Robert BurnsLimited World Federation Limited www.rbwf.org.uk 1975 The digital conversion of this Burns Chronicle was sponsored by Irvine Lasses Burns Club 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 ROBERT BURNS CHRONICLE 1975 THE BURNS FEDERATION . KILMARNOCK Price 75p-Paper bound: 9Op-Cloth bound: Price to Non-Members 8Op-Paper bound: £l.00-Cloth bound. 'BURNS CHRONICLE' ADVERTISER BURNS CHRONICLE BURNS CHRONICLE AND CLUB DIRECTORY INSTITUTED 1891 PUBLISHED ANNUALLY THIRD SERIES: VOLUME XXIV THE BURNS FEDERATION KILMARNOCK 1975 Published by The Burns Federation Kilmarnock Printed by William Hodge & Company Limited Great Britain LIST OF CONTENTS PAGE Editorial 1 Burns's Clarinda in Jamaica, 1794 by A. M. Kinghorn.. 2 More Recorded Voices by R. Peel.. 14 Robert Tannahill, Bi-centenary Study by Clark Hunter. 18 The Elder Tree, a poem by Kate A. Y. Bone 23 Auld Lang Syne by W. H. Dunlop 24 Postscript to Flax and Flax-Dressing by Bruce P. Lenman 29 Taking Burns to Canada 30 The Rev. James Oliphant by J. L. Hempstead 31 Auguste Angellier. Translation by Jane Burgoyne 35 April, a poem by L. M. Stirling 58 The Editor's Choice, Book Reviews 59 Allan Ramsay, Book Review by R. Peel 65 A Border Poet by R. H. 66 John Gray's Booklet in Demand 67 Mrs. Maggie Coulson by Alex. MacMillan 68 Andrew Stenhouse by W. Page Burgess 69 Regiment Honours Dundonald Burns Club 71 Poems by William Graham, M.A. .. 72 James Currie's Robert Burns by Robert D. Thornton 74 Scottish Literature Competition-1974 105 Art Competition Results, 1974 107 The Burns Federation- (a) List of Honorary Presidents, Office-bearers, Past Presidents, Executive Committees and District Representatives, Sub-committees, Auditors and Associate Members 108 (b) List of Places at which the Annual Conference of the Council has been held 112 (c) List of Districts 113 (d) Minutes of the Annual Conference, 1974, in­ corporating the Hon. Secretary's Report, Financial Statement, Burns Chronicle and Schools Competitions Report 121 (e) Club Reports 138 (f) Numerical List of Clubs on the Roll 189 (g) Alphabetical List of Clubs on the Roll 219 List of Advertisers 222 ILLUSTRAnONS Provost Ernest Robertson, O.D.E., Dumfries, President Burns Federation frontispiece The Late Andrew Stenhouse facing page 1 Tree·Planting Ceremony at Aberdeen facing page 32 Mrs. M. Coulson, Dumfries facing page 33 Robert Tannahill facing page 40 Tannahill's Home in Paisley facing page 41 ·Parade and Upper Part of Kingston' facing page 56 Executive Committee at Coalsnaughton, 1974 facing page 57 EDITORIAL NOTE The Burns Federation does not accept responsibility for statements made or opinions expressed in the Burns Chronicle. Writers are responsible for articles signed by them: the Editor undertakes responsibility for all unsigned matter. Manuscripts for publication should be addressed to the Editor and each must be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope. The Editor cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage. JAMES VEITCH. NEWBIGGING, TWEEDSMUIR, BIGGAR, LANARKSHIRE. Provost ERNEST ROBERTSON, OoBoEo, of Dumfries President, Burns Federation ANDREW STENHOUSE, M.A., LL.B. President, Burns Federation 1960-1961, thereafter Honorary President, and also Honorary President of Glasgow and District Burns Association. (See Obituary for full details of his distinguished career) EDITORIAL This issue of the Burns Chronicle marks the last of the 3rd Series. The 1st was edited by Dr. Duncan McNaught and the 2nd by Mr. James Cameron Ewing. The reason for a new series is that the Scottish Literature Com­ mittee suggested a number of changes, the Executive Committee approved, and the delegates at the recent annual conference agreed without demur. This means that the 1976 Burns Chronicle will contain new features: news letters from overseas correspondents, items of special interest about clubs and societies, humourous anecdotes, photo­ graphs of personalities throughout the Burns Federation, letters to the editor (which are invited now), and so on. Since 1892 articles on Robert Burns and aspects of Scottish Literature have interested only a minority of members; the majority are simply not interested in Bums or Scottish literature. Hence the reason the Burns Chronicle has never enjoyed big sales. Nevertheless, that minority, which to our mind, is vitally import­ ant, will not be deprived of the literary section. In other words the aim is to include material which will prove readable to the majority- even to the use of small paragraphs, short words and larger print! In the present economic climate, this new Burns Chronicle will inevitably cost more to produce and a hundred or two extra copies will not solve anything. If it is to succeed, it will require an all-out effort and response from all members. A BURNS'S 'CLARINDA' IN JAMAICA, 1792 By A. M. KINGHORN Of all countries outwith Scotland, Jamaica is the land which can claim the closest and most direct historical connections with the poet. Burns twice booked passage from Leith to Savannah-la-Mar in order to take up a job as 'book-keeper' on a small coffee plantation called 'Ayr-Mount', near Port Antonio in the north-east corner of the island. 'Ayr-Mount' was owned by Dr. Charles Douglas, whose brother Patrick of Garallen, Ayr, knew Burns and had recommended him as a reliable foreman, which is what a 'book-keeper' really was, like a farm 'grieve' in Scotland.! But Burns never used his passage. Publication of his Kilmarnock volume in December, 1786, settled his immediate future and so emigration was cancelled. Nevertheless, in spite of his decision, Burns has gathered a special kind of immortality in local history on account of his bona fide intentions and the several references to Jamaica in his letters and poems. Less well reported in detail is the visit of the poet's friend Mrs. Agnes MacLehose, who actually did establish her physical presence in Kingston early in 1792. Under the novelettish nom-de-plume of 'Clarinda' she carried on a wordy correspondence with Burns whom she encouraged, for epistolary purposes, to call himself'Sylvander', a pastoral pseudonym suggesting a wood-sprite. Agnes, or 'Nancy' MacLehose, aged 28, the well-connected daughter of a Glasgow surgeon named Andrew Craig, was quite different in character and education from the country girls of Burns's earlier experience. In addition, she was undoubtedly a woman of great physical attrac­ tion; from a silhouette made by Miers in 1788 one may estimate the extent of her endowments in this respect. From Burns's point­ of-view, these were augmented by the lady's cultural interests, for Agnes wrote verses, painted and read widely, accomplishments not often met with in domesticated females of that day and age. NOTES: -Address given at the Burns Supper proceedings, The Caledonian Society of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica, on Saturday, 26th January, 1974. (Text modified and explanatory footnotes added for purposes of publication.) lSee A. M. Kinghorn, 'Robert Burns and Jamaica' (Review of English Literature, vm, 3 (July, 1967», 70-80. This article was reproduced by kind permission of the publishers, Messrs. Longman Green, in The Jamaican Historical Society Bulletin, IV, 14 (June, 1968), 270-8. BURNS'S 'CLARINDA' IN JAMAICA 3 However, her husband, James MacLehose, a Glasgow lawyer whom she married when she was 17, seems to have been unable to appreciate his good fortune. He fathered her three, possibly four, children, but was never a good provider. On the contrary, he was an unreliable and recklessly-extravagant drinking companion for others of his sort, what one might call a bachelor bom, and a mental depressive, given to bursts of elation and fits of black gloom, like many of his contemporaries. Mter four years of cohabitation his wife could stand his tantrums no longer. In 1782 he moved south to London, there to fall into debt, while she left for Edinburgh to start a new life as a 'grass widow' in a Potterrow flat supported by a small annuity on which she had to feed and clothe her children. In 1787, Agnes, separated from her 'man' for seven years, met Robert Bums at a tea-party given by Miss Erskine Nimmo at Alison Square in the Old Town. They started writing to each other immediately. Bums's first recorded epistle is down-to-earth: I can say with truth, Madam, that I never met with a person in my life whom I more anxiously wished to meet again than yourself. Tonight I was to have that great pleasure-I was intoxicated with the idea-but an unlucky fall from a coach has so bruised one of my knees, that I can't stir my leg off the cushion.2 but later he brings himself to utter more passionate sentiments. The burden of 'Clarinda's' letters is high-flown and frequently pretentious; her answer to 'Sylvander's' initial note, penned that same evening, was gushing: Inured as I have been to disappointments, I never felt more, nay, nor half so severely, for one of the same nature! The cruel cause, too, augments my uneasiness. I trust you'll soon recover it. Meantime, if my sympathy, my friendship, can alleviate your pain, be assured you possess them. I am much flattered at being a favourite of yours.3 Though it has never been established that his relationship with Oarinda was other than 'intellectual' or 'spiritual', for the surviving 2J. de Laney Ferguson ed., The Letters of Robert Burns (Oxford 1931 2 vols.), I, 143-4. This was actually his second letter to her, dated four days after their initial encounter. Note that the opening is similar to that of a 1786 letter to Thomas Campbell, Pencloe (Letters, I, 38).