Today's Archive Hour story takes us back 10 years to a poignant ceremony on Helensburgh's seafront.

Here's how we reported on the scattering of Nan Wood's ashes on the Burgh shoreline on September 11, 2008...

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WHEN Nan Wood died alone in Canada, all she asked was that her ashes be scattered in her childhood home in Helensburgh.

And this week Nan — Agnes Jeffrey McRae Wood — was brought home by her solicitor Joe Martin.

With the help of the Rev Adam Plenderleith of Helensburgh Baptist Church, her ashes were scattered on the shore near the Henry Bell monument.

Joe and his wife Linda stopped off in Scotland on their way to see their student daughter in Poland.

The couple arrived at the County Hotel, where staff put them in touch with Mr Plenderleith, of Helensburgh Baptist Church, who agreed to help scatter her ashes.

Joe said: “Nan was a client of mine and she became a friend.

“When she died in 2003 she had absolutely no remaining family and left her estate to charity — but asked in her will that her ashes be scattered in Helensburgh.

“She had no brothers and sisters and no children. She came to Canada as a young woman and did not marry until later in life.”

And although her late husband was also from Helensburgh, the couple did not meet until they were both making new lives in Canada.

Nan’s husband David Wood, was born in 1902 in Helensburgh and died aged 86 in 1989.

Nan, born in 1917, moved to Ottawa in 1949 and worked as a civil servant.

Joe added: “She talked about Helensburgh a lot and seems to have been very happy here.

“She obviously had very fond memories of the town and although she made a new life in Canada her heart was in Helensburgh.”

Among Nan’s most prized possessions was an old photograph of the town which had formed part of a Christmas card.

Joe and Linda brought the treasured image back with them and gifted it to Helensburgh Heritage Trust.

Mr Plenderleith and Baptist Church member Brian Titchner joined the Martins on the beach at the Henry Bell Monument — which features in Nan’s old photo — to scatter her ashes.

And so, 59 years after leaving the town she loved, Nan Wood finally came home.