27/01/2026
Stranraer and District Burns Club has held its annual anniversary Burns Supper.
Eighty members, artistes and guests from as far away as Canada and the United States gathered in the town to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Scotland’s Bard in a tradition that began in the town in 1986.
Chairman of the Club and MC for the evening, Alec Ross, noted that while the principal speakers changed year on year, the piper did not. So one of his first duties for the evening was to ask long-serving club member David McCrone to present an engraved glass in appreciation of Colin Modrate’s unbroken forty years of service to the club. It was a fitting way to begin what would become a memorable evening.
The presentation was then followed by David Glass addressing the haggis - excellently done and yet a mere aperitif to the sumptuous recitation that was to follow later.
An excellent meal was then followed by local television and radio journalist, and renowned musician Bruce McKenzie, who proposed the Immortal Memory. He took the theme of how pride in language enables us as a nation, and how a lack therein - the Scottish Cringe - holds us back. The history of this needs to be understood, he argued. English started to become the language of the courts and ruling class after the Union of the Crowns in 1603, a trend that continued after the Act of Union in 1707 and the dismantling of the clans after the ‘45 uprising. And yet here was a man - Burns - born in the aftermath of Culloden who chose to write in Scots. Burns connects us to our language, our “leid”. He made it ok for us - cool, even - to speak in our own tongues and tell our own stories.
Linda Haswell presented an engraved glass to Bruce in recognition of what the chairman described as one of the best Immortal Memories ever presented at the supper.
Community singing was then beautifully led by Jane Sloan, Mhairi Lammie and Lianne Brown, with the latter two interspersing the evening with songs like “Tae the Weavers” and “Whistle and I will come tae ye my lad”.
Newton Stewart farmer and renowned Beef Shorthorn breeder Bobby Landers then reduced all and sundry to helpless mirth with a comically deadpan toast to the lassies and in the circumstances local writer and teacher Mary Cowan did remarkably well to fashion a witty and entertaining reply.
In her toast to Auld Scotia, Emma Harper MSP also touched on the role of Scots in the development of the modern nation, while noting how Scotland’s achievements in the arts, in sport, in culture and innovation see us constantly punching above ourselves, and she noted the ongoing positive contribution of the Scottish diaspora, even to the ends of the earth. We are just as the late AA Gill described - “proudly, fiercely different”.
It would be fair to say that any Stranraer Burns Supper wouldn’t be the same without David Glass’s unique rendition of Tam O’Shanter, and he excelled as always in his reading of the great Burns mock epic. As the company sang Auld Lang Syne and heard a vote of thanks from secretary Alex Haswell, we reflected that this was the perfect way to end yet another brilliant evening amongst friends!
