Hear, Land o Cakes, and brither Scots
Frae Maidenkirk tae Johnie Groat’s,
If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I rede ye tent it;
A chield’s amang ye takin’ notes,
And faith he’ll prent it…
(On the Late Captain Grose’s
Peregrinations thro Scotland)
This is not the first collection of Immortal Memories, but it is certainly the most comprehensive, in that it covers the 200 years from the very first Burns Supper in Alloway in 1801 to the Millennium Burns Suppers of 2001. Full recourse has been made to the only other collections of speeches available at the time of writing – The Chronicle of the Hundredth Birthday of Robert Burns edited by James Ballantyne in 1859, Printed Orations, Immortal Memories and other Burns Speeches from around the World (undated) edited by Edward Atkinson, Brief Addresses commemorating the genius of Scotland’s Illustrious Bard of 1899, editor John D Ross, There Was a Lad, a collection published by the Burns Club of St Louis, Missouri, USA in 1965. and the Chronicle of the 200th Commemoration of the Death of Robert Burns compiled by Dr Jim Connor of London, Ontario.
The purpose of this present book has been to gather into one volume the best speeches from these volumes as well as those gathered from modern Burns writing and from my own researches to date so as to offer a wide and updated view of Burns to the contemporary reader.
The ‘Immortal Memory’ is the chief toast and centrepiece of the traditional Burns Supper and is offered all over the world to the memory of the poet and songsmith, Robert Burns. To be asked to deliver this oration in honour of Scotland’s National Bard is recognised as a privilege in itself. It is not, therefore, a project that can be taken lightly, but, despite this, the speaker should not be overwhelmed by its solemnity. If it concerns Burns at all, it should have an element of fun. It is, after all, a joyful social occasion – or should be. Its central theme is not that Robert Burns has been dead for 200 years but that he lives on yet in his poetry and song.
It is inevitable in such a compilation that no matter the ingenuity of selection of theme or the variety of individual attitude shown in all these different speeches there is unavoidable repetition and duplication. This has been adjusted as far as possible but the essential quality of what has been said is allowed to speak for itself. The contributor’s views are their own and if, in some cases, their facts vary from accepted Burns scholarship, I am sure it is unwittting and does little harm to the case they offer. The calibre of material generally is high and if it is variable it is this that gives the volume
its diversity.
These voices deserve to be heard, for they give a broad, informed, illuminating, and, above all, heartfelt view of the poet via the spoken word. Some of the speakers are poets themselves, not so much that they speak in verse, but that they do so with a simplicity born of directness and sincerity. In this area, some written pieces are inserted because they add to the general tone of the chapter in which they appear and offset the speeches selected. I have tried, as far as possible, to obtain permission for all printed extracts used, but where this has been omitted, I should be glad to hear from the source or sources involved so that I might make proper acknowledgement in any future edition.
Accounts of the 1844 Burns Festival in Ayr and the subsequent festivals there from 1975 have been included as well as a chronological account of the development of the Burns Clubs and the Burns Federation based on the official history by Dr James Mackay. Regular annual events like the West Sound Burns Suppers in Glasgow and the Burns Federation’s annual conferences also yield valuable material but it is the contribution of ordinary Burnsians from all over the world that makes this particular publication of interest to the general reader. In telling their story of Burns they are telling their own story, singing their own song. They make a unique choir of voices in a tribute to the written word through the spoken word and the results are now recorded here for all to study, compare, and, hopefully, enjoy.
This book is not a wholly original work. As editor, I have felt free to comment and to develop the theme historically so that it provides, as a corollary, a parallel history of the Burns Movement in the broadest sense. It is intended first as a compilation, an anthology, a storehouse of different Burns fruits as gathered by many different kind labourers in the field. It has been my job to get this rich harvest into the one barn, as it were.
I trust that the resulting volume will have the comprehensiveness and quality its subject deserves. Robert Burns can take our scrutiny, and anyway, he is big enough to survive whatever anybody says
of him.
John Cairney
Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand
November 2002