Dunblane Burns Club

10/10/2026

🥣 It's today. Robert Burns speaks highly of porridge, a staple food in his time, "The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food" (in his "The Cotter's Saturday Night" which he wrote in the winter of 1785-6, with it being published in the 1786 Kilmarnock edition of "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect").

09/10/2026

✉️ It's today. Robert Burns has been the subject of many postage stamps around the world over the years. The first to be issued in Britain were in 1966 for the 170th anniversary of the death of Robert Burns.

Then in 1996 (which was the 137th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns) with designs depicting opening lines of four Burns works.

And also in 2009 for the 250th anniversary of his birth (one stamp featuring the line "A Man's a Man for a' that", and the other a portrait of Burns

08/10/2026

🦸‍♂️ It's today. The leading writer of the Victorian era, who exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature, and philosophy, Thomas Carlyle regarded the life of Robert Burns to be romantic, meaningful and an example for a hero, for a fresh use of dialect and democratic nature of his poetry, describing him as ‘a great original man.' He has been described by others as not just a man of letters but a national hero, a freedom fighter and a social commentator. In 2013 Liz Lochhead, as Scots Makar, wrote of Robert Burns, "Robert Burns remains my hero. Not just mine. Here in Scotland he's Oor Rabbie, your Rabbie, a'body's Rabbie...He'd be my hero for the songs alone. Or if he'd never written anything but "Holy Willie's Prayer". But above all it's about the language he preserved and imparted."

07/10/2026

🎵🎶 It's today. Robert Burns and his wife Jean Armour had 9 children, only three of whom survived into adulthood. Robert Burns, in a letter to Alexander Cunningham, wrote "When I tell you that Mrs Burns was once, 'my Jean', you will know the rest. Of four children she bore me, in seventeen months, my eldest boy is only living." Their children were Robert Burns Junior (born 3 September 1786) and his twin sister Jean (also born 3 September 1786 but who died of unknown causes in infancy just over a year later on 20 October 1787); William Nicol (born 9 April 1791, died in 1872); Elizabeth Riddell (born 1792); James Glencairn (born 12 August 1794, died 1865); Francis Wallace (born 18 August 1789, died aged 13 on 9 July 1803) and Maxwell (born on 25 July 1796, and died the very day of his father's funeral on 25 April 1799, aged only two years and nine months). Short lived un-named twin girls (born 3 March 1788) were also born to Robert and Jean.

In his poem "Nature's Law", Robert Burns wrote of his aspirations for his eldest son, Robert Burns Junior

"Auld cantie Coil may count the day,
As annual it returns,
The third of Libra's equal sway,
That gave another Burns,
With future rhymes an' other times,
To emulate his sire
To sing auld Coil in nobler style,
With more poetic fire."

▶️ https://youtu.be/DFo6ESH8U3A

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

06/10/2026

Do you know the connections of Dunblane and Robert Burns?

Robert Burns visited Dunblane in 1787 (describing Dunblane Cathedral as magnificent in his diary), as well as penning verses including the poems about Highland Harry (inspired by singing he heard in Dunblane), and about Dunblane’s Battle of Sheriffmuir?

Robert Burns stated in a letter he heard the original song "The Bob o' Dunblane" (on which Burns said Allan Ramsay had based his version) from the hostess of the principal inn in Dunblane (now known as The Riverside) in 1787.

In the year that he died Burns had earlier been offered and accepted the post of Excise-man in Dunblane but had died before he had been able to take up the post.

This artwork (a pen and watercolour work of Dunblane created in 1788-80 by artist Francis Grose in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh) depicts Dunblane as Burns may have seen it.

Find our more about Robert Burns and Dunblane at the Dunblane Burns Club website https://dunblane-burns-club.mailchimpsites.com/robert-burns-and-dunblane

05/10/2026

👨‍🏫 It's
today, as a day to appreciate and celebrate teachers.

John Murdoch was considered the most significant teacher of Robert Burns. From 1765, when Robert was 7 years old, Robert's father employed John Murdoch, aged just 18, as tutor, and he became a friend of the family. From John Murdoch is credited the young Robert's enthusiasm for books (Murdoch sent many books to Burns over the years, even when he was no longer his tutor), and for being able to quote at will from memory.

John Murdoch wrote about the experience of teaching Robert Burns and siblings: "The books most commonly used in the school were, the Spelling Book, the New Testament, the Bible, Masson's Collection of Prose and Verse and Fisher's English Grammar. They committed to memory the hymns, and other poems of that collection with uncommon facility. This facility was partly owing to the method pursued by their father and me in instructing them, which was, to make them thoroughly acquainted with the meaning of every word in each sentence that was to be committed to memory."

Robert Burns described John Murdoch as "a masterly teacher" in a letter on 15 January 1783 Burns wrote to Murdoch who had moved to London, also saying, "I have not forgotten, nor will ever forget the many obligations I lie under to your kindness and friendship."

This painting entitled "Murdoch instructing Burns" in Robert Burns House, Dumfries, was painted in 1859 by George Washington Brownlow.

04/10/2026

🎵🎶 As the autumn colours of leaves appear, it's . So here's the song "The Fall Of The Leaf" by Robert Burns

"The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill;
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear!
As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.

The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues!

How long I have liv'd—but how much liv'd in vain,
How little of life's scanty span may remain,
What aspects old Time in his progress has worn,
What ties cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn.

How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd!
Life is not worth having with all it can give—
For something beyond it poor man sure must live."

▶️ https://youtu.be/s2Z4QBv_qqY

Provided to YouTube by DistroKidThe fall of the leaf · eddie cair...

03/10/2026

👔 It's today, so where did Robert Burns mention plaid?

From "The Jolly Beggars"
"With his philibeg an' tartan plaid,
An' guid claymore down by his side,
The ladies' hearts he did trepan,
My gallant, braw John Highlandman.

From "Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes"
"As I gaed down the water-side,
There I met my shepherd lad:
He row'd me sweetly in his plaid,
And he ca'd me his dearie."

From "The Battle of Sherramuir"
"To hear the thuds, and see the cluds,
O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds,
Wha glaum'd at kingdoms three, man...
"But had ye seen the philibegs,
An' skyrin tartan trews, man,
When in the teeth they dar'd our Whigs,
And covenant True-blues, man..."

From "The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer"
"An' Lord! if ance they pit her till't,
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt,
An' durk an' pistol at her belt,
She'll tak the streets"

From "Montgomerie's Peggy"
"Altho' my bed were in yon muir,
Amang the heather, in my plaidie,
Yet happy, happy would I be,
Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy..."

From "My Nanie, O"
"The westlin' wind blaws loud an' shill;
The night's baith mirk and rainy, O;
But I'll get my plaid an' out I'll steal,
An' owe the hill to Nanie, O.."

William Clark, who worked for Robert Burns at Ellisland, near Dumfries, from 1789 to 1790, shared a recollection that "Burns when at home, usually wore a blue or drab long-tailed coat, corduroy breeches, dark-blue stockings, and cootikens, and in cold weather a black-and-white checked plaid wrapped around his shoulders.”

02/10/2026

It's today. Robert Burns built Ellisland Farm in 1788, living and farming there until 1791. He had nine or ten cows, including three Ayrshire cows, from which cheese was made from the milk. Robert Burns wrote a quarter of his songs and poems there, including Auld Lang Syne. The wife of Robert Burns, Jean Armour, was a social and agricultural powerhouse, taking on a leading role at Ellisland, and she was a highly respected figure amongst her dairy workers alongside whom she produced cheese and milk.

01/10/2026

🎵🎶 It's today. As well as being a prolific writer of texts, Robert Burns also contributed greatly to collecting and compiling music from around Scotland (either setting these melodies to existing texts or creating texts for them). He was instrumental in creating the content for the six volume Scots Musical Museum (published from 1787 to 1803 by Edinburgh printer James Johnson, and comprising 600 folk melodies) and George Thomson’s Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (published from 1793 to 1818).