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
