Burns Supper Speach 2014

Here is the speach i gave in 2014 to the British Chamber of Commerce, Riga.

When I was asked, if I would propose a toast to the Immortal Memory at the Burns Supper, I was flattered, honoured and more than a wee bit scared.   What could I say?   

Here's me, a man from London, all be it of Scottish parents, asked to address a Burns night.   It was suggested I talk about what the poet means to me, so that's what you will hear, no anecdotes, no lead balloons, just how I see Robert Burns.

All countries, Latvia included have poets, other writers, and heroes, yet we do not afford them the veneration that Scots, and others, afford to Robert Burns. And why should this be?

The English have Shakespeare; the Irish have Joyce; the Americans have Longfellow; the Italians have Dante; the Latvians have Caka.

Every one of them an internationally known and respected figure, but to none of them is paid the homage that is paid to Burns, even in their own country, let alone abroad.   There is no institution of a Shakespeare supper or any Joyce Junket or Longfellow Lunch or Dante Dinner. Not even a Caka Chow-down. There is no international acclaim of any of these writers, great though they may be.

Yet Burns is universally acclaimed. Why should all of this be?

As we sit down tonight in Riga, in Moscow they will be already dancing, In Beijing and Tokyo they will be heading home. In the UK finishing touches will be made to outfits and in New York anticipation of the evenings events will be growing.

On 25 January of each year and for many days before it and after it there is not an hour in the day or night when a Burns Supper is not taking place somewhere on this earth. 

And there is no other institution of man of which that can be said.

4 years after Burns’ death, Dr James Currie, who was Burns’ editor, wrote a highly exaggerated biography of the poet where he examined Burns’ character and his love of the demon drink. This from a man who had only actually met Burns once.

As another Scottish Poet Hugh McDiarmid wrote

"More nonsense has been uttered in the name of Robert Burns than anyone else, barring liberty and Christ"
It seems to me to be a pretty good way of describing what has been done to Burns' reputation over the last 200 years or so, starting with Dr. Currie in 1800 and continued by so many ever since.  

Robert Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, on January 25th, 1759 and died in Dumfries on the 21st July 1796.   We celebrate his birth, we don't mark his death.

This is because Rabbie’s work is all about life and living, it celebrates the common Man.  

In that short 37 years, he left a huge impact on the world.   
Who was this guy?  How did he think?  What legacy has he left? 

His family were farming folks, making a living on 70 acres and in 1765, when he was 6, his father, William and some neighbours established a school in the village and hired a teacher, a Mr. Murdoch, for their families.   

Robert and his brother Gilbert attended the school, but the teacher left in 1768, leaving the boy’s father to continue their education.  Pa Burns held that the three most important things in a boy’s life were education, education and education, the most important of them being Education.   

In 1780, at age 21, Robert and Gilbert with other young lads of Tarbolton founded the Tarbolton Bachelor’s Club. It was founded on “diversion to relieve the wearied man worn down by the necessary labours of life”.  Robert was elected its first President and the first meeting drew up the rules for membership, one of which required that

'Every man proper for a member of this Society, must have a frank, honest, open heart; above anything dirty or mean; and must be a professed lover of one or more of the female sex. No haughty, self-conceited person, who looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the Club, and especially no mean spirited, worldly mortal, whose only will is to heap up money shall upon any pretence whatever be admitted.'

In 1785, his first child, a girl, was born to his mother’s serving girl, Betty Paton.  That same year, he met Jean Armour.    He commented on the 6 belles of Mauchline

 Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine,
Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw :
There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton,
But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a' .

He had an intimate affair with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the Kirk session and having to spend some time on the “cutty stool” in front of the congregation, named as a “fornicator”.

As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts of his Jean's father to overthrow his common-law marriage with Jean, he decided to emigrate, taking a job as an overseer on a plantation in Jamaica, and in order to raise money for the passage he published a volume of the poems which he had been composing from time to time for some years. This volume was unexpectedly successful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went to Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity of the season.  

His fame as a poet had reconciled the Armours to the connection, (money talked even then!) and having now regularly married Jean, he brought her to Ellisland and once more tried farming.  It lasted for three years.  

In spite of the fact that he always seemed to be broke, he refused to accept any payment for this work, preferring to regard it as a patriotic service. And it was, indeed, a patriotic service of no small magnitude. By birth and temperament he was the right man in the right place at the right time, and this is proved by the unique extent to which his productions have passed into the life and feeling of his race.

He gave up on farming in 1791 and in 1792, he was appointed as an Tax man in Dumfries. By now he was thoroughly discouraged; his work was mere drudgery; his tendency to take his relaxation in debauchery increased the weakness of a constitution early undermined.  

In Rabbie's time, the English had, by then, recognised the Scots are a warlike race and in their own sly, sleekit way, recruited the Scots into their army.    

O why the deuce should I repine,
And be an ill foreboder?
I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine,
I'll go and be a sodger !  

Robert Burns was a private in the Royal Dumfries Volunteers during the last year and a half of his life.

On 21 July, all but destitute and in debt, Burns died.   He was buried with full Military Honours on the 25th July, his son Maxwell was born of Jean Armour the same day. 

During his life, Rabbie was a humourist, a satirist, storyteller, a lover, socialist, nationalist and a philosopher. He could be romantic, charming, funny, sarcastic and had a devastating wit.  Hypocrisy and the pompous were often targets.

His life and work can still be seen as a series of contradictions, some of which are easy to understand, others less so, because times were so different then. 

About some of the contradictions in the man.

At times he was a LOVER and at others he was a LECHER.

At times he was a ROMANTIC and at others he was a REALIST.

He was a NATIONALIST and at times he was an INTERNATIONALIST.

He was at times a RADICAL and at others a REACTIONARY. 

Were Burns to be alive today, the media would have a great time, taking him to task over these contradictions.  However, even in the context of today, I see in Burns something that was dignified and honest.   He had a kind of honesty that marked him out as different.  He expressed it beautifully in his "First Epistle to John Lapraik"

 I winna blaw about mysel
As ill I like my fauts to tell;
But friends, an folk that wish me well,
They sometimes roose me;
Tho I maun own, as monie still
As far abuse me.

His summing up of hypocrisy is beautifully penned in a variety of poems and letter ---- None better than in "Holy Willie's Prayer"

O lord thou kens what zeal I bear
when drinkers drink and swearers swear
an singin here and dancin there
wi great and sma
but I am keepit, by Thy fear,
free frae them a
O Lord ! yestreen, thou kens wi Meg -
Thy pardon I sincerely beg-
O, may't ne'er be a livin plague
To my dishonour!
An I'll never lift a lawless leg
Again upon her.

But, Lord, 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!

To the contrasts which I mentioned earlier :-
The LECHEROUS side of Burns is shown clearly in many of his letters, and in sources like The Merry Muses.  However I will pass over that in favour of his ROMANTIC side, that of the lover.  This is so evident in many of his letters, his reworking of old songs and, of course in his own songs and poems.  The poem, which sums it all up is "O Were I on Parnassus Hill" which he wrote to Jean, not long after they were married.  He wrote it -- as he put it  "Made out as a compliment to Mrs. Burns"

Then come sweet muse inspire my lay!
For a' the lee lang Simmer's day
I couldna sing, I couldna say,
How much, how dear I love thee.
I see thee dancing o'er the green,
Thy waist sae gimp thy limbs sae clean,
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een-
By Heav'n and Earth I love thee!

But back to the contrasts .....the Nationalist and the Internationalist.

The Internationalist produced a world class and indeed world renowned statement, sung so beautifully by Sheena Wellington to launch the new Scottish Parliament.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That sense and worth o'er a'the earth
Shall bear the gree for a' that
For a' that and a' that
It's comin' yet for a' that
That man to man the world o'er
shall brithers be for a' that.

Are we any nearer to achieving that today? I think we are but with a fair few miles still to go.  This Internationalist penned the most Nationalist of views, sometimes a proud nationalism and at other times a bitter nationalism.

Rabbie was very definitely on the side of his native land, a convinced, and convincing, Nationalist.  His comment on the 1707 Union of Parliaments refers to the moneyed classes selling out to the English.  He mourned the loss of Scottish identity "farewell even to our Scottish name, sae famed in ancient story" and looked bitterly into the past

What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station.
But English gold has been our bane,
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
"oh would that I had seen the day
when treason thus could sell us
my ain grey head had laid in clay
with Bruce and noble Wallace
But pith and pow'r to my last hour
I'll make this declaration
we are bought and sold for English gold
such a parcel of rogues in the nation

I wonder how he would regard the present crop of Scottish Nationalist.   With admiration?  Or contempt?

As a storyteller, Burns has no peer.   Is there a more moving scene than the Cottar's Saturday Night?   Is there a better tale than Tam o Shanter?  He paints word pictures, listen to these words describing a cozy seat in a warm bar with good friends on a stormy night 

Ae market night, Tam got planted unco right
fast by an ingle bleezin finely
wi reaming swats that drank divinely
at his elbow, Soutar Johnnie
His ancient, trusty drouthy crony
Tam lo'ed him like a very brother'
they had been  fou for weeks the gither

The night drave on wi sangs and clatter
and aye the ale was growin better
The Soutar told his queerest stories
the landlords laugh was ready chorus
the landlady and Tam grew gracious
wi favours secret, sweet and precious
the storm without might roar and rustle
Tam didna gie the storm a whustle

This has been a brief and very personal view of Burns, with little or nothing said about the many other facets of his tragically short life; the wonderful collector and improver of old Scots songs, Raconteur and Wit, Farmer, Exciseman, Soldier and so on. He is one of the major reasons why I am proud to be a Scot.  Every new year, the world starts off the year by rejoicing in the words rescued and reworked by Burns.  There is no better memorial to the man than the words of Auld Lang Syne.

We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For Auld Lang Syne. 

I am intensely proud to give you this toast, the proudest toast for any Scot to propose. But it is also the proudest toast for any Scot to drink.  For it recalls surely the greatest Scot of all time.  

It is a toast which we should drink with joy and with pride.
Joy at his memory and pride in the heritage which he left us.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,  I ask you all...Scot or not....fill your glasses, aye fill them to the very brim and raise them high as I give you the greatest Scottish toast of them all, the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns. 

ROBERT BURNS