Every year, even before Christmas arrives, I start looking forward to the annual Burns Night supper that I've had the pleasure to attend for nine of the past ten years. (That one year, back when they were still adamant about holding it on January 25th come Hell or high water, it was on a Wednesday and I was in the North Country working and cursing a blue streak about my inability to attend.)
I have a book on my shelf titled, The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. It is leather-bound, very slightly smaller than the length of my outstretched hand and just exactly as wide. It has no publication date inside the front cover, but is made more precious to me by the presence of an aged inscription from some previous owner. Inside the very well preserved cover, the pages are yellowed and have a hint of crackle to them. The second page, in black calligraphy, is inscribed:
Betty Sutherland
Burns' Cottage
Alloway,
Ayr
28.7.26
Any Burns afficianado worth his haggis knows that Robbie was born in Alloway. I have no idea who Betty Sutherland is, or was, but I'm grateful for whatever series of unlikely events brought this particular copy of Burns' works, dating to 1926 at least by the inscription, into my hands.
It is one of the very few physical possessions to which I ascribe any real value -- for the facts of its content and age -- and it is with that in mind I go forth each year, on or about the 25th of January, clad in my highland best, to pay irreverent homage to The Bard. (I should think that a room full of alarmingly elderly men, most of whom are at odds with each other to despatch their sobriety, and wherein the main course is stuffed inside a sheep's stomach with the sphincters tied off, is not the most notable melieu in which to pay one's respects to a departed poet. I should also think that Burns would have had it no other way.)
The Burns Supper in Edmonton is one of the last in the country to be preserved in its testosterone-laden form. There are no women in attendance. While a part of me does enjoy this men's night out, I think an element of decorum and class would be added by the inclusion of The Lassies. At the very least there would be fewer drunken octogenarians stumbling out the doors come midnight.
There is an ostensibly free bar outside the main doors for the hour before supper. (The night's ticket prices are somewhat inflated.) Hence the stumbling just mentioned. I have been invited each year by my friend James and his father. James and I take this hour, especially in more recent years, to catch up with each other, not having gotten together more than a few times in the past year, due to an alarming increase in geographic and domestic disparity.
As he and I were standing, chatting, holding our double Ryan Cokes and supporting a structural wall with our shoulders, I was sidled up to by an elderly bespectacled gentleman. He wasn't there one moment, and the next he was. Thus, he sidled.
"Nice tartan there, young man. I'm rather fond of the Red Fraser myself."
I broke off my conversation with James momentarily. "Why yes, it is the Fraser. Most people, at first glance, mistake it for the Campbell. How did you know?"
He didn't answer straight away but the corners of his lips quirked and his sharp blue eyes twinkled slightly as his index finger pointed briefly to his tartan bow tie, the only colour breaking the severity of his black and white tuxedo.
It, too, was a Red Fraser tartan.
Bob, as he introduced himself, was a very engaging man and we had a pleasant conversation until the doors were about to open and I excused myself to top up my (free) double Ryan Coke before entering to find my seat.
*****
Now, if you're the type of person who would like to see your supper loaded onto a silver platter, marched to the table preceded by a lone bagpiper and flanked on either side by swarthy men wielding naked steel claymores, then this is the one night a year that particular thirst can be sated. The head table is served thus while the rest of the room of 500 men stomp and clap to the tune.
There is dinner; there are speeches; there are choral singers; there is wine and cheese and pretty girls dancing a highland jig around crossed swords to the skirling of a puff-cheeked man inflating a bladder and spewing forth with all sorts of droning intonations masquerading for a time as musical interlude.
It is a grand evening.
The pipes and drums take the stage for half an hour near the end. It is always my favourite part. I hope every year that they play Amazing Grace; they've only done so twice in my presence. No other song, and certainly not played on any other instrument, can move me so quickly to tears.
There are the same toasts and speeches, by different voices, every year. The keynote is always by some hoi palloi flown in direct from Scotland. Usually a religious type.
The toast to The Twa Lands: uniting Scotland and Canada in a spirit of brotherhood spanned by the Atlantic. There are more people of Scottish descent in Canada than there are Scots in Scotland, so there's some merit there. It was a local doctor who gave that toast this year. There's something very humourous, especially when you've had a few drinks, in a gynaecologist raising a toast to the Twa Lands. One of his last lines in particular stuck with me: "I will raise a toast to both of these, our great nations -- neither of which is completely surrounded by sea... unfortunately."
I laughed at the base humour in that, but more so at the idea of solidarity by mutual commiseration. As if somehow both Scotland and Canada would be better served by vast expanses of salty water to the south rather than the looming neighbours we each have.
*****
I never feel so conscious of exposure as when wearing a kilt. It's not because of the (appropriate) manner in which I choose to wear it. I am consistently and consciously closing or crossing my legs; only then do I fully appreciate the strictures placed upon women who choose to wear skirts and dresses. One's nethers are at constant risk of exposure. From experience, and due largely to the huge swath of pleats that comprise a typical kilt, it's best to walk up stairs in a stately manner rather than bounding up two at a time. Pleats can sway alarmingly. Thus, one of the reasons I love wearing my kilt when I can is the greater appreciation I have for pants as a consequence.
*****
And by the way... I was honoured to have been asked that night last month to be upstanding at my friend James's wedding this July. I hesitated not at all in accepting. Somewhat surprisingly, this will be my first ever participation in a wedding party.
A VERY good night, all told.
*****
Lastly, a brief poem that you've likely not read, being more familiar with Auld Lang Syne and that ilk:
A PRAYER UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH
O Thou Great Being! what Thou art,
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure am I, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But, if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then man my soul with firm resolves,
To bear and not repine!
Si, please include this in your list of your Best Posts. The Supper sounds amazing! Your description was excellent, I could picture it easily and hear the sounds and feel the mood. Thanks yet again for sharing your perceptions with us!
Posted by: Linda | Tuesday, 21 February 2006 at 05:49 AM
You are indeed an eclectic individual, Simon!
Now, what's with the "Hello" popup when your site is loading? Debugging something, or just being friendly???
Jim
Posted by: Jim | Tuesday, 21 February 2006 at 06:21 AM
Makes me long for the homeland. Well, if mine were Scotland. Alas, my heritage has been traced to the opposite end of the island.
Loved the description, as I've never had the pleasure of attending such an event. I always get dragged to Oktoberfest, and the folks whom I accompany are not there to celebrate their heritage.
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 21 February 2006 at 07:26 AM
They fixed it!
Posted by: Jim (of Brazil) | Tuesday, 21 February 2006 at 03:38 PM
"Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon...."
Your writing is clearly tending towards the song end of things- lovely to read.
We have modest Burn's Nights here at the blue northern fringe of what perhaps should have been an ocean, and have had people come back to us in surprise when they find out it's a "real" holiday, not just something produced whole cloth out of long winters and thirsty poetics.
Posted by: rna | Friday, 24 February 2006 at 01:07 PM
Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
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