Motherhood Quote by Bill Forsyth

Homesickness gets a little sharper when it stops being a place and starts being a person. Bill Forsyth’s line lands because it flips the usual nostalgia script: “Glasgow” isn’t evoked through streets, smells, or childhood landmarks, but through a single remaining human tether - his mother. The city is reduced to one living node in his personal network. That’s not sentimentality; it’s a quiet accounting of what time does to communities and families, especially for artists whose careers require leaving.

The phrasing “At the moment” does heavy lifting. It frames belonging as provisional, subject to the next phone call, the next move, the next loss. Glasgow is “certainly my home,” yet the certainty is almost defensive, like he’s arguing with circumstances. Forsyth is acknowledging the paradox many migrants and creatives live with: you can carry a hometown as identity even when your life no longer intersects with it socially. Home becomes a claim you make, not a life you inhabit.

There’s also an implicit class and cultural backdrop. Glasgow isn’t just any city; it’s a place with strong local loyalties, a distinct voice, and a history of people leaving for work or opportunity. In that context, “only one left” reads as more than family dispersion - it’s the thinning out of a whole chapter. Forsyth, whose films often find humor and tenderness in ordinary Scottish life, is pointing to the melancholy behind the comedy: the map stays the same, but your reasons for returning shrink to a single front door.