Hiya I'm Bruce Fummey. Every year at thousands of Burn's Suppers in countries all over the world,
people tell the story of Robert Burns.
There must be a lot to say, but I've come his birthplace to condense his life into 10 minutes,
so if you fancy a summary, rather than an in-depth investigation then, this is the video for you. For
people, places and events in Scottish history, hit the subscribe button and ring the notification
bell to find out when I publish new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
I've now come down to Burns' Monument to try and get away from the worst of the traffic. These are
National Trust sites, and if you enjoy historical places of interest, you should definitely
join. I'll leave a link in the description below. Burns was born about 50 years after Scotland
and England were merged in the United Kingdom, and just 13 years after Bonnie Prince Charlie
took a boat over the sea to Skye with Flora MacDonald. It was the age of enlightenment,
agricultural development and Transatlantic Slavery. He was born with the Industrial Revolution,
saw the American Revolution in his twenties and the French Revolution as he hit thirty.
He packed a lot into a short life at a time when the world was changing at breakneck speed.
It was still difficult breaking out of the lower orders, but the Burns family tried.
His dad was a hard-working, motivated, self-starter who built that cottage himself. He then chipped in
with other parents to bring a tutor to the area to educate their kids. The young Robert wasn't
necessarily the best student, but he stood out as an avid reader and eloquent conversationalist.
His family grew, dad moved up and from a gardener he took on a farm at a place called Mount Oliphant
when Rob was seven. Now sometimes when you move into a new area of business, folk take advantage. He was
stuck with a lease and poor ground and Rob, as the oldest boy, took a lot of the work on. Then
there was puberty, l'amour, and a young lass called Nellie Kilpatrick triggered this poetic instinct.
They struggled at Mount Oliphant, but dad managed to scrape together enough to send Rob to Kirkoswald
School for one summer and his only formal education. Then they managed to rent out a
slightly better farm called Lochlie near Tarbolton. Dad needed to borrow capital from the landlord to
stock the farm, but things were improving a bit and Burns continued to improve himself with reading
and in other ways too. At 21, some of the young men at Tarbolton formed a bachelor's club for up to 16
of them to meet discuss and debate. Now a young man, he had to think about making his own way.
They'd been growing flax for the linen trade, so Rab decided to go to Irvine to learn
flax dressing. Irvine was a town with characters, seafarers and all sorts. Burns was in his element
with a mind broadening by the day. He learned flax dressing, but also fell seriously ill,
and then his boss's wife got pissed and burnt the shop down. So back at the farm, and things were even
tougher; pesky American colonialists had started a rebellion which made trade difficult, and then
his dad died and they left Lochlie Farm and a bastard wean behind. That would become a pattern.
This time they were able to stock Mossgeil Farm without borrowing. Now his time at Mossgeil was
some of his most fruitful. He was the head of a household, he wrote what are now some of his
most famous poems describing the beauty in nature, rural life and satirising the pompous. His health
was still poor, but he was healthy enough to make a few trips to the Penitent Stool in the church,
designed for fornicators you know? Aye he fell in love again, with Jean Armour and aye, she got pregnant.
Even then her dad wouldn't let her marry Burns. How bad is your reputation when you get a lassie
pregnant in the 18th Century and her dad says you can't marry her!
Better fall in love with somebody else then eh? Highland Mary was from Argyll. Now
after a wee bit she decided to go and live with relatives for a few months, oh aye!
Here's the old Kirk near Burns's Cottage. The first grave as you enter is Robert's dad,
William Burness. His aunt used to tell Rob ghost stories about this place, but Rob's life was
turning in a bit of a horror story. He decided to go to work in Jamaica on a slave plantation.
Now Jamaica had a terrible reputation for killing even privileged, healthy whites. Burns was in poor
health, what's more his first year's wages would barely cover the cost of his passage.
Go a deadly tropical island, travel hundreds of miles on a dirt track to get to a plantation
where you'll spend a year paying back your fare! That didn't make sense, and don't get me wrong,
some folks from Ayrshire had made it good and come back to buy large tracts of farmland with
their profits, but the secret was to go out with some social status, manage a plantation, meet a
widow who owned a plantation, the death rate meant that they were normally a ready supply of widows,
deal with the moral repugnancy of slavery, work for a few years to get the plantation ship shape,
then put in an Overseer to manage the business, and come back to Scotland to count the cash.
The problem was he was going to take Mary Campbell. How is that going to work? This
level of desperation suggests that Burns was rushing in a panic towards a Jamaican
graveyard even faster than his most famous character Tam O'Shanter fled this one, and what
about the illegitimate children he was leaving? The only thing he has of value are his poems.
He raised subscription funding and commissioned a Kilmarnock printer to produce a book of his poems
which would be his legacy. Now I've got some good news and some bad news;
the book of poems did really well, folks were delighted with the high-flown thought, the homely
charm and satirical bite, but Mary, possibly along with another child, was lost to Typhoid,
but flush with artistic success, Rab headed off to Edinburgh. When he got there he was feted. He
was celebrated, he was acclaimed as Scotland's National Bard. He decided to stay for a bit.
Oh he fell in love again, several times, and yes there were pregnancies.
As the New Town was being built he was welcomed in sophisticated drawing rooms by folks
that would never look twice at a peasant farmer. He was now a national figure, he was a celebrity,
everyone wanted to meet the ploughman poet. He sold the copyright for his book
and a second publication was planned and he didn't have to go to Jamaica, ho, ho!
In Edinburgh, he planned on a new future here in Scotland
through new connections and with the capital from his copyright, he took on Ellisland farm in
Dumfries, and got a government job as an Excise Man, and then he went on tour through the Borders and
up into the Highlands collecting songs along the way and drawing on his experiences to write his own.
Now he was allowed to marry Jean Armour, and they settled down to the life of farming, tax collecting
and more baby making. He wrote for newspapers, tried his hand as a playwright, wrote four volumes of
Scottish songs and helped set up a library. He played the fiddle as well you know. He was also
a bit of a radical. He sent cannon to help support the French Revolution,
although he also joined a Dad's Army regiment to fight Napoleon on the home front
and waded out to a boat at sea sword in hand to take on a pirate ship. He didn't just write poems.
It was in Dumfries that he did write a poem about a drunken Ayrshire farmer, who on his way
home one night stopped off at that churchyard. On that night there were witches and warlocks dancing and
cavorting with Satan himself. When they discovered their voyeur Tam O'Shanter, they chased him from the
kirkyard all the way here to this bridge. Now thankfully witches can't cross running water,
so when Tam reached this point he escaped death, but Burns couldn't escape death, indeed it came far
too early. On the 21st of July 1796 at the age of 36, Robert Burns died in Dumfries.
There's a monument to him there, there's one here and many across the world.
The greater memorial is that people 250 years later still read and recite his poetry.
There's so much more to tell, but in the 10 minutes that we've had, I hope I've whetted your
appetite. If you'd like, I've got an hour-long comedy show about the poem Tam O'Shanter you can buy
it you know right? It's only a fiver, but there is smut. I'll leave a link in the description below.
Incidentally, as Burns was living out his life, Flora MacDonald was also living out hers.
If you want to know what happened to her after Bonnie Prince Charlie, then click
the link here. In the meantime tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.
you