Kevin McKenna: Rescuing Burns from the Scottish establishment

“We'll have musicians and an immortal memory by a young person, simply to try to make it appeal to that younger generation. And we're doing away with the Toast to the Lassies and the reply. But a young Burns enthusiast will recite The Rights of Women for the Lassies part, and she’ll also sing The Ploughman which is one of his famous songs that Burns wrote here.

“It’s OK to depart from some of the Burns Supper traditions. I’ve been to suppers where there’s been a Toast to Scotland and a Toast to the Toon and where steak pies were served up. We want to create something that will appeal to children and young people.”

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Ms McAlpine’s main task is to make this farm the primary destination for Robert Burns aficionados and those who are merely curious about the life of Scotland’s most important – and best-loved – cultural and artistic figure. A large part of this will involve introducing him to future generations.

Robert Burns spent three years labouring to make this most unyielding of farms work. He finally quit it as a bad lot in 1791, yet these were three of his most productive years. During this time he created hundreds of songs and poems, including Tam o’ Shanter, his majestic homage to the glory of human folly. All the while, he laboured to find a tune from an unyielding farm while traversing these glens as an exciseman.

It’s also where he’d found the domestic happiness he’d longed for, even while he was being feted in Edinburgh high society at the height of his rock-star fame. This is where he finally made a home and had a family with his beloved Jean Armour. And it’s this measure of contentment “amidst his ain folk” that perhaps inspired the torrent of music and verse that’s enchanted the world ever since.

Down by the river that drew him to this place we retrace Burns’ steps. It was on these daily walks that he began to devise the words and images of Tam o’ Shanter. And over there in the fields beyond the Nith he witnessed the scene which inspired what must be the world’s first anti-blood sports poem. Encountering a hare which had been wounded by a huntsman’s shotgun, he was overcome with outrage and pity. And so he wrote On Seeing a Wounded Hare.

Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,

And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;

May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!

These verses are infused with the humanity for his fellow creatures, both man and beast, which characterised his finest work.

McAlpine said: “Burns was a really radical figure. Yet, much of his radicalism was removed from his memory by Victorian Scotland. It was during this time that he was more or less claimed by the establishment. It’s why Hugh MacDiarmid was absolutely scathing about Burns Suppers. He felt that the real essence of Burns – his values and what he genuinely cared about – had been captured and used by polite society for its own purposes.”

She feels that beyond the romanticism and his reputation as a womaniser who was no stranger to a bacchanal Burns was a man of his time, yet we also need to understand what a radical figure he was.

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“He really valued people for who they were no matter their status in society. He knew poverty himself and he knew people who lived in poverty and he really valued those people. And that's why, I think, people around the world have always saluted him.

“We talk a lot about diversity in heritage and so we want more types of people to be involved in and connected with the work we’re doing at Ellisland Farm. Burns’ strength is that he appeals to people of all social classes and his output in the Scots language means a lot to the people who speak that language.

“Robert Crawford’s great biography of Burns looks at him dispassionately and discusses his faults and weaknesses, but he also explores the compromises that he had to make simply to survive and earn a living for his family. He had to be ‘cute’ about how he framed his political and social views. Crawford discusses Scots Wha Hae, for centuries Scotland’s unofficial anthem.

“This was written at the time of the French Revolution. And although Burns was a patriot with a keen interest in Scotland’s history his words conveyed the main themes of the French Revolution. At that time though, as the great French social conflagration was unfolding you could lose your job, or worse, if you were too overt about supporting it.”

McAlpine represented South Scotland at Holyrood for 10 years and gained a reputation as one of the SNP’s brightest and hardest-working MSPs. After her defeat at the 2021 election she could have taken her pick of lucrative jobs in the corporate sector, the route most favoured by retiring or resting politicians. Instead, she was delighted to take up the more modest post at the Ellisland Farm Trust.

“My passion for Burns began in 1990 when I saw Liz Lochhead’s All Jock Tamson’s Bairns and was transfixed by the music and the wonderful singing of Rod Paterson and the Cauld Blast Orchestra. It was just absolutely wonderful.

“Like so many other Scottish children I’d learned many of Burns’ songs without even knowing that they were written by him. Indeed I suspect that many of us, when we first encountered a song by Robert Burns, might not have been aware that he had written it. They were a part of so many Scottish childhoods and family gatherings.

“At Holyrood, I led a couple of debates after Murray Pittock, the academic and historian approached me. Murray wanted to produce a work on rural farms in the Scottish economy at Glasgow University.

“He felt the country was missing a trick in terms of the kind of ‘soft power’ potential of what Burns could do for Scotland around the world, but also as a way to showcase Scotland’s natural food and drink produce and its tourism benefits.

“Heritage increases the sense of self-regard and community pride of the people who live adjacent to a great national asset. When local people come to know about Burns and all that he stood for, as well as his literary and artistic legacy, it gives them enormous pride. And I think this holds true for the whole of Scotland. The goodwill for Burns around the world is incredible and this is reflected in the growth of Burns Suppers across the world and in the most far-flung corners.”

As a result of that debate, Pittock and Glasgow University were given money by the Scottish Government's economic department to produce some work on Robert Burns in the Scottish economy. Ms McAlpine added: “It could be worth millions to the Scottish economy and we could do so much more if we linked up all of our Burns sites and really marketed it as a national campaign. His work and his ideals resonate around the world and I think we sometimes simply don’t appreciate to what extent.”

She wants to put Ellisland Farm at the centre of this and has already raised more than £700k to improve the buildings, including the main one which was built and designed by Burns himself. Future plans include holiday accommodation and what would surely become the most desirable and inspiring writers’ retreat in Scotland.

The little museum at Ellisland already houses some of Robert Burns’ most sacred and treasured artefacts, including his flute, letters, manuscripts and the large iron stove – still working – used by Jean Armour. Ms McAlpine believes Burns would have been pleased at the idea of his memory inspiring new generations of writers and artists.

“The idea of the ‘heaven-taught ploughman’ who bequeathed us the most beautiful songs and poetry and his ideas of working-class solidarity transfixes so many different peoples and cultures.”