Burns Day.

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the poet, Robert Burns. This is the day when haggis, tatties and neeps are eaten, Whiskey is drunk and kilts are worn, even by those without a drop of scottish blood in their veins. For the first time in many years Silverton will not be having a formal Burns night celebration. Hopefully, the tradition that became established in the village over a number of years will be revived in the future.

What Burns, born into a poor farming family in Alloway, South Ayrshire, would have made of the multi million pound industry that now surrounds his name its hard to imagine. Burns, like many people of genius, was a contradictory figure who railed in his poems, against those Scottish aristocrats who had sold Scotland into union with England in 1707, as well as injustice, slavery and superstition , but was quite prepared to mix with the literary establishment in Edinburgh and to seek employment as a British government excise man in Jamaica towards the end of his short life. He spoke up for the rights of women, but many of his personal relations with women would now be regarded as exploitative by many.

All that being said, I hope that many of those who will be celebrating the life of Burns today, wherever they may be, will at least take the trouble to read some of Burns poetry, difficult as I know 'The broad scots tongue' can be for english readers. Burns was an acute observer of his world and the human condition and is a literary figure well worth celebrating.