Tag: Dumbarton Burns Club

bookmark_borderWhat's for dinner?

Posted on

Tonight is the night then. Get your haggis in the oven, mash those neeps and tatties, open your best whisky and enjoy the company.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea’es us,
An ev’n devotion!

To a louse – Robert Burns

Not sure what I’m blethering on aboot?

Thought: Is this the closest Scotland will get to rivalling the impact of St.Patrick’s Day?

My Dad is currently president of the Dumbarton Burns Club* and also sings and recites at many a supper at this time of year. I think last year he attended … well.. more than 8… I think (Dad, feel free to clarify here!). I’ve yet to fully embrace our national bard but it’s only a matter of time. Mind you I used to be able to sing a few of his songs by heart so there is some hope for me yet.

UPDATE: Just got an email from Mum who says: “Dad is off to Dumfries to sing at Burns’ s old pub and to sleep in Burns’s old house -the very bed no doubt. He’s quietly chuffed and spent last night pacing the floor trying desperately to look casual and as if it was an every day occurence …”

* He also created the website and his mugshot is somewhere on the site as well.

bookmark_borderWhaes like us?

Posted on

Burns Night tonight.

My Dad is the President of Dumbarton’s Burns Club (Association?). This year he has already sang at two Burns suppers, and has another eight to attend. Tomorrow night he travels to Dumfries to the Howff Club, which was formed in 1889.

He told me a story this evening about the Globe Inn (where the club resides). About 40 years ago, the local window cleaner handed in his bill as usual, the owner decided to check it and noticed he was being charged to clean 24 windows. The owner was sure there were only 22, so he recounted them (from the inside) and confronted the window cleaner. The window cleaner was certain he cleaned 24 windows and took the owner outside to prove it. Only then did they realise there was a hidden room to one side of the Inn. It is presumed it was built as an illicit drinking den, as the entrance to the room was from the building on the farside of the Inn.

My knowledge of Robert Burns is not extensive, I can remember singing some songs in the school choir, reciting a few poems in primary school, reading Tam O’Shanter in English class, and I vividly remember my first Burns Supper. Highly ritualised, and totally hilarious. As with these things I don’t remember the jokes all too well but I do remember the air was a certain shade of blue!

Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat
And sae the Lord be thankit.