The books that have influenced me are –
Coleridge and Keats in my youth
and Burns as I grew older and wiser.
(John Ruskin)
When I lived in New Zealand some years ago, one wall of our dining room/library in Auckland was devoted to various items of Burnsiana collected during my playing days as Burns, which were almost as long as he had lived – 37 years. One item is a framed certificate from the British Tourist Authority commending Shanter Productions (which was my company) for promoting a Burns Festival in Ayr during 1976. It amounts to about all I have to show for almost a decade of work on the project but it does bring back a lot of very mortal memories – good and bad – and we will come to them in due course. Since I first began with the solo Burns in 1965 with There Was A Man and later in 1967 with The Robert Burns Story it was often remarked how alike the poet I was in the costume. This was borne out when I played at Dumfries Theatre Royal in 1969 and the local paper ran a cartoon showing the Amelia Hill statue standing on its plinth in the centre of a roundabout in the north end of the High Street, with my head superimposed on its stone body a ‘Sold Out’ sign round its neck.
One of the local journalists responsible for the good business at the Theatre Royal was Frank Ryan. In 1971, Frank was asked to propose the Immortal Memory for the Dumfries branch of the Scottish National Party. His verse-address centred on this very statue and what it might have been thinking as it sat there since 1882. Frank imagined it had come alive. This is a short excerpt from his impish piece.
When Hogmanay at last is past
And Janwar’ winds are at fu’ blast
When winter sales are a’ the rage
And posties fight to up their wage
Oor minds to ain great topic turns-
The life and works o’ Rabbie Burns.
In spite o’ wildcat strikes an’ freezes
In spite o’ blasts and bombs and bleezes
In spite o’ hijacks, lunar shots
In spite o’ they damned decimal dots…
In pubs and halls throughoot the land
Guid Scots are gather’d – some half-canned
Tae praise Burns’ name in verse and sang
And honour him wi’ speeches lang.
Yin speaker claims Rab was a Tory
An’ proves his point wi’ true blue story
Another says he’ll eat his hat
If Burns was oucht but pure Scot Nat.
Some other swear the bard was red
As ony blood that Wallace shed
Nae matter speakin’ guid or ill
They’ll hae him fitting ony bill.
He’s Jacobine and Jacobite
Charlatan and shining knight
Parochial poet, Parnassian Bard,
Reactionary an’ avant-garde,
The Exciseman who loved the cratur,
Family man an’ fornicator…
Like Tam o’Shanter in the tale
I’d had my fill o’ potent ale
And as I staggered frae the howff
My brain reeled like a gormless gowff.
(Nowadays I’m worldly wiser
Thinks: thanks tae yon damned breathyliser!)
As doon the narrow close I rolled
I saw a sicht that turned me cold;
Like organ stops my e’en stood oot
My heartbeat raced, my feet took root.
‘There was a Man? – or was it so?
Surrounded by a ghaistly glow,
Nae normal bod o’ human mould
But yin frae yon immortal fold,
Wi’ guid frock coat and fancy breeks
Wi’ curly locks and hair-borne cheeks,
Wi’ ruffled shirt an’ buckled shoon
He micht hae been a hippy loon.
But yet his features rang a bell,
I felt I’d seen him whiles mysel’
But tae spier ootricht, I kent I darenae
I wondered: is it that man Cairney?
Frank goes on to have his verse-dialogue with the ghost of Burns and has the latter make the amusing point that if he ever came back to earth again the last place he would be seen would be at a Burns Supper.
Of course there are Burns Suppers and Burns Suppers. Gordon Ross tells of giving the Immortal Memory to an expedition 18,000 feet up at the Mount Everest Base Camp. He said they all got high that night. Gordon also tells about the Burmese gentleman, John Htet-Kin, who gave the Immortal Memory at the Cameron House Hotel in Burmese – with simultaneous translation from Mrs Htet-Kin, but it turned out that John had married a Scottish girl in Edinburgh nearly 40 years before, and was able to continue in perfect Scots once he had the audience convinced they were hearing Burns in Burmese. Memories are made of incidents like this, but the oddest, and perhaps the saddest Immortal Memory was that given from a tape recorder in Spain. Jimmy Logan, the late Scottish actor/comedian and lovely man, and the one, incidentally, who started me off as Burns in performance, told the story in his autobiography, It’s A Funny Life (1998). It concerned Bill Simpson, the Ayrshire actor who won fame as Dr Finlay, but who always harboured a secret wish, so he told me, to play Robert Burns on film. Sadly, Bill was to die in 1986 aged only 56. Jimmy says of him: ‘I always called him Poor Bill...’
He was drinking more than he should have been, and, ignoring his doctor’s advice, he went back to Spain, where he had previously owned a house and still had a lot of friends. Unfortunately the drink took its toll and Bill ended up in hospital. He had planned to do the Immortal Memory at a Burns Supper with his friends in Spain, but he was suddenly called back to London. Bill recorded the Immortal Memory on cassette before leaving. He died shortly afterwards, and never saw those friends in Spain again. Bill’s recording was spoiled by a hum on the tape, and the quality was terrible. But listening to that recording made me realise what a beautiful, toned voice Bill Simpson had. He was brought up in the same part of Ayrshire as Burns, and spoke about the bard with great authority. He was a kind of Scottish Richard Burton. On the day of his funeral all his friends in Spain put their dining tables out in the sun, filled them with food and wine, and had the kind of party Bill would have enjoyed. After his funeral in Ayr we went back to Bill’s favourite hotel and drank a toast to his memory with his family. At the bar there was a chair known as Bill’s Chair. And in that hotel Bill was always remembered by those who knew him. At the next Burns Supper Bill’s friends played his Immortal Memory, even though the quality was poor. And they have done the same every year since in his memory…
It’s that kind of extraordinary action by ordinary people that underlines Dr Lindsay’s point about Burns’s being a ‘People Poet’.
This is evident to me in the hundreds of unsolicited poems I have received over the time I have been involved with Burns as a part to play. Some of the effusions are remarkably good and some are downright awful. Most are in-between but they are all sincere and it says much for Burns’s innate sincerity that he can prompt people who are not writers or critics or academics into putting their thoughts about him on to paper. These kind of ‘performances’, as Burns would call them, never ever pretended to be great verse, but they said what they wanted to say and said it simply and directly.
Then of course, there is the other side of the coin. These writers would pay back Burns in another way. Their verses were often bitter but there is no denying their passionate sincerity. Why is it though that this sort of thing is always sent anonymously? The following piece came to me in four handwritten pages of white, ruled paper, with each verse neatly numbered from 1 to 17. The title was underlined The Immoral Memory and beneath it, the heading:
A poem written on Burn’s Night, 1966 and addressed to Robert Burns.
1 They congregate to worship you
They come to supper on this night,
Disciples (self-appointed) who,
In your name, preach of right.
2 They sing your songs, proclaim your verse,
Their eyes grown dim and misty
They quote as if they said it first
And sing duets with whisky.
3 They dine on haggis, broth and neeps
And call themselves right lucky,
For they hae meat and they can eat,
(they wish that it were turkey).
4 ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ brings tears to eyes
‘Of a’ the Airts’ a smile
These men who hide from wintry skies
And rarely walk a mile.
5 They weep because your ‘Angel’ died
That sweet, that favourite daughter,
Forgetting others died today
For want of food and water.
6 They’ve lost the man who lived and died
The man you were whilst living
The man who raged, despaired and cried
And begged to be forgiven
7 Good and bad, and weak and strong
A human man like I am
No silhouette against the sky
A Hector or a Priam.
8 A man who knew that life was short
Who lived the life of ten
As if each day would be your last
You shame us. Are we then
9 To die of creeping common sense
Who dip our toes in living
Whilst you were totally immersed
In taking and in giving
10 You felt more grief upon the death
Of one red-tipped flower
Than they felt when a baby died
Who’d lived for one brief hour.
11 They found him in a plastic bag
Motherless, lifeless flesh
A broken egg, spilled and cold
Dropped from a careless nest.
12 That baby died within their walls
They feel but little sorrow
They call it ‘shame’ they shake their heads
And laugh again tomorrow
13 You felt great pain. Your soul was marred
Scars marked your war with life
But life defeated even you
You wearied of its strife
14 But oh! You fought with splendid strength
You did not hide like most.
A living memory you left
But they worship now a ghost
15 And so tonight they fool themselves
That you would call them ‘brother’
And puppet-like your words they quote
Then congratulate each other.
16 I know what you would want from them
Not praise or speeches pretty
But love for lonely, loveless men
And grief, and joy, and pity
17 This makes me speak to you in shame
I spurn a crown of laurel
Apologies are what I bring
For a mem’ry made immoral.
Voltaire is reputed to have said – ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ He also said – ‘The secret of being boring is to say everything.’ So we shall say no more at this point, and bear in mind what Robert himself said in his Epistle to Davie:
Then let us cheerfu’ acquiesce
Nor make our scanty pleasure less,
By pining at our state.
1975 was designated as the Year of Architecture in Europe and Charles Rennie Mackintosh was beginning to be talked about seriously in Scotland. I was playing Cyrano de Bergerac in the theatre at Newcastle at the time, and one night a well-known Scottish businessman, R.W. Adams OBE, called backstage after the performance to ask if I were interested in developing a script on the famous Scottish architect but at that time my head was just full of an idea I had for a summer festival of Burns to be held at Ayr. I had discussed this idea with my manager and accompanist, Colin Harvey Wright as we travelled around the world with my solo shows on Burns and McGonagall and when I got home I tried to interest various likely bodies like the Arts Council, the Scottish Tourist Board, Strathclyde Regional Council and the Kyle and Carrick District Council in a summer Burns event but the unanimous reaction was that it was a wild idea, and anyway, in the good old Scottish phrase, ‘there was no call for it’. Well, I was calling for it – and loudly, but to no avail. Deaf ears all round. The scheme might have been described as ‘Hot Ayr’ so derisive were the comments I provoked. Even my friends in the press were apathetic to its likely interest. Yet to me the idea of bringing Burns out of the snows of January and into the sun of July was irresistible.
The nine days between the date of his death, 21 July and the date of his first printing, 31 July were an ideal bracket on which to hang a garland of different Burns activities centred around Ayr and the various Burns places. No speeches, no haggis, no immortal memories this time, but the spoken word or sung note in performance as in plays, musicals, solos, recitals, talks, symposia – anything that could entertain and edify an audience about Burns away from the unyielding, and often unsightly cement of the traditional winter Supper. And in the open air too. After all, it was the same air that Burns himself once breathed, in the fields, by the river and under the blackthorn tree. The whole concept had a fresh, bucolic feel and I could almost smell the red, red roses. Alas, I could convince no one. So the three of us decided to do it on our own – myself, Colin and his accordion. We had gone round the world with Burns, surely we could go round a few small venues in Ayrshire? So Colin made all the arrangements and organised some dates for The Robert Burns Story.
We opened at the Town Hall, Maybole with its fabulous acoustics. Cumnock Town Hall wasn’t in the same class as a venue but it was given at no charge on condition we take a whole front row of Chinese from Chicago. They never moved a muscle throughout the whole performance but I gathered later that they enjoyed Colin’s accordian. At Kilmarnock we were there on 31 July, the very day of the Kilmarnock Edition. We gave the show in the Grand Hall of the Palace Theatre with the audience seated around at tables. I enjoyed playing in the round but the ladies of Killie stole the show with their exquisite singing of Ye Banks and Braes.
We finished up with performances at Dalbeattie and Dumfries, back at my favourite Theatre Royal. Next day, I joined Provost Robertson at the Brow Well for an open-air service and I took the opportunity to reflect on the ten days that had just passed. As I have said before, these solo performances as Burns were my nightly Immortal Memory. Each evening was a toast in celebration of his life and work and I make no apologies for my career-long association with him. If I gave my audiences a memory they certainly gave me back as many in return. This exchange is exactly what live theatre is about. It’s a sharing, not an imposing by any side. However, these aesthetic considerations aside, Shanter Productions, which was my trading name, lost money in the prototype nine days, so maybe the men in the suits were right after all.
Notwithstanding the cash facts, it had been a worthwhile artistic investment and audience reaction and numbers – especially among tourists – had been enough to provide me with enough field information to approach the authorities once again. So, more in a spirit of altruism than commercial acumen, I knocked on all the doors again. To my surprise two of them opened – the Scottish Tourist Board and Kyle and Carrick District Council. This time I traded under Theatre Consultants (Scotland), which was my Sunday name for Shanter Productions, so that my position could be seen as consultative as well as executive. The idea was accepted and dates were scheduled for the first official Burns Festival in the summer of 1976. The gamble of the year before had paid off and everyone looked forward to a bright summer. I could now get down to some serious Burns planning and take up Mr Adams’ offer to ‘do something about Mackintosh’ over the winter. Quite honestly I welcomed the break from Burns.
Not so the great majority of Burnsians. The haggis season of ’76 was on them and Immortal Memories were being brushed up. Or being created from scratch. In the latter category was Glasgow solicitor, Ian McCarry. In 1990, he wrote a little booklet about his initial Burns experience, and had it published by Ardlui Press. The following is taken from it. By the way, the line drawings illustrations in the booklet by his cousin, Thomas Docherty, are quite superb, but this is Ian’s story of his first Immortal Memory.
He admits to always having been ‘a great admirer of Robert Burns. To me, he is a great poet and a great Scot.’ However, he didn’t ask to do the Immortal Memory at the inaugural Burns Supper of the Arlington Baths. It seems that his name was put forward by someone at Glasgow University. In 1975, he had recently started his own business, so was quite busy. Anyway, on the night before the Supper, he was in bed in his ‘wee flat in Maryhill’ when he had the idea of doing the Immortal Memory in verse. He immediately got up and crept into the living room, ‘not even taking time to turn on the electric fire’, and started writing. He finished it about 5 o’clock the next day. Unfortunately, with all the hurry and all the amendments, he found it difficult to read , so his wife, Moira, then pregnant with their first child, wrote it all out neatly and Ian read it later that night. She hadn’t intended going to the Supper but after writing it all out she was curious to see how it would go. ‘We had a wonderful evening’, said Ian later. He also said that everybody else who was speaking was great, especially Lavinia Derwent, whose reply for the Lassies was excellent. He was diffident about his own contribution but he trusted his inspiration – ‘Burns won’t mind my little bit of poetic licence…’ Anyway, this is what Moira wrote out – or most of it at any rate…
…Poor Rabbie died aged thirty-seven
And went up to the door of heaven.
Auld Peter met him at the gate,
And fetched his scales tae test his fate,
‘Now Rab,’ he said, ‘These scales will tell,
If you are doomed tae go to Hell,
Or if these gates will open wide
And ye will take yer place inside.
On one pan we maun place the ill,
The sins committed by your will
Frae when ye learnt o’ richt an’ wrang,
Until yer final fatal pang.
There’s no much in yer early years,
Just wee trifles it appears…
Yer ither sins were as a man,
Of twa types only was their plan.
Ye’d fa’ for ony lassie’s wink,
An’ times ye’d tak na tent o’drink.
But in yer plea in mitigation,
In this our haly litigation,
It must be said that ev’ry lass
That thro’ yer span o’ life did pass,
Forgave ye aught that ye did do,
They fand what love meant frae you:
And as for drink and socialisin’
In Scotland that is scarce surprisin’
For any race upon the earth
That took sic things o’ little warth,
As water, barley, malt an’ yeast,
Distilled the mixture which released,
A magic liquid, gold and pure,
Becoming whisky when mature,
Should be forgiven, if a lad
Betimes mair than he needs has had.’
Then spake the De’il’s Advocate,
Wi’ face as grey an’ sharp as slate,
That while he on this earth was loose,
Defended murd’rers frae the noose
And shared wi’ robbers in their spoils,
Protecting them frae judges’ toils
For bags o’ gaud, an’ even worse,
Was pleased tae tak’ a widow’s purse,
An’ empty oot each last bawbee,
In payment of his fancy fee;
And a’ the while, wi’ eiks an’ feus
And dark conveyancin’s every ruse,
He made her sign a wily missive,
Wi’ stipulations sae permissive,
That when tae it she’d put her hand
She had lost a’ her deid man’s land.
Then bailies came wi’ Sheriff’s writ,
The wife an’ weans refused tae quit,
She was dragged screamin’ wi’ her loons
And marched away by red dragoons.
‘We wish to lay before this court
The De’il’s Indictment and Report,
That libels seven past convictions
For sirin’ weans without restrictions
Of yer ain haly marriage law;
And furthermore, a hunder twa
Offences of intoxication,
Including, that on one occasion
In seventeen hunder ninety three,
At Mistress Riddell’s house for tea,
The company was most refined,
And after eating, all designed
Tae take part in a Masque that night
About the Sabine Women’s plight.
At first the game was modest paced,
The gentlemen the ladies chased,
Until this Burns, who’d drunk too well
O’ wine and port, forgot himsel;
A lassie’s smile for stimulation,
Attempted complete simulation.
So Maister Riddell stopp’d the game,
And banned Burns frae his ancient hame.’
St Peter said, ‘There’s little doubt
That Robert Burns, wi’ girls about,
Or drinkin’ well in company,
Was apt tae stray tae some degree,
But now we’ll hear guid o’the man,
An place it in the other pan.
He loved his wife, his girls and boys
Nae mair love turtle dove enjoys.
Upon the ploo he brak his health,
Tae earn for them a little wealth.
Tho’ weakened by rheumatic fever,
He’d bend his back across the lever,
And o’er the field he’d guide the pair,
That swat before the hard ploo share.
At last he had to leave the ferm,
For truth, the land had done him herm,
An tak a job that few wad boast,
A Customs and Excise Man’s post.
He warked at this wi’ sic devotion,
That he had earned deserved promotion.
Before of this he had been told,
A wasting death had laid him cold.
But what a memory he left,
What wondrous lines, what sangs sae deft.
Around him there was pomp and poor,
But frae its might he didna cour…
Whate’er the rich be a’ at,
A man’s a man for a’ that.
An’ how he prized the haly faith
O’ Minister and Cottar baith,
An’ ranted at the self smug few,
That sat sae prood at their ain pew,
The Holy Willies, that wad drool
At ae puir lass on the kirk’s stool
O’ discipline, when they knew well,
They should be there instead themsel.
They think they’re saved; too soon, I fear,
Nae man is saved till he’s in here.
An’ how Burns loved his native land,
When a’ around him on each hand,
Were bowin’, beggin’, bendin’, basin’,
Before the English, for a place in
A Cabinet or Parliament,
A Royal box or regiment,
A colony or sinecure,
To lay the rod upon the poor,
And enter an Establishment,
That nae Scotsman e’er before had kent.
Rab didna write his sangs for treasure,
But used his auld Scots tongue wi pleasure,
Collecting sangs frae kintra folk,
An’ addin’ words and rhyme bespoke
So that a’ the warld now sings his sangs,
Thrills wi’ his loves, weeps wi his pangs,
Addresses haggis and wee beasties,
That start wi panic in their breasties.
Grim Russian Commissars declaim
About auld Tam O’Shanter’s fame,
Americans now raise their glass
Tae toast his summer’s red rose lass.
And simple folk the world o’er
Appreciate each year the more.
How he spak out tae mak’ men free
And that a’ men should brithers be.’
But lang before the saint had stopp’t
The scales o’fate had firmly dropp’t.
The pan o’ guid had sic a load,
The weights had even overflow’d.
An’ scattered loosely o’er the flair,
Was gaud wad saved a thoosand mair,
The gateman slowly turned his head,
But De’il an’ advocate had fled….
And if Burns reached his heaven in Ian McCarry’s charming verse-memory, then it could be said that I had reached mine with the first official Burns Festival in 1976. The Burns Chronicle reported on its progress and development from time to time with articles by its Editor, James A. Mackay, James Glass of the Burns Federation and Judith Sleigh, at that time a senior executive in the Scottish Tourist Board. A selection of their comments is given here.
The Robert Burns Festival is presented by Theatre Consultants (Scotland) Kyle and Carrick District Council, Kilmarnock and Louden District Council and the Scottish Tourist Board. Dumfries and Galloway declined to participate officially although some performances took place in their area. In its first established year (1976) that is, after John Cairney’s original ‘test run’ in 1975, the festival won an award from the British Tourist Authority in its ‘Come to Britain’ competition and now, with John Cairney as its inaugural Festival Director, it bids fair to become an important date in the calendar of events which Scotland offers in the summer season.
Most performances were centred around Rozelle House in Ayr and a charming little open-air Courtyard Theatre was created in the stable space before the McLaurin Gallery there. Mr Cairney’s company presented local artists in an original Burns musical, Bard written and directed by him, which played to full houses despite the midgies – an occupational hazard for any outdoor event. It was noticed that many of the audience were from abroad, particularly Canada and America. John Cairney, whose show The Robert Burns Story has been seen in many parts of the world, had obviously done well in his role of unofficial ambassador. Talks and readings with musical accompaniment were given in the room of Rozelle House and refreshments were available.
The following year saw the inauguration of the Land o’ Burns Centre which was officially opened by the singer, Moira Anderson, an Ayr girl herself, and speakers included Provost Paton of Ayr, Mr Hutchison Sneddon and Mr Robin Maclellan, Chairman of the Scottish Tourist Board – who said that the Interpretation Centre – ‘would add a new dimension to Scottish holidays and attract about a 100,000 visitors… it marked a new era in understanding Burns and telling the story of Scotland’s poet… it would also serve as a further link in the chain of Burns Heritage sites around the west country and a landmark in what will become the Burns Trail… it is also extremely handy for visitors just off the plane at Prestwick. It might encourage them to stay awhile… in addition, Scottish teachers and their pupils will benefit from having their knowledge of Burns clarified by the wonderful audio-visual presentation which brings the story of Burns to life.’
An episode from that life was featured in Joan Biggar’s play, A Bird’s Wing Beating which premiered at Ayr and played at the Harbour Arts Theatre, Irvine. It also featured a young actor named Gregor Fisher in his first professional role. To the north, Dean Castle in Kilmarnock drew capacity audiences for performances under the aegis of Jock Thomson and in Dumfries Jean Redpath, recently returned from the States, demonstrated her wide knowledge of Burns songs. Extra events included traditional dancing, pipe bands and brass bands, sheep dog trials and side-shows – in short, something for everyone in one happy summer spell.
A focal point in each Festival so far had been the symposium, with the aim being to promote discussion on Burns and his work; this was an event which was always of special interest to Burns enthusiasts who could also contribute to the discussion, and in 1977 the platform consisted of Maurice Lindsay, speaking on ‘Burns and Nationhood’, Jean Redpath on ‘Burns the Collector’, John Weir on ‘Burns the Mason’ and Jock Thomson on ‘The Merry Muses of Caledonia’. James Glass reported on this for the Burns Chronicle:
Maurice Lindsay’s main theme was the disappearance of the old Scotland into what was termed ‘North Britain’. He also acknowledged Burns’s debt to Alan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson for the revival of the Scottish language in the 18th-century. Both men were heroes to Burns and they encouraged him to reverse the trend away from Old Scots which was carried on in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. This work in turn was continued by Hugh MacDiarmid and from around 1950 – ‘there has been a reawakening of the Scottish spirit, leading to a strong feeling of being ourselves’. Scotland on her own can become part of the European movement but none of this might have been attained had it not been for the work of Burns.
Miss Redpath, to the delight of the audience, sung most of her contribution to the symposium but between songs she claimed that Burns was one of the first folk-lorists and it was his work preserved almost all that exist today of Scottish traditional song and work was now on hand to preserve most of these on disc. One pleasing aspect of Miss Redpath’s contribution was the audience participation she encouraged.
John Weir concentrated on that aspect of Freemasonry which concerned Burns’s introduction to the craft at Tarbolton where there had already existed a weavers’ guild, a farmers’ society, a universal friendly society and, at a later date, a branch of the Reform Movement.
By 1771 it had become a stronghold of Masonic activity and for such a small community it sustained two lodges for a time each with more than a hundred members, one of which, Lodge St James, Burns joined in 1781. What one has to remember about Burns is that once he became a mason he stayed a mason.
Jock Thomson, in considering Burns’s collection of Bawdry, or ‘Songs in the Oral Tradition’, put the point that it might be thought of as a third Commonplace Book. It started as a collection of street songs and ballads to old Scottish airs which Burns sought to keep in order to preserve these lovely old melodies. The lyrics, however distasteful, had a therapeutic value in attacking the social evils of the time. However, by no means all of the songs in his handwriting were of his creation and this is what caused some confusion and embarrassment among his early biographers. But Mr Thomson was of the opinion that ‘we should wish that Burns had collected enough street songs to fill a thousand Merry Muses…’
1977 was also the year of the Greenock Burns Club’s 175th Birthday, and the Mother Club Bard, the Rev James L. Dow wrote a special Ode for the Occasion, on which, by the way, another clergyman, the Right Reverend Dr Leonard Small, an honorary President of the Club, proposed the Immortal Memory. Rev Dow wrote:
A century had just begun
The year, ye’ll note, was eighteen one;
A wheen Greenockians, just for fun,
Yet mair than mirth,
Gathered tae honour Ayrshire’s son
And Robert’s birth.
For years a hunder and seventy five,
Whiles sair put on tae bide alive,
Your mother’s managed tae survive
War’s crucifix.
Kennin’ that peace will ne’er arrive
By politics.
The men that aye for power yearn
And Cominform and Comintern,
Like a’ dictators never learn
That what they’ve wrought
Will fade awa’ frae man’s concern
And be forgot.
But in the hearts of you and me,
Gathered in silence or in jollity,
Abides his spirit that is free
Of Storied urns.
Endures the Immortal Memory
Of Robert Burns.
And so another year passed, and yet another Burns Festival was upon us. Judith Sleigh reviewed the revised showing of Bard which was my previous The Holy Fair with a new director, Tom Raffell and musical direction by Tom Campbell. The leading parts were played by Jay Smith and Alison Hamilton and the production was given a page
in the 1979 Chronicle.
The premiere was a resounding success…and there was a general feeling of disappointment that it could not be prolonged for another week…It was the high point of a Festival which was studded with splendid performances, including As Others Saw Him, with John Cairney, Russell Hunter and others, a Courtyard Concert with Bill McCue, Patricia Carrick and others, a Town Hall concert with Marilyn de Blieck, Raymond Bramwell and others… As I write this, the third Burns Festival is only six weeks away and events over the past few months have laid the foundation for an annual event which will we hope, appeal to members of Burns clubs all over the world. Several organisations including the Scottish Tourist Board, local authorities and the Burns Federation have been working together to produce a programme of entertainment. Venues this year have increase to include Irvine, Moffat, Largs and Kilbirnie and visitors will also have the opportunity to visit Finlaystone House, once home of the Earl of Glenciarn, Burns friend and patron. The Burns Club in Irvine have also joined us and Sam Gaw will be giving a lecture on Burns Ayrshire…The members of the Committee which has been formed are aware of their responsibility in presenting events not only for those with a knowledge of Burns but also for those whose interest has stopped short at Auld Lang Syne. To some extent this is a matter of education and the visitor attracted to a film show on the Burns Country in Moffat or the Holy Fair in Ayr may well go on to all the Burns Heritage sites, or to join his local Burns Club – and perhaps become President of the Burns Federation… plans are now being discussed of the possible formation of a Burns Festival Society, now that the event is established as an annual promotion. This Society would be open to all – individuals, clubs, businesses – and would be responsible for promoting the Festival, organising some events, liasing with all concerned, offering concessions to members, organising a Festival Club. Members of Burns Clubs will be kept informed of our plans through the Burns Federation. Meanwhile the Burns Festival Committee would like to extend to all of you a very warm welcome to Burns Country and to Scotland in 1979.
For this Festival ’79 I had written A Drunk Man Looks at Robert Burns which combined Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid, and since I was Burns (although now pushing it in terms of age) I hired Russell Hunter to join me as the Drunk Man (MacDiarmid). Looking back on this performance after more than 30 years it still remains one of the great comic creations that Russell Hunter managed in a long and busy career. The presentation was no more than a dramatic reading – on paper – but Hunter made it a supreme piece of theatre, funny, so funny and heart-breaking by the end – ‘Oh, I hae a silence left…’ he whispered, and the curtain came down in that silence before breaking into a thunder of applause. It opened at Ayr and played at Irvine and East Kilbride to the same wonderful reaction, and then was heard no more. But what a wonderful memory.
I am genuinely sorry to say, the Burns Festival sickened and died over the next three or four years. A series of stuttering, semi-celebrity concerts and half-hearted local events put paid to any imaginative leaps in a Burns Performance direction and the whole concept of aligning the poet with his places through live performance was quickly lost sight of. The high cultural aims of new work and commissions for Scottish artists and performers now became a dull re-hash of old concert-party and seaside holiday fare. One of the last shows to be featured in the final Festival of 1982 was the Garnock Valley Youth Theatre Puppet Show which used marionnettes to portray the life of the Bard. Nothing could have been more appropriate for the death-knell of live performance in the name of Burns. I mean no disrespect to the Garnock Valley Youth Theatre, but bloody puppets! The Burns Festival, as everybody admitted in the beginning, was a good idea. It was something which, in its sturdy infancy had promised so much for Burns and his work, and now it was dead. It may yet come again – this summer-time Burns. I hope so. But it will not be in my time. Meantime, the winter Burns carried on much as usual.
Orwell’s year of 1984 opened and R. W. Adams OBE, the same gentleman who had foreseen the fashion for Mackintosh, found himself addressing the Aberdour Boat Club at their Burns Supper. Bob, who is an accountant by trade, and is now a successful playwright, had been commissioned in the Paras during the war, and knew how to deal with the orders he had been given – ‘Burns if you must but a laugh if you can and not longer than 15 minutes – 20 at most’. As a golfer, he also recognised that this request was par for the course at many Burns Suppers, so he got on with it – in his own way.
Commodore, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to start by thanking you for inviting Mary and me to join you this evening. I have enjoyed myself very much – till now.
I have heard it said that the Aberdour Boat Club Burns Night is a bit of an orgy – and I thought of Ogden Nash’s words –
Home is heaven and orgies are vile,
But we need an orgy once in a while.
Amongst the last recorded words of Rabbie Burns was the plea, ‘Don’t let the awkward squad fire over me.’ He meant, literally, that he didn’t wish the more inept of the local fusiliers firing a ragged fusillade over his mortal remains or – I wonder sometimes if he meant the battalions of after dinner speakers who would sound off over his immortal memory.
And forward though he couldna see, he guessed and feared.
The very variety of the human conditions and emotions highlighted by Burns means that an equal or even greater variety of speakers can express the same or lesser sentiments as if Burns had taken the very words out of their mouths.
My own credentials for this momentous toast are few. But there is a coincidence. William Burns, or Burness, was born at Dunnottar, just south of Stonehaven, and I was married at Dunnottar Church in Stonehaven – and there started a hard, grim, miserable life – for William Burns, of course,
not me.
And my family name is once mentioned in a Burns poem, perhaps appropriately – I leave you to judge…
As father Adam once was fooled,
A case that’s still too common,
Here stands a man a woman ruled,
The devil ruled the woman.
However, perhaps the best and only qualification is that I am an admirer of Burns without reservation. From me there will be no apologies, doubts or qualifications. To me, Burns was a great Scot – perhaps the greatest of all Scots – and certainly the world’s most celebrated poet.
There is not and never will be an annual Shakespeare junket in England. Or an annual Longfellow barbecue in America. Or an annual Omar Khayam glass of wine, loaf of bread and thou night in Persia. The Burns Supper is a phenomenon without compare – as the man himself is without compare.
George Orwell also ‘forward looked and guessed and feared’, but he was so specific that we will be able to say, I hope, at the end of this year, that he was wrong. Burns was too wise a man to fall into that trap.
The very range of his interests and his intellect makes the study of his life and words an academic work of pleasurable, but still considerable, work.
That work I have not undertaken, but when I was asked to propose this toast, I was told, ‘It will be all right. Many of the guests will be English and won’t know what you are saying, so will be bound to learn something.’ I thought that has the same logic as the poster on the back of the Edinburgh bus. ‘Illiterate? Please write for free booklet.’
Burns was born at a time and in circumstances when he might well have been illiterate. In the preface to the Edinburgh Edition, he said, ‘I write to congratulate my country.’ And well he might, as in no other country in the world at that time would a man in his station in life have received such an education. Nor in many countries would there have been sufficient people literate enough and with taste and discernment enough to buy and read the Kilmarnock Edition and thus make the Edinburgh Edition possible.
It may be this that gave Burns his fierce, but not aggressive, nationalism. He made one brief, very brief, visit to England in his life. On his return, he expressed his love of his own country in gentle terms and referred to it as ‘My dear, my native soil.’ Whereas a clumsier person like myself would express the same sentiment by referring to my favourite sign on a quiet border road which says, ‘This is England. You are welcome to it.’
Not that Scots are arrogant. It’s just that we are parochial.
As the two Fife soldiers showed when they were lost in the desert during the war, miles from anywhere and dying of thirst. The spirit of one of them as they staggered forward was getting lower and lower, so to take his mind off his troubles, his pal said, ‘You know this is the day of the Burntisland Games.’ The first soldier looked up at the pale, blue sky and the white hot blazing sun and croaked, ‘Well, they’re getting a great day for it.’
One of the talents I most admire in Burns is his succinct expression of eternal truths, at all sorts of different levels. I suppose everyone has his own choices. My own favourites include simple ones like: ‘Up in the mornin’s nae for me’ and ‘I’m o’er young to marry yet.’
And more complex ones like:
O wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An foolish notion.
Or
Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet,
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises.
But my favourite is, without any doubt, is ‘To step aside is human.’
What a wealth of compassion, understanding and experience there is in that simple phrase. Has any man been able to put so much into so few words?
And it is a cause for sorrow that we cannot hear those words as spoken by himself. His voice has not been recorded for posterity. We can listen to Dylan Thomas himself reading the Reverend Eli Jenkin’s morning service from under Llareggub Hill, we will never hear Robert Burns reading Holy Willie’s Prayer. And this is especially sad because we read from many contemporary accounts that his supreme gifts were in conversation and eloquence, which some say even outshone his talent for poetry.
However he was born too soon for that.
But not, I think, too soon in other ways, because I am sure his influence and his representation of us is the main reason why Scots are highly regarded the world o’er – to our very great advantage over the years – perhaps more highly regarded sometimes than we deserve.
A lot of Burns poems rail against poverty, and the injustice of it. Not for himself, but more often for others as in
those lines;
Not but I hae a richer share,
Than monie ithers,
By why should ae man better fare,
And a’ man brithers.
Things have got better, but not for everyone, as the posh social worker learnt not so long ago when she had to make a call up a close in Glasgow.
She knocked on the first of the doors on the first landing, or stairhead, as they are known in my native city. The door was opened very slightly and a timid- looking lad peeped his head out.
‘Is your father in?’ she asked him.
‘Naw. Ma faither went oot when ma mither came in.’
‘Is your mother in then?’
‘Naw. Ma mither went oot when ma big brother came in.’
‘Well, may I speak to him, then?’
‘Naw. Ma brither went oot when my big sister cam in.’
‘Is your sister in then, please?’
‘Naw. Ma sister went oot when a cam in.
‘This is your house?
‘Naw. This is the toilet.’
So there is much still to be done. Sometimes I fear that Burns’ heartfelt plea for man’s inhumanity to man to end, served as much purpose as the curt message received by the deep sea diver from his ship when he was far under the North Sea: ‘Come up – we’re sinking.’
Of course I tried to see if I could find some links between Burns and the sea, but I could find no sign that he ever set foot in a boat. But in his very rare mention of sea or sailors, he was, as usual, very perceptive:
The unwary sailor thus aghast,
The wheeling torrent viewing.
Mid circling torrent sinks at last,
In overwhelming ruin.
With sailors present, that’s too distressing, so I won’t mention it. Another, perhaps more relevant mention of sailing, starts a bit nearer to home.
The Queen o’ the Lothians cam cruisin to Fife,
To see gin a wooer would tak her for life…
It’s a longish poem, but later on in it, the shy wooer, Jockie, says:
But troth, Madam, I canna woo,
For aft I hae tried it, and ay I fa’ thro’.
The mind boggles…!
But there is more damning stuff than that of you sailor lads. You all know of Tam o Shanter and how that low-minded, landlocked peasant picked out for his lascivious attention, the witch with the mini skirt, and he expressed himself thus:
‘Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush o’ guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi’en them off ma hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonnie burdies!’
Then, roused to passion, bawled out,
‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’
No seafaring men would have behaved like that. Or would they?
What happened to Cutty Sark? Why indeed was a great boat called after her?
We know that after that incident at the Brig o’ Doon, when the end of the tale left her with the end of a tail in her hand, the sexy little warlock – quote from Tam o Shanter – was ‘Lang after kenned on Carrick shore’ and that she ‘perished monie a bonnie boat’. Just like, in fact, the Sirens of Ancient Greece. As Burns might have said, if he had been a poor poet.
So, Yachtsmen, I would have you ken,
Have weaknesses like other men,
And Captains gaily wreck their ships,
For ae keek o’ bewitching hips.
And ram their boats upon the shore,
When beckoned on by this wee whore.
Let us hope the unfortunate sailors did not suffer the same fate as Tam’s grey mare, Meg. So there is often less than meets the eye behind the braw brass buttoned blue blazer – back again to:
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
As always Burns had the appropriate words. And they are Scottish words, which gives us added pleasure – parochial again. But we have to be parochial. It is people who value their own traditions, who show most respect for the traditions of others. So we have to be on our guard against people like the dishonest tourist who went into a restaurant in Edinburgh, ordered haggis, paid for it, then sneaked out without eating it.
So we must cherish the best of what is Scottish. And we must certainly cherish Burns. If this man we meet to honour tonight were to be judged by quantity we could contend that his poetry is read by more people than the works of any other poet. That his poems are read in more different languages than the work of any other poet. That Auld Lang Syne is sung more often even than Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.
But the quantity is only there because the quality is there.
His poems are as varied as his life and his passions. They have wit and pathos. Some tell stories and some convey messages. Some condemn and others extol. Some are innocent and some are rude. They are easily read, yet they are profound. They have the common touch, yet they have universal appeal. But most of all, he says what we would like to say in the way we would like to be able to say it. And for that reason, this Toast will be proposed, all over the world, ‘Till a’ the seas run dry.’
Ladies and Gentlemen, please be upstanding for the Toast to the Immortal Memory of ROBERT BURNS.
In this toast by Bob Adams, is exemplified the very best of the witty, gentle, but slyly wicked sense of fun shown by the speakers who understand their own and Burns’s essential Scottishness. This is not quite so of every speaker but he is a man for a’ that. Professor J. A. Weir was a kind of lad o parts who had made it academically in Middle America and was of such status that he could make time to come through a northern winter (with Mrs Weir) to deliver his Immortal Memory to the Edinburgh Burns Association in January 1985. Professor Weir spoke profoundly and at length. We enter his speech after the usual jocular preliminaries as the good professor warmed to his theme.
After living with Burns for more than 50 years, without much exposure to other poets, I surely must belong to that strange cult that is anathema to Professor Daiches. For the most part it has been a solitary affair; and with the departure of Roderick MacDonald, a student from Aberdeen, there are now no authentic Scottish friends in our town. At the University of Kansas (with 24,000 students) there is a Hardy Society and a Johnson Society but for lovers of Burns the offerings are slim. In recent years I have been collecting books and reading critical essays and since it is the Parish Poet, the National Poet and the World Poet, that brings us ‘a’ thegether’ tonight (and not our private Burns) I would like to make a few remarks on the three stages in the life of the immortal bard… the Parish Poet, the National Poet and the World Poet.
The Parish Poet
Setting out to the capital on his adventurous quest, the bard wrote, ‘I tost my plaid about my shoulders, and marched away to Edinburgh, determined, since no better could be, to push my fortunes as a literary man.’ If this sounds vaguely familiar yet wondrous strange, I am not surprised. The year was not 1786 but 1810, the poet not Burns but James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, then 40 years of age. To quote from T. F. Henderson (1914): ‘In all he (Hogg) was not more than six months at school, and, when he left, at the age of seven, he had only ‘advanced so far as to get into the class that read the Bible’; and, in writing, he was able only to scrawl the letters ‘nearly an inch in length’. In his early years, his poetic tendencies did not receive any instruction or fostering influence except that derived from his peasant mother’s imperfect recital of ballads and fairy tales.
Considering his limitations, Hogg’s success in Edinburgh was astounding. The parallel with Burns, too, is striking; but the point I wish to make is that Burns, who owed little to early Scottish predecessors (whose existence became generally known only after his arrival had aroused a certain curiosity) grew up in a land of native poesy and song (most of Burns’ verse letters were addressed to local fellow rhymesters). However, in a local context Burns’ education, though fragmentary, was superior; in Daiches’ opinion, ‘he knew Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and the Bible much better than the ordinary educated man of today knows them.’
…Before thoughts of ‘guid, black prent’ had ever entered his head, or necessity forced the issue – Burns tossed off his matchless works as trifles; to praise a lass, to enliven the tavern, to suit a mood, to amuse a friend. In the words of Henry Grey Graham, ‘Local reputation was spreading, his verses circulated in the countryside, were roared over in every farmer’s house and tavern, and chuckled over in laird’s mansions and every moderate minister’s manse’. And, you will recall, many of the poems that circulated locally would not appear in print until long after Burns’ death.
The National Poet
Yet long-lived pansies here their scents bestow,
The violets languish and the roses blow.
In purple glory let the crocus shine,
Narcissus here his love-sick head recline … etc
(Obviously not Burns)
The writer of these lines may be forgiven for, though he was a poor poet, he was a good man. Thomas Blacklock, blind from the age of six months, was the son of a bricklayer yet was Scotland’s recognised authority in literary taste during Burns’ time. Even the almighty Dr Johnson, who found little to his liking in Scotland, ‘beheld him with reverence’. Today, Dr Blacklock’s sole claim to fame rests on his enthusiastic letter to Dr George Lawrie of Loudoun, who had sent him a copy of Burns’ poems for his opinion. This was in 1786 at a time of crisis for the greater though almost unknown poet, who had resolved to depart for the West Indies. His chest was already on its way to dockside ‘when a letter from Dr Blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes by rousing my poetic ambitions… His idea that I would meet with every encouragement for a second edition fired me so much that away I posted to Edinburgh without a single acquaintance in town, or a single letter of introduction in my pocket.’
Incidentally, a lifelong friendship with Dr Blacklock did nothing to impair Burns’ critical judgement for much later (1795) he wrote to James Johnson: ‘The song to Ginland Geordie if my memory serves me right, is one of Dr Blacklock’s. We all knew the Doctor’s merit; but his songs, in general were very silly – I enclose you one to the tune which has much more merit, and I beg you will insert it.’
Thanks to a favourable review on the Lounger Burns’ poems became widely known in Edinburgh not long after his arrival in November 1786 on a borrowed pony. The learned and the polite, who were prepared to accept the rustic genius ‘with every allowance for Education and Circumstance of Life’, were enchanted. From Burns’ correspondence it is now clear that he was by no means overawed by men of high degree, which is not to deny that there were quite a few of deserved eminence in Edinburgh. Dugald Stewart, who had recently exchanged the Chair of Mathematics for the Chair of Moral Philosophy, was one. It was he who would introduce Burns to the democratic Lord Daer, one of the few members of the aristocracy to make a wholly favourable impression on the poet. Burns maintained his poise and self-confidence throughout his stay in the city; it was the rich and polite who had reason to be nervous, for surely among them there must have been some who knew that circulating in Ayrshire
were satires more biting by far than the Twa Dogs or any of the others in print. Moreover, the subjects were not hard
to identify!
In the end it was not the excitement of the city that caused Burns to linger on and to return later but Creech, the wealthy publisher, whose reluctance to part with a guinea was excessive even by Scottish standards. Most of the 612 copies of the now priceless Kilmarnock edition – the one that propelled Burns from local to national fame – were eventually thumbed out of existence. (Harvard University, not surprisingly, has two copies – one in the original boards with pages uncut!) The 30,000 copies of the second edition, enriched by The Ordination, Death and Dr Hornbook, The Brigs of Ayr and Address to the Unco Guid, but rejecting The Jolly Beggars, extended Burns’ fame still further.
Burns criticism is filled with references to the bard’s indebtedness to Alexander Pope, but without elaboration. As a satirist Pope’s attacks on his enemies were savage beyond anything Burns ever wrote with the possible exception of Address of Beelzebub. Much has been made of Pope’s religious handicap at a time when Roman Catholics were barred from universities and public office, but this was not the major problem; nor was there ever threat of financial exigency –
Pope, plain truth to speak
Climbed Parnassus by dint o’Greek.
Burns was thirteen when he first became acquainted with Pope’s works so he had an early exposure to a craftsmanship clearly superior to the prevailing genteel literary fashion. The conscious imitations in some English poems, From songs to Maria and Epistle to Robt Graham of Fintry, for example, are indifferent Pope but the barely discernible echoes that appear in scores of pages show a deeper and more subtle influence. The later image of the humble, heaven taught ploughman, and image that modern critics have taken great pains to erase, may not have been taken all that seriously at the time. As Professor Kinsley has pointed out –
The evidence of Burns’ reading in the English poets, and his appreciation of current political and social affairs, is everywhere in the Kilmarnock book. That the critics did not remark on it suggest, not that they missed it, but that they accepted it without wonder. Many of the Edinburgh literati were in one way or another countrymen, and knew that illiteracy was not a concomitant of poverty among Scottish farmers or cottars. What was really striking about Burns was not the fact, but the quality, of his poetic talent.
Put simply, in the best of his work, he was world-class.
The World Poet
Burns’ international reputation, augmented by consequences of the migratory habits of Scots, may be second only to that of Shakespeare. I must confess that contemplation of Burns after an evening with Shakespeare always brings on a slight feeling of depression. No one in his right mind would compare Burns with Shakespeare, but to borrow a fragment from Pope, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, or in more modern parlance, ‘Damn the torpedoes’.
It does not require much effort to determine that the vast library holdings on Shakespeare contain a good deal of nonsense. He had no Boswell; there was no Shakespeare Federation; no letters survive; we do not know when he arrived in London or how he was employed; the first biography did not appear until almost one hundred years after his death. Among the many conjectures, G.B. Harrison believes that Shakespeare may have seen active military service between the ages of 23 and 25. The cause of death is unknown but one anecdote may be of peculiar interest to Burnsians: ‘Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.’
Perhaps it is the absence of data and surfeit of conjecture that causes us to concentrate almost exclusively on the plays themselves. Today’s audiences have no more need for advanced instruction in metaphysical meaning than audiences of Shakespeare’s day; in the works of the universal dramatist we see ourselves and all humanity. Occasionally an apology or explanation may preface a modern production The Taming of the Shrew or The Merchant of Venice – but for the most part we are entertained by the humour, the startling insights and the power of language.
Now what, you may ask, has all this to do with Robert Burns? Making due allowance for differences in time and place, and station in life, I believe Shakespeare and Burns had a lot in common: neither attended a university, both had friends who did; in their most creative period neither cared about presenting his work for posterity – both understood and enjoyed the earthy language of common people. They were witty conversationalist and brilliant lyricists. It is not, however the similarities that I wish to emphasise but the essential differences in our perception of the works of Shakespeare and Burns. Compared to Shakespeare, our problem with Burns is of an opposite sort. Here we may at times be burdened by too big a load of prior knowledge. Could it be that the closer we come to Ayrshire or to the
man himself, the less well equipped we are to detect the broader meanings?
In the Kilmarnock Edition, which Burns edited himself, we find most of the poems by which he is best known, all of them composed before he had left his twenties. The book succeeded in disarming the critics and appealing to Burns’ own uncritical people – no mean feat. True, the threat of censorship may have led to suppression of some satires, but may it not also have served to sharpen Burns’ natural sly wit and subtle use of innuendo? We lose something by ignoring the local context of the poems, but what might a reader discover without notes and commentaries, without Crawford’s penetrating analyses or Maurice Lindsay’s Burns Encyclopaedia?
Perhaps this is where a foreigner may have an advantage. In The Twa Dogs one may see, not the British gentry of Burns’ day, but the present US Senate. ‘The fear o’ Hell’s a Hangman’s whip, / To haud the wretch in order’, (slipped ever so innocently into the Epistle to a Young Friend) seems to characterise the foreign policies of both Russia and the United States. It is not hard to find Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell at the Holy Fair (and of course it requires no great insight to see which side Burns was on).
I understand that the humour in Holy Willie’s Prayer is sometimes enhanced by a performance complete with nightshirt and candle. But, without knowing who the petty William Fisher was or how he died, might not the final stanza be applied to whole nations?
But I-d, remember me and mine
Wi’ mercies temporal and divine!
That I for grace and gear may shine,
Excell’d by nane!
And a’ the glory shall be thine!
Amen! Amen!
Professor Weir said at one point in his erudite presentation that – ‘it’s hard to know where to stop with Burns’. It is similarly hard to know where to stop with Professor Weir. But a couple of ‘Amens’ sound conclusive enough and so must regretfully leave Weir here, as one might say.
Just as regretfully, I said ‘Amen’ to my dream of a summer Burns Festival. I had hoped to have seen it take root in the grounds of Rozelle House which might have contained the Robert Burns Open-Air Theatre eventually – a kind of Hollywood Bowl by the lake – and Scotland might have had its own Stratford in Ayr. But it was not to be. Something of that summer atmosphere I had looked for was felt years later at the Brow Well on the Solway in 1996. The winter of my Burnsian discontent for that year in Scotland gave way to a glorious summer where, on Wednesday 17 July, on a beautiful, cloudless afternoon, hundreds gathered at the Brow Well on the Solway to join in a Commemorative Service conducted by the Rev Williamson of Ruthwell after which Murdo Morrison, President of the Burns Federation for that year, delivered the following oration:
It’s no in titles nor in rank,
It’s no in wealth like Lon’on bank
To purchase peace and rest,
It’s no in makin muckle mair,
It’s no in books, it’s no in lear
To make us truly blest;
If happiness has not her seat
and centre in the breast,
We may be wise or rich or great
But never can be blest
Nae treasures nor pleasures,
Could make us happy lang;
The hearts ay’s the part ay
That makes us right or wrong.
Friends, how true the words of the Bard come to us through the centuries. Words which will continue to exist as long as people exist on this planet. Convenor, Provost, Councillors, friends from around the world, it is right proper and fitting that we should, as admirers of Burns, foregather here to pause and consider, in this setting, the real significance of this year of celebration and commemoration. A year when events in the world have yet again turned our attention to many of the aspects of human behaviour of which Robert Burns took a note and wrote. He saw and he heard and he understood some of the mystery of mankind.Some people, and some countries, acting as ever putting greed before need and cancelling out the appeal of Robert Burns imploring, exploring and wishing the thought that man to man the world owed shall brothers be for a that.
To this very spot came the Bard in 1796. To this place came a very ill man and he brought with him his hopes, his thoughts and his Bible. Despite the depths to which those who decry him tend to sink – his Bible featured largely in his life and his times as did the people who had an eleventh commandment of thou shalt not be found out. He came here on the best medical advice available to seek a cure or alleviation from pain. The body which had been overstretched and overworked in youth when the work of a man was demanded from the framework of a mere lad was not in a terminal decline. Part of the belief of the time can now be politically parodied with the words of ‘if it isn’t hurting its not working.’ In a letter to the Editor of the Scots Musical Museum on the 4th of July he admits that he is not well and goes on to say ‘However hope is the cordial of human heart and I endeavour to cherish it as well as I can.’ This is, of course, the spiritual heart and that which makes us right or wrong.
We live in a day and age of magnificent machines, tremendous technology and in our own lifetimes there have been many developments which, to our fathers, would have seemed highly unlikely and to our grandparents impossible. Despite the advance of technology people would appear not to have changed. The heart is still ay the part that makes us right or wrong. We can, of course, be wrong in our hearts and our minds and today it is as fashionable as ever to blame others. Not being able to see ourselves as others see us we point the finger of blame and accusation at someone else.
Conveniently we forget that if one finger is pointed forward there are three pointed back at ourselves. The address to the Unco Guid says it all. Again this is where and how we can dip into the works of Burns and retrieve the gems which he wrote which are as applicable today despite all our technology as the day they were written. The heart is aye the part ay, that makes us right or wrong… Hope is [still] the cordial of the human heart. Very often without hope we have nothing.
Within the Burns movement we must also have an option of doing something or doing nothing. That is something or nothing for the future of what we all believe in – the promotion and the protection of the works of Robert Burns – not in isolation but as part of our rich Scottish heritage. We have got to promote and protect what we believe in. If we do nothing we will be introverted into oblivion and that is surely something that is far removed from our mind and our hearts and our desire.
So here we are in the place where Burns walked and Burns thought. We are here in the place where burns faced the reality of his own mortality and forward he was guessing and fearing for the future. The future looked bleak – for him there was no option. Soon Burns was to be no more and departed this life to leave behind the treasure chest of words which he has passed on to us free of charge. The warp and the weft of his words form part of the rich tapestry of Scotland’s history, and heritage and we, as temporary custodians have a duty to pass that to future generations…
As we leave this place, this day and this date of commemoration, let us, each and every one of us resolve to do something about the world of Burns and Burns in the world. Just this week we have seen what can be achieved. We can, we should and we must ensure that if we are not already a member of a Burns Club or of the Federation that we should become one. We can, we should and we must start moving Robert Burns away from being an after dinner speech in January – important although that may be. We can, we should and we must make Robert Burns for all reasons a Bard for all seasons and in that way we can honour his memory and his gift to us all.
And what a gift is Scotland in good weather. Again, the idea of a summer festival nagged. A nine-day wonder of all the Burns world in the sun or under the stars would have been something to see. Nine days devoted to the memory of the young Burns in an open-necked shirt singing his songs in the open air and not choked by a black bow tie or cigar smoke. Summer is the time for celebration – even a Scottish summer – a time to wrest Burns from the old and give it back to the young; but it all ended with the usual Scottish eyes raised, grave shaking of heads, fingers put to pursed lips.
And from some, like me, with a bit of a sigh.
Then never murmur or repine,
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine…
Preserve the dignity of Man,
With soul erect,
And trust the Universal Plan
Will all protect’…
And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.
(The Vision)