewis, which is shaped by the Atlantic winches.
Mary Anne Macleod, Donald Trump’s mother, was born on the island in 1912 and lived in the small village of Tong until the age of 18.
Her son visited briefly in 2008 to take a photo and meet some cousins, but it is difficult to imagine that a place is more than its luxurious residence in Mar-A-Lago in Florida or Trump Tower in New York.
Trump may appeal to his Scottish roots less often when his predecessor Joe Biden mentioned his Irish background, but he always speaks warmly about the land of his beloved mother and the United Kingdom in general.
He has two golf courses in Scotland and is expected to open a third soon.
In 2018, Theresa May, then Great Britain’s Prime Minister, gave the family tree of his Scottish ancestors.
“It is great to be at home, this was my mother’s home,” he proclaimed a visit to his golf courses in 2023 during the landing in Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland.
But on Lewis, where the locals are generally inviting and talkative, it is sufficient that Donald Trump’s name is sufficient to force a curtain of silence: it seems that nobody wants to talk about him.
‘Shame on you’
“Did you see the banner? The majority of people think about him, but they don’t want to talk about something controversial,” said a resident of Tong who refused to name their name.
The banner hangs in front of a shop in the port of Stornoway, the largest city on the island, and reads in bold black letters: “Shame about you, Donald John! #Democracy”.
The owner of the business, Sarah Venus, who was born in the United States, later moved to Lewis, said that she received “overwhelming support” from locals and US tourists.
There is no need to add Trump’s name to the banner, she explained exactly how passers -by know who is being attacked, although Donald John is a very common handle on the island that has less than 20,000 inhabitants.
The girl’s name of his mother, Macleod, is also the most common surname for Lewis.
Venus criticized the president for his anti-immigration policy, although “his mother was a migrant”.
To learn more about Mary Anne Macleod, you have to meet Bill Lawson. Due to his careful work, he is a little celebrity on the island for decades, which compiled the family trees of the residents.
Macleod had several brothers and sisters, “probably eight,” said 87-year-old Lawson and added that she was one of the oldest siblings.
Her father – Donald Trump’s grandfather – was a fisherman and farmer.
“At that time they live from what was available, so they get a small amount of the country itself. If the weather was suitable, if they had a decent boat, they have fished,” said Lawson.
In the early 1920s, however, there was a massive emigration from Lewis, since its resources could no longer maintain its growing population.
“It was big enough that the shipping lines sent ships to Stornoway. They all came in Stornoway and filled with emigrants,” said the amateur genealogist mainly to Canada and in the eastern United States.
Mary Anne Macleod left the port of Stornoway in 1930 to join her sister in New York.
There she met the real estate developer Fred Trump, whom she married in 1936 and brought her up the social manager.
The residents of Lewis talk about Mary Anne Macleod rather than her son and said that she had regularly returned to the island until her death in 2000.
One of her daughters, a sister of the President, “was also a lot here. They did a lot of good work.”
However, Donald Trump is “a stranger here,” he added.
This story was originally on Fortune.com