RBWF Burns Chronicle 1979
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Robert BurnsLimited World Federation Limited www.rbwf.org.uk 1979 The digital conversion of this Burns Chronicle was sponsored by RBWF Past President Mike Duguid for son Gareth The digital conversion service was provided by DDSR Document Scanning by permission of the Robert Burns World Federation Limited to whom all Copyright title belongs. www.DDSR.com BURNS CHRONICLE 1979 BURNS CHRONICLE AND CLUB DIRECTORY INSTITUTED 1891 FOURTH SERIES: VOLUME IV --····----------------------------- CONTENTS From the Editor 4 The New President 6 Just Making Things Verse? Aileen Nimmo 8 A Greeting T. G. II 9 Burns's Contemporaries Harold Hampson 10 The Bard now standing on Platform One ... The Editor 16 The Funeral of Robert Burns William Grierson 18 The Songs of Robert Burns Serge Hovey 19 Personality Parade 24 Russian Writers meet 'Robert Burns' 28 Burnsians in Moscow, 1978 29 Torrance Golden Jubilee Fred. C. Jordan 30 Organising a Burns Supper J. F. T. Thomson 31 Winning Pupils 33 Highland Mary's Bibles J. L. Hempstead 34 A Tribute to Neil Campbell Peter Shaw 38 Burns's Pistols sold in South Africa The Editor 40 Fred Belford, an Honorary Life Member 42 Burns and Kilmarnock 43 Robert Burns Festival, 1977 44 Robert Burns Festival, 1978 Judith A. Sleigh 46 Robert Burns Garden inaugurated at Largs 50 Satire and Humour in the Poetry of Burns Evgenya A. Makarova 51 A Man's a Man? James C. Goudie 62 To Every Man Robert Davies 63 Obituaries 64 The Motherwell Conference, 1977 70 Book Reviews 72 The Makars Alex MacMillan 79 Burns Federation Centenary 80 Robert Burns-What Ailed Him? R. S. Gilchrist 81 A Canadian Tour 84 Around the Clubs 85 Burns Federation Office-bearers 90 Club Notes 101 Numerical List of Clubs on the Roll 162 Alphabetical List of Clubs on the Roll 193 The title photograph is from the Nasmyth portrait of Burns and is reproduced by courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. · Published by the Burns Federation, Kilmarnock. Printed by Wm Hodge & Co Ltd, Glasgow ISSSN 0307 8957 FROM THE EDITOR QDDLY enough, it was a photograph of a typical street scene in Yokohama that set me musing on one of the perennial controversies that beset us as a nation. It was a view of a gigantic hoarding advertising Cutty Sark whisky, which was sent to me by our good friend Toshio Namba. On the reverse he had captioned the photograph, 'Big Display-Pillar of Scots "Cutty-Sark" whisky by the city of Yokohama, therefore "Scots" is very familiar to us. It sells very well in our country.' This was the first time that I had ever heard our national tipple described as 'Scots', and this set me thinking of the extent to which this adjective had succeeded in ousting the more homely word 'Scotch'. One of my earliest and most painful recollections of my school-days in Glasgow was being rapped soundly over the knuckles by the teacher for using the word 'Scotch'. 'The-word-is-SCOTS,' she literally drummed into me. Then, after a pause to recover her breath, she went on, 'Scotch is applied only to woollens and whisky-never anything else'. Since then, if I hear anyone use the dreaded word 'Scotch' I wince-not because the sound jars but because, like Pavlov's dogs, I have been conditioned to feel a sharp pain on the knuckles! Th.is form of brainwashing has a lot to answer for. It is clear, from a perusal of the writing of Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, that 'Scotch' was perfectly acceptable in the written language of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today the picture is quite different and the terms 'Scottish' and 'Scots' are em ployed instead. When it comes to the spoken word, however, 'Scotch' seems to me to be as common as ever it was. It is something of a puzzle when and why 'Scotch' should have been considered outre in written language. If you look at newspapers of the late nineteenth century you will see that all three terms were used more or less haphazardly, but there was a movement on foot by that time to extirpate 'Scotch'. Matters came to a head in the correspondence columns of The Glasgow Herald in the early 1890s, when a series of very able scholars of the period proved that 'Scotch' was the correct and natural abbreviation of 'Scottish' or 'Scottis', just as 'French' had evolved out of 'Frankish' and 'Dutch' out of 'Deutisch' or 'Teutisc'. It seems, however, that they were fighting a losing battle against the upsurge of Scottish gentility which had decreed that 'Scots' was U and 'Scotch' was definitely non-U. David MacRitchie, a notable scholar and Editor of the literary review Scotia, fought a brilliant rearguard action on behalf of 'Scotch', in the pages of The Scotsman and The Saturday Review at the turn of the century, but to no avail. In 1907 the Editorial Committee of 4 Scotia ganged up on hlm and forced him to abide by their decision that in official utterances the adjectives 'Scottish' and 'Scots' would be used, but never the adjective 'Scotch'. This decision was subsequently endorsed by educational bodies, with the result that 'Scotch' is never seen in print anywhere in Scotland today-unless it refers to the aforementioned consumer goods, and we talk of Scots law and Scottish nationalism inste2.d. That douce auld word 'Scotch', ironically, is more common abroad. In exile it has taken on some meanings Burns would never have intended. My dictionary (whlch is, admittedly, American) gives as a meaning for 'Scotch' inclined to frugality. 'Scotch' has even become a noun and denotes that potent amber fluid with which Americans flavour their ice-cubes; and what we call sello tape (using a brand name) our Trans-Atlantic cousins refer to as Scotch-tape (using another). Though the French have a perfectly good adjective ecossais to denote anything Scots, they now seem to prefer 'Scotch' to denote tartan-which is doubly ironic, since we borrowed the word tiretaine from them in the first place. Better folk than I have expressed their doubts in recent years concerning the usage of 'Scottish' and 'Scots' instead of 'Scotch'. J. K. Galbraith has written, ' ... we referred to ourselves as Scotch and not Scots. When, years later, I learned that the usage was different, it seemed to me rather an affectation.' And Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, is on record as saying, 'I'm pure Scotch ... the correct term is Scottish, but that sounds so pompous.' Thus emboldened I am often minded to start an Action-group for the Rehabilitation of Scotch in English, but on sober reflection I just don't see it getting off the ground. On a more serious note, may I turn to the vexed question of Club Reports. Last year we printed 171 reports-an all-time record, but representing merely half of the clubs affiliated to the Federation. At the risk of becoming repetitious, I intend to keep on about this until we achieve a hundred per cent coverage. Actually, it should have been 172 reports and for the omission of one I must take the entire blame. Club reports come to me in a variety of shapes and guises and they vary considerably, both in literary merit and in legibility. Last year I retyped every report with one notable exception. That was the report submitted by Mrs. Janet Grant of the Canterbury Burns Club, which was an absolute model beautifully typed, grammatically sound, clear and concise, presenting a vivid picture of the full and varied programme of what must surely be one of the most active Burns Clubs anywhere in the world. It was so good that I laid it on one side while retyping the others-and when I'd got to the end I had completely forgotten about it. With the tragic result that the guid folks of Canterbury, New Zealand were completely omitted from the 1978 Chronicle. By way of making amends I have combined the report on the current season with last year's, since the Chronicle, after all, is primarily a record of what has happened. To Mrs. Grant and the members of the Canterbury Burns Club my most abject and humble apologies. 11 NEWALL TERRACE, JAMES A. MACKAY DUMFRIES, DGl lLN. 5 6 THE NEW PRESIDENT Albert W. Finlayson 1978-79 ALBERT W-- FINLAYSON: no one knows what the 'W' stands for but , I that matters not a jot regarding our new President. By profession Albert Finlayson was a schoolmaster-different from a teacher-and it must have been a delight to work with him and to have him guide the education and interests of his bairns. Albert is Peter Pan. Retired now for several years he has many civic and pro fessional interests to keep him busy. Not the least of these concerns his work with the Federation where he has been a hard worker and willing leader at club, district and Executive level. After his amusing and successful partnership with his fellow 'fall-guy', Fred Belford, in the Schools Competitions, he now assumes the highest office in the Federation. Albert Finlayson never quarrels, fights or skirmishes, he doesn't need to: his constant good humour and cherubic appearance exude fellowship, friendship and worldly wisdom. It is fitting that he should thus be thanked and honoured for his love of the Burns Federation and we look gleefully to a year of fun and humour for that is how Albert will organise us, the while ruling the Federation with an expert touch. Albert W. Finlayson was born in Muthill, three miles from Crieff in Perthshire, in 1904.