Aboriginal singer Archie Roach goes to Scotland to fulfill promise he made to his dying father

ABORIGINAL singer songwriter Archie Roach will next week honour a boyhood promise to his dying father and trace his “clan” in Scotland.

ACCLAIMED Aboriginal singer songwriter Archie Roach will next week honour a boyhood promise to his dying father and trace his Scottish “clan” on his first visit to Scotland. CHARCOAL LANE

The 60-year-old entertainer was taken from his family when he was a three-year-old baby and after staying in orphanages, he was adopted by a foster family with Scottish links.

It has taken him 40 years but now he will visit the birth country of his adopted father he lovingly calls ‘Dad Cox’ to fulfil a promise he made when a teenager.

“It will be great, I always wanted to go there because the man who brought me up was a Scotsman,” Roach told News Corp Australia as he prepared for the trip.

Archie Roach at the Inter-Celtic Festival in Lorient, France. Picture: Alastair Miller

“I was taken away as a kid, part of the Stolen Generation, but I ended up with this beautiful family and my foster dad was a Scot and I promised the old fella ‘I would love to go to Scotland sometime’. He would have liked to have taken me but unfortunately he didn’t have the time and then passed away.

“He died a few years back, he got sick with dementia, Alzheimer’s, and we use to go see him and I’d talk to him and the one thing that made him smile and his eyes light up was when I would say ‘I don’t know how’ — this was before I was a professional musician — ‘but I’m going to get to Scotland dad, I’m going to get there one way or another’.

“I don’t know if I meant it or how I was going to do that but thankfully music has been a good ticket. I’m now going to make it there. It’s funny after all these years you know, as a teenager I promised him and now I can do it.”

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Archie Roach, now 60, is to search for the family of his adopted father in Scotland. Picture: Alastair Miller

Roach has been awarded five ARIA Music Awards and been nominated for another nine and last year was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to music and social justice.

William Hutton, friend and lead singer with Celtic band Claymore, will take Roach to Glasgow — where Dad Cox was from — and the Highlands to see if they can find direct members of the Cox clan.

“We’ll see if we can find the Cox clan, ask about, I’m really looking forward to it,” Roach said. He added jokingly he didn’t know if he would go as far as wearing a kilt but knew well the family tartan.

Despite recent poor health, Roach said he did have scheduled gigs in France, Ireland and Monaco and would perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has a new album Let Love Rule released next month.

He says he constantly surprises himself.

“To tell you the truth I really don’t know what else I’d be doing,” he said. “It’s so much about who I am now and I will do it for as long as I can.”

Archie's new single It's Not Too Late filmed on his mothers country, the lands of the Gunditjmara peoples in... https://t.co/XLHyTFZRJX

— Archie Roach (@archieroach) August 9, 2016

CHARCOAL LANE RE-RECORDED ON 25TH ANNIVERSARY

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Originally published as Aboriginal singer Archie Roach goes to Scotland to fulfill promise he made to his dying father