BURNS NIGHT SUPPER
Friday 24th January at 19.00 | Pall Mall Room | £95.00 per person
The Rag events programme will roar back to life in the New Year with Burns Night. The great man’s birthday falls on a Saturday next year. So this can be the centrepiece of a weekend in town with the comforts of the club to hand.
Be assured, amid much haggis with (of course) neeps and tatties, and plenty of whisky, all the usual traditions of Burns Night will be present; the Selkirk Grace, toasts to lassies and laddies, a glass of the “water of life” raised to the immortal memory of who is the centre of attention, a finale of Auld Lang’s Syne. In addition, as the club has managed in recent years, prepare for a few surprises to give this mainstay of the calendar a unique quality as well as traditions and usual ceremony.
Foremost, put your best foot forward for 2025 and join this early high point of a new year.
ROBERT BURNS | 1759 – 1796
Robert Burns was born in Alloway, Scotland on January 25, 1759. His father, a tenant farmer, died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Burns and his brother Gilbert took over the farm. This hard labour later contributed to the heart trouble that Burns suffered as an adult. At the age of fifteen, Burns fell in love, and shortly thereafter, he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. Between 1784 and 1785, Burns wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great “peasant-poet.”
In 1788, Burns and his wife, Jean Armour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. Burns spent the final 12 years of his life editing and imitating traditional folk songs for this volume and for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. These volumes were essential in preserving parts of Scotland’s cultural heritage and include such well-known songs as “My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose” and “Auld Land Syne.”
Members wishing to stay at the Club are advised to book in advance to avoid disappointment. For accommodation bookings please click the link below or email [email protected]
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