On the Trail of Robert Burns E-Book

John Cairney

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 328

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Is there anything new to say about Robert Burns? John Cairney says it's time to trash Burns the Brand and come on the trail of the real Robert Burns. He is the best of travelling companions on the convivial, entertaining journey to the heart of the Burns story. Alloway – Burns' birthplace. Tam O' Shanter draws on the Alloway Kirk witch stories first heard by Burns in his childhood Mossgiel – Between 1784 and 1786 in a phenomenal burst out of creativity, Burns wrote some of his most memorable poems including 'Holy Willie's Prayer' and 'To a Mouse' Kilmarnock – The famous Kilmarnock edition of Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect published in 1786 Edinburgh – Fame and Clarinda (among others) embraced him. Dumfries – Burns died at the age of 37. The trail ends at the Burns Mausoleum in St Michael's Church graveyard. Internationally known as 'the face of Robert Burns', John Cairney believes that the traditional Burns tourist trail urgently needs to find a new direction. In an acting career spanning 40 years, he has often lived and breathed Robert Burns on stage. On the Trail of Robert Burns shows just how well he has got under the skin of Burns' character. This fascinating journey around Scotland is a rediscovery of Scotland's national bard as a flesh and blood genius.

Leseprobe

JOHN CAIRNEY, ‘The Man Who Played Robert Burns’, is an actor, writer, lecturer and football fan.

After National Service 1948–50 Cairney enrolled at the Glasgow College of Drama and the University of Glasgow simultaneously, graduating in drama in 1953. In 1989 he gained an MLitt from Glasgow University for a History of Solo Theatre and in 1994 a PhD from Victoria University, Wellington for his study of R.L. Stevenson and Theatre.

Cairney’s professional association with Burns began in 1965 with the one man show, There was a Man by Tom Wright. In 1968 he wrote and starred in a six-part serial of the Burns story for Scottish Television, Burns. From 1975–79 his company Shanter Productions organised a Burns festival in Ayr. From 1974–81 he toured the world with his soloversion of The Robert Burns Story and from 1981–85 he toured with his wife, New Zealand actress Alannah OSullivan, in The Burns Experience. In 1986 Shanter Productions presented the first full-length modern Burns musical There Was A Lad. In 1996 in commemoration of the Burns International Year a video, Robert Burns: An Immortal Memory, was issued, written and narrated by Cairney.

Prior to and interspersed between these performances he played a multitude of other characters on stage, radio, television and film. His films include Jason and the Argonauts, Victim and A Night to Remember. His theatre work includes Cyrano de Bergerac at Newcastle; C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands at the Court Theatre, Christchurch, as well as Murder in the Cathedral and Macbeth at the Edinburgh Festival. On television he played the lead in This Man Craig, as well as appearing in many other popular series. Since 1990 Cairney has lived in Auckland, New Zealand. He has written two autobiographies and is still very much in demand as a lecturer, writer and consultant on all aspects of Burns.

Books in the LuathOn the Trail ofseries

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On the Trail of Mary Queen of Scots

On the Trail of the Pilgrim Fathers

On the Trail of Queen Victoria in the Highlands

On the Trail of Scotland’s History

On the Trail of Robert Burns

On the Trail of Robert Service

On the Trail of Robert the Bruce

On the Trail of Scotland’s Myths and Legends

On the Trail of William Shakespeare

On the Trail of William Wallace

First Edition 2000

Reprinted 2006, 2009, 2013

This Edition 2024

ISBN: 978-1-804252-15-4

Typeset in 10.5 point Sabon by 3btype.com

Maps by Jim Lewis

Illustrations by

Murray Robertson, Historic Illustration, Falkirk

© John Cairney

Contents

Index Map

Map A – West of Scotland and West Highlands

Map B – Edinburgh

Map C – The Borders

Map D – Highlands and North East

Preface

CHAPTER 1 The Burns Country

CHAPTER 2 Edinburgh

CHAPTER 3 The Borders

CHAPTER 4 Return to the West

CHAPTER 5 The Highlands and the North East

CHAPTER 6 Edinburgh Re-Visited

CHAPTER 7 Ellisland

CHAPTER 8 Dumfries (1791–1794)

CHAPTER 9 First Galloway Tour

CHAPTER 10 Second Galloway Tour

Postscript

Bibliography

This book is respectfully dedicated to that fine Scot and man of the theatre,DR JIMMY LOGAN OBE FRSAMDwho cast me as Robert Burns in 1959 and started me off on the trail…

Acknowledgements

I AM ESPECIALLY INDEBTED to Dr James Mackay’s masterworks on Burns – Burns, the biography, the Complete Works and the Complete Letters – not to mention, The Complete Word Finder, Burnsiana and his History of the Burns Federation. These books have helped guide my feet over so many familiar, well-trodden paths yet still allowed me my own views and opinions. For the sake of consistency, all Burns quotes used here, whether from poem, song or letter, are from these publications unless otherwise stated. I am also happy to acknowledge the friendship of the learned author over many years. Similarly, another ally has been Dr Maurice Lindsay. His Burns Encyclopaedia has been with me as a reference since I started on Burns in 1959 and I couldn’t be without it in anything related to the Bard. Still on a personal level, I must mention the assistance given by the work of another learned doctor, Bill Murray, as well as that of a much-missed associate, the late Alan Bold, whose A Burns Companion contained A Burns Topography which I found quite invaluable. Recourse was also made to James Barke’s edition of the works and also those of Professor James Kinsey and Dr Tom Crawford.

I am also grateful to Raymond Lamont Brown’s definitive publications on the Burns tours through the Borders and in the Highlands and Stirlingshire as well as particular articles such as The West Highland Tour (Allan Bayne) and Burns as a Tourist (Andrew McCallum) published in the 1944 edition of the Burns Chronicle by the Burns Federation. The Chronicle also gave me the opportunity of checking with Dr Duncan McNaught’s Burns Chronology from 1895. Considerable help has also been given to me by Burnsians over the years such as the late John McVie, Jock Thomson and Jim McCaffrey as well as later contacts like Sam Gaw, Peter Westwood, John Inglis and Tom Paterson.

There are too many assisting individual miscellaneous articles to acknowledge but I must mention all Burns material issued by the Scottish Tourist Board since 1975 and the individual writings of such authorities as Professor David Daiches, Dr Ian Grimble, Neil Gow QC, Gavin Sprott, Ian Nimmo, Archie McArthur and Freddy Anderson, in addition to incisive comments in the course of writing from Mike Paterson.

And for those who helped me on my way, such as my daughters Alison Hill, Jane Livingstone and Lesley Manners in Glasgow, Dunfermline and Newcastle respectively, also good friends like the Logans in Helensburgh, the Patersons in Falkirk, Mike Westcott in Edinburgh, Mr & Mrs Stuart Jeffray in Gifford, Mr & Mrs Iain Crawford in North Berwick, Mr & Mrs Bob Adams in Aberdour, Mr & Mrs Hugh Grant in Inverness, Dick Beach at Dunkeld House Hotel, Grant Sword at the Clifton Hotel, Nairn and Mrs Muriel Thake in Banchory – I give them all thanks for bed and board and encouragement.

Burns made his travels in the 17th century by horse, but I was able to retrace his footsteps by horse-power, thanks to Douglas Robertson and the staff of Gauld’s of Maryhill, Glasgow who loaned me a car to go On the Trail of Robert Burns in Scotland.

I have been involved with Burns and Burns matters now for nearly 50 years but there is not a year goes by in which I don’t learn something more about him. I am, therefore, grateful to Gavin MacDougall and Luath Press for giving me this opportunity of discovering yet another trail to Scotland’s great literary hero.

A1 – Allowaypp.xx,1,49,97,148,151

William Burnes builds cottage 1757 and starts market garden. Robert Burns born 25 January 1759. Baptised as Presbyterian by Rev William Dalrymple of Ayr 26 January. William Burnes begins writing his Manual of Christian Belief. Robert attends Campbell’s school at Alloway Mill 1765. When school closes, John Murdoch hired to teach Burnes children at cottage.

A2 – Ayrpp.xxv,5,7,109,152,153

Robert walks to Ayr for lessons in French and Latin from John Murdoch 1773. Attends School there for a time. Old Ayr Brig the inspiration for The Brigs o’ Ayr in 1786.

A3 – Kirkoswaldpp.9,98

Summer term at Hugh Roger’s school 1775. Inspired by Peggy Thomson, the ‘charming fillette’ next door. Visited on first Galloway Tour 1793. ‘Soutar Johnny’ Cottage in Main St.

A4 – Dalrymplep.9

Robert and Gilbert attend school week in 1773. Robert attends dancing classes 1775.

A5 – Tarboltonpp.10,21,89,95

Bachelors’ Club founded by Burns and others on 11 November 1780 in the upper back-room of an alehouse in the Sandgate. The building is now a museum. Inducted into St David’s Lodge No 174 on 4 July 1781.

A6 – Irvinepp.1,12,21,58,142

Sent to learn flax-dressing with the Peacocks in the Glasgow Vennel 1781. Meets Captain Richard Brown, January 1782.

A7 – Mauchlinepp.xxi,xxviii,21,53,58,76,79,96,107,145

Meets Jean Armour, one of the Mauchline Belles, during Race Week 1784. Writes The Jolly Beggars after night in Poosie Nancie’s Inn 1785. Stayed at Johnny Dow’s tavern in 1787. Civil marriage to Jean in Gavin Hamilton’s office in April 1788. They set up their first house in the village.

A8 – Kilmarnockpp.xxv,17,18,21,58,109,152,153

612 copies of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, published by John Wilson’s printing press at the Star Inn Close off King St. on 31 July 1786. Meets William Muir, Tam Samson.

A9 – Girvan

Stayed overnight on way back to Dumfries after first Galloway Tour with Syme 1793.

A10 – Glasgowpp.xxv,57,58

Lodged at the Black Bull Inn in Argyle St. Meets Dr George Grierson. Got an order for 50 books from John Smith, the bookseller. Met up with Captain Richard Brown from Irvine – ‘had one of the happiest occasions of my life’ at the Black Bull. Also stayed at the Saracen’s Head Tavern in the Gallowgate in subsequent visits until 1791. Bought dress material for Jean’s wedding dress from Robert McIndoe, the draper, in Virginia St. in 1788 at a cost of four pounds, six shillings and ninepence! Betty Burns, his daughter by Anna Park married a Glasgow soldier, Private John Thomson, and lived in Pollokshaws in 1814. She is buried there. 40,000 Glaswegians paid a shilling each to the Glasgow Citizen newspaper to put up a statue to Burns. Most of them crowded into George Square on 25 January 1877 to see it unveiled. The Burns Room in the Mitchell Library in Anderston has one of the finest Burns collections in the world, and in 1999, the City of Glasgow bought the original manuscript of Auld Lang Syne for almost 120,000 pounds to add to it.

A11 – Tarbertp.59

The unlikely starting place for his West Highland your in 1787.

A12 – Inveraraypp.59,60,66

An unhappy visit to the Duke of Argyll who was busy.

A13 – Arrocharpp.57,59

Wrote to Ainslie about ‘savage streams, savage mountains and savage inhabitants’.

A14 – Tarbert

Stayed at inn. Wrote a poem on the innkeeper’s daughter.

A15 – Bannachra

‘Fell in with a merry party at a Highland gentleman’s hospitable mansion [Cameron House]… Danced till the ladies left us…’

A16 – Arden

Met Tobias George Smollett, of the famous author’s family.

A17 – Ballochp.61

Thrown from his horse in a race with a ‘breekless’ Highlander.

A18 – Dumbartonpp.52,60,61

Given Freedom of the Burgh.

A19 – Greenockpp.20,57

Supposed visit to see Mary Campbell’s grave and visit Campbell family in the hope of retrieving the Bible given to Highland Mary but was rebuffed by her family.

A20 – Paisleypp.17,28,54,61,89

Meets Alexander Pattison and Dr John Taylor. Visits Taylor family.

A21 – Sarkp.49

Point near Gretna at which Burns crossed the border and returned into Scotland 2 June 1787.

A22 – Annanpp.49,52

‘Overtaken on the way by an old fish of a shoemaker…’.

A23 – Dumfriespp.xxi,xxv,50,52,80,96,101,109,152,153

Given freedon of the burgh on June 4. Burns moved to Wee Vennel (now Bank St) in Nov 1791. 19 May 1793, moves to Mill Brae (now Burn St). Joins Royal Dumfries Volunteers 1795. Mausoleum at St Michael’s Kirkyard built by public subscription in 1819 to a design by T.F. Hunt, restored in 1936 by Herman Cowthraa. The Globe Inn, established c1610, was Burns’s local, (‘for these many years my favourite howff) and still operates as a tavern.

A24 – Dalswintonpp.50, 52,75

Home of Patrick Miller, Burns’s landlord while at Ellisland.

A25 – Lochmabenpp.52,144

Given freedom in 1787 (unauthenticated despite Burns’s letter of 9 Dec 1789). Burns visits Maria Riddell here while at Brow in 1796.

A26 – Moffatpp.xxi,52,134

Jean Lorimer of the ‘lint-white locks’ lived at Craigieburn. Burns wrote many songs on her as Chloris. James Clarke, the schoolmaster was a friend.

A27 – Sanquharpp.52,91,96

Posted Ae Fond Kiss to ‘Clarinda’ 27 Dec 1791.

A28 – Thornhillp.53

Passed through on 1787 tour.

A29 – Partonp.122

Passed through on 1793 tour with John Syme.

A30 – Airdsp.122

Passed through on 1793 tour.

A31 – Kenmurep.122

Stays at Kenmure Castle with Mr and Mrs John Gordon. Writes ode on dog.

A32 – Gatehouse of Fleetp.132

Ruins good riding boots in 1793. Gets drunk with Syme at the Murray Arms Hotel in 1793. Passes through again Jun 1795.

A33 – Kirkudbrightp.52

Meets Lord Selkirk who takes Burns’s riding boots for mending by coach to Dumfries. Meets Pietro Urbani.

A34 – St Mary’s Islep.122

Composes ‘Selkirk Grace’ Extempor.

A35 – Wigtown

Passed through on return from first Galloway tour 1793.

A36 – Daljarrock

Ditto

A37 – Lauriston

Ditto

A38 – Castle Douglasp.133

All alone in the Calilnwark Inn, he drinks port and writes letters by candlelight.

A39 – Newton Stewart

Passed through on second Galloway tour Jun 1795.

A40 – Kiroughtreep.133

Visits Patrick Heron and his brother, Major Basil Heron.

A41 – Portpatrickp.134

Visits John Gillespie on behalf of Jean Lorimer.

A42 – Browpp.xxv,142,144

Takes the waters from Brow Well and immerses himself in the Solway Firth during the first 3 weeks of July 1796. Is visited by John Syme.

A43 – Falkirkp.65

Stayed at Cross Keys Inn. 1889 bust of poet now displayed above newsagent’s shop. Visited Carron Iron Works with Nicol. Refused entrance because it was a Sunday.

A44 – Bannockburnpp.65,124

In the Gaelic – ‘the stream of the white knoll’ and the field of Bruce’s victory over King Edward II’s English army on 24 June 1314. Burns saw the hole, or borestone, where Bruce set up his standard and ‘said a prayer for old Caledonia’.

A45 – Stirlingpp.xxv,66,76

Stayed at James Wingate’s Inn (third floor, north-east corner), now the Golden Lion Hotel, King St.Visited Ancient 30 Lodge. Used Glencairn’s stylus to cut verse on window pane.

A46 – Dunblane

Smallest cathedral city in Scotland by the banks of Allan Water.

A47 – Clackmannanp.77

‘Knighted’ by Mrs Bruce of Clackmannan, a descendant of Robert the Bruce. Her after dinner toast was ‘Awa Uncos!’ (Away strangers!) – so they left.

A48 – Alvap.78

‘Storm-steaded at the foot of the Ochel Hills, with Mr Tait of Harvieston and Mr Johnson of Alva.’ Wrote to Mr Cruickshank then dined at Alva House but stayed, according to local tradition, at Courthill House, which at that time was Hume’s Inn. It is also said that he ‘drank ale with Elizabeth ‘Lucky’ Black from Mauchline who kept an ale-house in Alva’.

A49 – Harviestonp.76

Visited Mrs Hamilton and family with Dr Adair for eight days. Sees local sights like Caldron Linn and Rumbling Bridge. Proposed to Margaret Chalmers and was turned down.

A50 – Bo’ness

B1 – Baxter’s Closep.21

Burns’s lodgings with John Richmond in 1786.

B2 – Lady Stair’s Closepp.27,31

Site of Mrs Carfrae’s tenement, now a museum.

B3 – Anchor Closep.23

Lawnmarket, site of William Smellie’s printing works. Crochallan Fencibles met at Dawny Douglas’s tavern.

B4 – High Streetp.23

Creech’s publishing house was in this street. Burns met Henry McKenzie at one of Creech’s salons in 1786.

B5 – Canongatep.27

Kilwinning Lodge No 2. Burns introduced by Dalrymple of Orangefield. Met Patrick Miller, William Nicol and Alexander Cunningham 1786. (Note: Burns Proclaimed ‘Caledonia’s Bard’ by the Grand Lodges of Scotland at St Andrew’s Lodge, 13 January 1787). Robert Ferguson and Nancy McLehose are buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.

B6 – Sciennes Hillp.29

Professor Adam Ferguson’s house where Burns met young Walter Scott, Professor Hugh Blair, Dugald Stewart and Dr Blacklock among others in 1787.

B7 – Theatre Royal

Site at east end of Princes St. Burns given free pass by William Woods, the actor.

B8 – Bell’s Wyndp.31

Site of James Johnson’s engaving works and music printers.

B9 – St Patrick’s Squarep.63

Off Buccleuch Pend. Burns lived in William Nicol’s attic.

B10 – St James’s Squarepp.79,101,110

Moved to William Cruikshank’s attic at No 2 (now 30). Ainslie and Cunningham also lived in this Square.

B11 – Alison Squarep.84

Met Nancy McLehose at home of Miss Erskine Nimmo

B12 – Potterrow

Nancy McLehose’s house was at the back of the General’s Entry.

B13 – White Hart Innp.91

Grassmarket. Burns parted from Nancy on 6 Dec 1791.

B14 – Regent Road

Burns monument erected in 1830. The original statue by John Flaxman is in Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

B15 – Calton Placep.92

Nancy moved to No 14, where she died on 22 Oct 1841.

C1 – Berrywellpp.35,43

Home of the Ainslie family. House still stands on Duns-Sinclair Rd off the main Duns-Berwick highway.

C2 – Dunspp.xxvii,35

Went to church with Rachel. Dr Bowmaker, the minister.

C3 – Coldstreamp.36

‘Went over into England!’ Dines with Mr Foreman.

C4 – Cornhill

‘Glorious River Tweed’. Tea with Mr Brydon.

C5 – Kelsop.36

Visits Roxburgh. Holly bush where James II was killed.

C6 – Jedburghpp.37,52

Breakfast with Mr Fair. Meets Isabella Lindsay.

C7 – Wauchope

Breakfast with Dr Elliott. Sups with Mr Potts.

C8 – Stodrigp.39

‘A devlish wet day with Sir Alexr Don and Lady D.

C9 – Melrosep.39

Visits Dryburgh – ‘a fine, old ruined abbey’.

C10 – Selkirkp.39

Snubbed by Dr Clarkson in Veitch’s Forest Inn.

C11 – Innerleithenp.39

‘A famous Spaw in the vicinity of Traquair’.

C12 – Traquairp.39

Dined and drank some Galloway-whey at Piccadilly Inn.

C13 – Caddenfoot

Drank tea at Pirn with Mr Horseburgh.

C14 – Galashielsp.39

‘Breakfasted today with Mr Ballantine of Hollowlee’.

C15 – Earlston

Saw the ruins of Thomas the Rhymer’s castle.

C16 – Gordon

Passes through.

C17 – Greenlaw

Passes through.

C18 – Berwickp.41

Meets Lord Errol walking round the walls of Berwick Castle. Dines with Mr Clunzie.

C19 – Eyemouthp.41

Made a Royal Arch Mason of St Ebbs Lodge with Bob Ainslie.

C20 – Coldingham Abbeyp.42

‘My Bardship’s heart got a brush from Miss Betsy ‘.

C21 – Peasebridgep.42

Talks of love all evening to Nancy Sherriff – hard to get rid of her.

C22 – Dunglassp.43

Invited to dine but had to refuse. Ill in the night at Mr Hood’s.

C23 – Skaterawp.43

Breakfast with Mr Lee - ‘a farmer of great note’.

C24 – Woolerp.44

Burns and Gilbert Ker dine with Thomas Hood.

C25 – Alnwickp.44

Mr Wilkin shows them round Alnwick Castle.

C26 – Warkworthp.44

‘Spot the seat of an old monastry’.

C27 – Morpethp.44

‘A pleasant little town’.

C28 – Newcastlepp.xxv,45,152

Meets Mr Chattox – ‘a Scotchman who …dines and sups with us’.

C29 – Hexhamp.46

Rode over fine country to breakfast.

C30 – Wardruep.46

The celebrated Spa – ‘where we slept’.

C31 – Longtownpp.46,49

‘Uncommonly happy to see so many young folks enjoying life’.

C32 – Carlislepp.46,152

Dines with Mr Mitchell. Stays at Malt Shovel Inn. Fined for allowing horse to graze on unlawul grass.

D1 – Dunbarp.42,43

Called on Miss Clark – ‘guid enough but no brent new’.

D2 – Corstorphinep.65

Formerly the Cross of Torphine with 15th-century church.

D3 – Kirklistonp.65

Norman church containing Lady Stair’s vault.

D4 – Winsburg

Now called Winchburgh.

D5 – Linlithgowpp.52,61,65,76

‘What a poor, pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship stuck in a place of old Popish grandeur…’ Given Freedom of Burgh. (Unauthenticated – See Burns Chronicle 1944, p37).

D6 – Comrie

Passes through on Highland tour with Nicol.

D7 – Arbruchillp.66

‘A cold reception …’.

D8 – Crieffp.66

‘Sup at Crieff’.

D9 – Kenmore

‘Landlord and landlady remarkable characters.’ Wrote lines on chimney-piece. Meets Hon Charles Townsend at Taymouth.

D10 – Dunkeldp.66

Sees Druid’s Temple – three circles of stones. ‘Say prayers in it’.

D11 – Inver

‘Sup with Dr Stewart’.

D12 – Aberfeldyp.66

Meets Neil Gow – ‘visit his house’. Talk all day about Scottish songs. Dragged away by Nicol.

D13 – Killiecrankie

(Called ‘Gilliecrankie’). Sees ‘gallant Lord Dundee’s stone’.

D14 – Blair Athollp.67

‘Sup with the Duchess – confirmed in my good opinion of my friend, Walker [Josiah]… visit the scenes around Blair in company with Sir William Murray of Ochtertyre… pause at Falls of Bruar’.

D15 – Dalwhinnie

‘Snow on the hills 17 feet deep.’ Writes A Highland Welcome.

D16 – Pitmain

Now Kingussie, Burns called it ‘Pitnim’. Sees Ruthven Castle.

D17 – Aviemorep.68

‘A wild romantic spot.’ Meets Sir James Grant of Grant.

D18 – Dulsiep.68

‘Come through mist and darkness to lie’.

D19 – Kilravockp.69

‘Down by the Finhorn to Cawdor… saw the bed in which King Duncan was stabbed. Dined with Mrs Elizabeth Rose’.

D20 – Invernesspp.69,152

Stayed at Ettles Hotel. Dined at Kingsmills House. ‘Come over Culloden Muir. Reflections on the field of battle’.

D21 – Nairnp.69

‘Fall in with a pleasant enough gentleman, Dr Stewart.’

D22 – Brodiep.69

‘To Brodie House to lie – Mr Brodie, truly polite…’.

D23 – Forresp.69

Sees muir where Shakespeare lays witches’ meeting.

D24 – Elginp.69

Sees ‘venerable ruins of Elgin Abbey’.

D25 – Fochabersp.69

Dined with Duke and Duchess of Gordon – ‘the Duke makes me happier than ever great man did… the Duchess charming, witty and sensible’ – but Nicol spoils the party.

D26 – Cullenp.70

‘Come to Cullen to lie’.

D27 – Banffp.71

Sees Duff House. Meets Dr Chapman and George Imlach.

D28 – Old Deer

‘Come thro’ Buchan to Old Dear to lie’.

D29 – Peterhead

‘Come along the shore by the famous Bullers of Buchan…’

D30 – Ellon

Passed Ellon House, seat of George Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen – ‘entrance denied everybody owing to the jealousy of three score over a kept wench.’ [The old Earl had a young English mistress.]

D31 – Old Aberdeen

Passed through.

D32 – Aberdeenpp.xxv,72,152

‘A lazy town.’ Stayed at New Inn on Castle St. Meets Professor Gordon and Bishop John Skinner, son of the composer of Tullochgorum – ‘the best Scotch Song that Scotland ever saw’.

D33 – Stonehavenp.73

A family reunion with the Burnes family. Lie at Laurencekirk.

D34 – Montrosepp.xxv,73

Visited cousin James Burnes, a ‘writer’ (solicitor) in the town.

D35 – Arbroathp.74

Landed here after sailing along ‘wild, rocky coast’ in a fishing boat. Met Nicol who preferred to go on by coach.

D36 – Dundeep.74

‘Low-lying but pleasant town.’ Sees Broughty Castle.

D37 – Perthpp.xxv,74

Visits ‘Scoon’ (Scone Palace) and Castle Gowrie.

D38 – Kinrossp.74

‘Come to Kinross to lie… a fit of the colic…’.

D39 – Ochtertyrep.78

One of the two Ochtertyres. This one, in Kincardine near Stirling, was home of Sir John Ramsay who tried to turn Burns towards drama.

D40 – Ochtertyrep.75

This other Ochtertyre in Strathearn near Crief. At the first was John Ramsay and at the second, Sir William Murray, a cousin of Graham of Fintry. Burns visited both, and while with Sir William met Euphemia Murray for whom he wrote a song – Blythe Was She.

D41 – Dunfermlinep.77

Visited ruined Abbey and Church. Burns went into the pulpit while Adair mounted the cutty stool. Burns recreated the harangue he received from Rev Daddy Auld at Mauchline when Burns was one of seven receiving the rebuke that Sunday.

D42 – North Queensferryp.74

Another tradition was that John Morrison rowed Burns and Adair across the Forth to Leith, but there is no substantiation of this. What is true is that his formal tours finished here at Queensferry.

Preface

You have doubtless, Sir, heard my story, heard it it with all its exaggerations; but as my actions, & my motives for action, are peculiarly like myself, & that is peculiarly like nobody else, I shall just beg a leisuremoment & a spare-tear of you, until I tell my own story my own way…

In this letter to John Arnot, written in 1785, the year before his jump to fame, Burns is as honest with himself as he is with his correspondent, and I can think of no better way to open this book on his journeys. He goes on –

I have been all my life, Sir, one of the rueful-looking, long-visaged sons of Disappointment – A damned Star has always kept my zenith, & shed its baleful influence, in that emphatic curse of the prophet – ‘And behold, whatsoever he doeth, it shall not prosper!’ I rarely hit where I aim; & if I want anything, I am almost sure never to find it where I seek it. For instance, if my pen-knife is needed, I pull out twenty things – a plough-wedge, a horse-nail, an old letter or a tattered rhyme, in short, every thing but my pen-knife; & that at last, after a painful, fruitless search, will be found in the unsuspected corner of an unsuspected pocket, as if on purpose thrust out of the way…

The letter continues in the same vein, but it is enough to let us see a disarming, self-deprecating, charming young man as human as the rest of us but who had that certain something even then that lifts some of us ‘abune the lave’. No doubt he signed his letter, Robert Burnes, the name he was born with but not the name the world knows. Yet it was as such that he knew himself then, at the start of his public life – Robert Burnes.

The name is said to derive from a stream called the Burnhouse in Argyll where Walter Campbell, an ancestor of the family, was born. He is said to have changed his name from Campbell to Burnhouse in a period of political disaffection when he took his family to safety in the North-East of Scotland. In time the surname was corrupted to Burness, and then to Burnes, and finally to Burns by the poet himself in 1786.

Robert Burns was born at Alloway (A1) in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 25 January 1759, the first son of William Burnes (1721–84), a market-gardener from the Mearns in the North-East of Scotland, and Agnes Broun or Brown (1732–1820), who came from Craigenton, Maybole, in the coastal South-West. The infant was christened next day in the Presbyterian religion of his father by the Reverend William Dalrymple of Ayr and named after his grandfather, Robert Burnes, a tenant-farmer from Clochnahill, near Dunotter in Kincardineshire, who had married Isobel Keith of Criggie in Dunotter. This Robert Burnes was the son of James Burnes (1656–1743) who was the son of Walter Burness (d.1670), the tenant of ‘sixty acres of Scotch measure’ at Brawlinmoor in the parish of Glenbervie.

On his mother’s side, the Browns were a widespread and popular family in Ayrshire and their name had a Norman root, de Brun. Agnes Broun, daughter of Gilbert Broun, a tenant-farmer, had already been betrothed to a ploughman, William Nelson, when she met William Burnes at the Maybole Fair in 1756. She preferred the second William and they were married on 15 December in the following year.

It must be remembered that for much of his boyhood, his father and his brother were the only companions the boy Burns had. This explains much of the later Burns – the gravity that underlay the gaiety, the fits of melancholy that fell about him like a shroud from time to time, the seriousness of his social stand. All these things were part of the paternal legacy and the influence of a remarkable father on an extraordinary son. Similarly, Burns’s recklessness, some would say fecklessness and apparent instability of character, were more often than not a deliberate challenge to the conventions of his time and erupting symptoms of the frustration he must have felt at having been born to a station that denied him the opportunities to realise his talents to the full. That he did what he did in the time he was given was astonishing enough, and we should be grateful for it.

We shall see that Burns needed to be in love almost as much as he needed to write poems and songs about love. There were more than three hundred songs in his output, more than half of which were about women. A great misconception, if that is the right word, about Burns is his sex-drive. My dear old mother – God rest her – who was a highly intelligent but not widely-read (if one exempts Catherine Cookson) Glasgow housewife of Irish stock, could not stand Rabbie Burns, as she called him. ‘A right dirty auld man’ was her summing up of the poet. She had only heard all the half-truths about him and I doubt if she ever read a word he wrote. This was not her fault. She had never been encouraged to read Burns, even though my father – God rest him too – was what was called a ‘Burns man’. You see, not so long ago, Burns was thought to be the preserve of men only, and Protestant men at that, and further, Masonic Protestant men. He was denied to so many Scots and yet he is considered Scotland’s national poet.

My mother’s ‘dirty auld man’ never got to be old and he certainly wasn’t ‘dirty’ in his relationships with, or attitudes to, the women in his life. There was nothing furtive or salacious or mean in any of his actions, and even when he was cruel to his future wife in a rare act of brutish assault, he told the world all about it in a letter to a friend – who told the world!

The man who was Burns never lost an element of boyishness in his relations with women. The Tarbolton bachelor was an innocent, and even the Edinburgh roué was as much a victim as any of his supposed conquests. Like any poet, he protested rather too much where women were concerned and very often they were no more than a pretext for a lyric. Women would never had liked him as much as they did had he not liked them. He honoured women and their sex, and he proved it by publicly trumpeting his every liaison in charming lines which have become as much part of Scotland’s literary heritage as they are of his own posterity. Burns marked his loves by enshrining them in matchless songs, and by so doing, he made his heroines as immortal as himself.

In this context, much has been made – too much perhaps – of his illegitimate children. There were five at most – one in Mauchline (A7), two in Edinburgh, one in Dumfries (A23) and perhaps one in Moffat (A26); and this in an age when any gentleman could have as many children as he liked outside marriage as long as he paid the required amount to buy the mother off or took in the child. Burns did both in the instances where he was involved except in the case of the two Edinburgh serving girls who dealt with him via a writ – in meditatione fugae – although never in any sense was he ‘running away’. He had gone back to Jean Armour as he always knew he would. He never considered the two sets of twins he had by Jean before their marriage as anything other than legal offspring. Within the eight years of their marriage they had another five children, and of the total of nine only three boys survived into old and very respectable age.

In all this discussion of Burns and his sex life, there are two facts that should not be ignored. The first is that Burns did not transgress until his father was dead, and when he did (with Bess Paton, a serving-girl at Mossgiel), he celebrated the event in 1785 by writing the first ever lines addressed to the result of that love act – the bastard wean. It says as much for his sense of fitness and proportion as for his new pride in fatherhood. He took care of the little Elizabeth for the rest of her life, and it is not a little ironic that a recent peer of the realm (Lord Weir) took equal pride in claiming descent from this Burns by-blow. Burns was his own best answer to his critics, as in his Address to the Unco Guid:

Before ye gie poor Frailty names,

Suppose a change o’ places?

A weel-loved lad, convenience snug,

A treacherous inclination,

Well, let me whisper in your lug,

You’re aiblins nae temptation!

Then gently scan your brother man,

Still gentler sister woman.

Tho’ they may gang a-kennin wrang,

To step aside is human.

One point must still be greatly dark,

The moving why they do it?

And just as lamely can ye mark

How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, ’tis He alone

Decidedly can try us.

He knows each chord its various tone

Each spring its various bias,

Then at the balance, let’s be mute,

We never can adjust it.

What’s done we partly may compute,

We know not what’s resisted…

Burns knew only too well what was resisted – even though my mother would never believe it. Dr Bill Murray makes a very good point in his study of the poet as liberationist. He is of the opinion that Burns speaks best for women when he speaks as a woman in his lyrics. Burns represents their feelings in the situation described and never better, as Dr Murray declares, than in that hymn to the married state, John Anderson, my jo, which many, like the good doctor, consider the greatest of all his love-songs. Burns believed in marriage and every line of the song shows it.

John Anderson, my jo, John,

When we were first acquent,

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bony brow was brent;

But now your brow is beld, John,

Your locks are like the snaw;

But blessings on your frosty pow,

John Anderson, my Jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill the gither,

And monie a cantie day, John,

We’ve had wi’ ane anither;

Now we maun totter down, John,

And hand in hand we’ll go;

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson, my Jo.

If Robert Burns had been born to the roll of a thunderstorm then it might be said his brief life was lit by flashes of lightning. The first occurred when he discovered books, the next when he discovered women, and the third – and most important – was when he discovered that he could write. This was the spark that lit the flame that set alight all he would ever want to do in his life. From the time he wore ‘the only tied hair in the parish’ and wrapped his fillemot plaid about his shoulders in his distinctive way, he was rehearsing for his role as a player on a larger stage than that offered by Mauchline belles and Tarbolton bachelors. Every spoken word so carefully considered, every written line even more carefully contrived in his youthful excesses away from the grinding farm, was a bullet in the armoury he devised to bring down the walls of prejudice and custom that kept him and his fellow-peasants immured in their humble station.

Given his imaginative calibre, there was little need for him to travel even to the extent that he did in his five Scottish tours. He could have roamed quite easily through the continent of his own mind and found stimulation enough there, but it did him no harm to move out of his circle even if he was not always easily accepted in the other circles that widened out to him. That he was confident enough to move out at all says something for him. In his class there were people who lived out long lives without moving a mile from where they were born. They saw no need, and followed the pattern of their simple lives just as their ancestors had done. In a way, this is an enviable acceptance of fate, but Burns knew early that a static, earth-rivetting existence was not for him. He was curious about the world and about men and their ways, and he set himself to find out about them. There was also something – some devil – driving him on. Basically, it might only have been a profound discontent. He thought his talents deserved better than a cotter’s lot. And he was right.