1759 was a good year.

On 25th January in Alloway, on the West Coast of Scotland, Robert, the first child of William Burness and his wife Agnes Broun, arrived in the world. Little did this farming couple know of the enduring place their son would hold in the hearts of Scots everywhere. For young Robert would come to be known all over the world as ‘Rabbie’ Burns, poet, and Scotland’s darling.

Robert Burns By Alexander Nasmyth 1787

William Burness was an enlightened man as far as education was concerned. He paid John Murdoch to teach his first two sons and they learnt French, Grammar and Mathematics. When John left, the self taught farmer took on the tutoring of his children himself, teaching them philosophy, politics, the Bible and theology. Robert also briefly attended the Dalrymple School in 1772. He excelled in his studies.
The family moved twice during Robert’s childhood: in 1766 to Mount Olifant Farm near Ayr, where the family lived in poverty and very harsh conditions, and in 1777 to Lochlea to take on a property near Tarbolton. This the family held until William’s death in 1784.

In 1780 Robert and his brother, Gilbert, set up a debating association called The Bachelor’s Club. Situated in a thatched house in Tarbolton, the building is now open to the public and owned by The National Trust in Scotland.

Robert became a Freemason in 1781 and learnt the craft of Flax Dressing.

It was through his writing that Robert became famous. Years of harsh conditions and overwork on the farm had given him a weak constitution and a pronounced stoop but did not stop him falling in love with various women, some of whom presented him with illegitimate children. His reputation for dissolution caused much controversy amongst the church elders of Tarbolton. Several lovers became the inspiration for his works.

In 1774 he fell in love with his harvest partner, Nellie Kilpatrick (1759-1820). O, Once I Lov’d A Bonnie Lass was written when he was just fifteen years old.

Peggy Thomson (b.1762), whom he met in 1775, was the inspiration behind the songs Now Westlin’ Winds and I Dream’d I Lay.

‘Highland’ Mary Campbell (1763-1786), with whom he had an affair during a separation from his wife, Jean Armour, inspired the poems The Highland Lassie, O, Highland Mary and To Mary in Heaven.

In 1786 Robert published Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, now known as The Kilmarnock Edition. This was the catalyst for his fame although it was published more for financial reasons than fame. In 1784 he and Gilbert had taken on the lease of the farm at Mossgiel and all the family had moved there. It was an uphill struggle to keep it going, particularly when, in 1885, Robert had an illegitimate daughter by his mother’s servant, Elizabeth Paton (1760-c.1799) and Jean presented him with twins in 1886. He decided to emigrate to Jamaica with Mary Campbell but this came to nothing when she died suddenly.

Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was a huge success. The book influenced such writers as Walter Scott and led to an invitation to Edinburgh, where an expanded edition of his works was published and society clamoured to meet him. He was an oddity. In an age where poor farmers were not educated, with knowledge of French and Latin, when they did not write poetry, let alone poetry which appealed to the lower ten million not just to the upper ten thousand, Robert became a star attraction. His poetry was that of an ordinary Scotsman and as such, it was unique. It offered an insight into his life and times and he wrote prolifically.

Robert contributed songs to The Scots Musical Museum, published in six parts between 1787 and 1803, and wrote new words to old Scots tunes. These works brought him immortality.

In 1790 Robert wrote Tam o’Shanter, in a mixture of Scots and English, about a drunk and the frightening vision he had on his way home from the pub. He was clearly a writer with wit and a thorough knowledge of local superstitions, not to mention an acquaintance with how it feels to be drunk!
Robert became an excise man in Dumfries, although there were many questions as to his loyalties. In 1792 he is suspected of being ‘A Friend Of The People.’* Robert continued to write though and he contributed to a Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs edited by George Thomson and published in 1793. Soon after this a new collection of Robert’s poems was printed and he moved Jean and his children to a larger home in Mill Vennel, Dumfries. In 1794 he was promoted to Acting Supervisor of the Excise.

Robert caught rheumatic fever in 1795 and he died on 21 July 1796, aged just thirty seven. Jean gave birth to his son, Maxwell, four days later.

Robert’s fame endures. On his birthday, 25 January, Burn’s Night is celebrated by Scots everywhere. This celebration can be a quiet evening reading some of the poet’s finest works or an evening of poetry and fine dining. Haggis is the usual fare; a traditional Scots dish of stuffed sheep’s stomach, over which his Ode to a Haggis is recited. This begins:
‘Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie (cheerful) face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!’

The poet continues for eight verses, during which the haggis is ritually stabbed to reveal the ‘gushing entrails bright.’ Robert says this is ‘… a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin (steaming), rich!’ Scots (and more than a few Englishmen!) agree with him.

Whether you be Scots or a Burns aficionado, I wish everyone a very happy Burns Night with much poetry and, if you are lucky enough to have obtained some, a fair helping of ‘warm-reekin puddin.’

For more information on Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns I recommend the following internet sites, which I have used to write this article,
http://www.robert-burns.eu/Robert-Burns-History.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_o%27_Shanter_%28Burns_poem%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scots_Musical_Museum
http://www.worldburnsclub.com/begin/robert_burns.htm
http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/7/
http://www.contractinteriors.co.uk/ecpb/ToAHaggis.htm

You will find that his life was even more colourful than I have had space to write about!

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