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Ellisland near Dumfries, where Jean is properly celebrated. |
I write books. I live with my artist husband, Alan Lees, in a 200 year old cottage in Scotland.
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Ellisland near Dumfries, where Jean is properly celebrated. |
Happy birthday to Robert Burns who was born on this day, here in Ayrshire in 1759. I knew little about him when we moved up here in the early sixties, but I quickly became a fan. Over the years, I've written a radio play and then a stage play about him. But my biggest project was The Jewel, a novel about the poet's wife, Jean Armour, and a companion anthology called For Jean, Poems, Songs and Letters by Robert Burns for his wife. He called her The Jewel of them all, and so she was. But although the novel is a third person story (he said, she said) it is nevertheless very much told from Jean's point of view, So of course, I too began to see the poet from his wife's point of view.
And was equally charmed by him.
Whenever I've done book events or talks about the novel, somebody in the audience - usually a woman - has asked me what I thought about him, and I've always had to confess that I reckon in Jean's shoes, I'd have fallen for him too. Hook, line and sinker.
One of his most attractive qualities must have been his sense of humour. He made people laugh. He made women laugh. He genuinely seemed to like women, young, old and every age in between - which for a man of his time was a fairly rare quality. If he had to fall in love to write a love poem - as he himself admitted - he also had many genuine friendships with women throughout his too short life. He had his faults, but my goodness he must have been attractive.
Anyway - hope you've got your haggis and neeps and tatties for tonight. (I love Burns, but haggis, not so much!) - and perhaps a wee dram as well.
Here's my very favourite version of Rab's song about himself, from the late, wonderful and much missed Andy M Stewart: Rantin Rovin Robin.
There was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatna day o' whatna style,
I doubt it's hardly worth the while
To be sae nice wi' Robin.
Chorus - Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin', rovin', rantin', rovin',
Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin', rovin', Robin!
Our monarch's hindmost year but ane
Was five-and-twenty days begun
'Twas then a blast o' Janwar' win'
Blew hansel in on Robin.
Robin was etc
The gossip keekit in his loof,
Quo' scho, "Wha lives will see the proof,
This waly boy will be nae coof:
I think we'll ca' him Robin."
Robin was etc
"He'll hae misfortunes great an' sma',
But aye a heart aboon them a',
He'll be a credit till us a'-
We'll a' be proud o' Robin."
Robin was, etc
"But sure as three times three mak nine,
I see by ilka score and line,
This chap will dearly like our kin,
So leeze me on thee! Robin."
Robin was, etc
"Guid faith," quo', scho, "I doubt you gar
The bonie lasses lie aspar;
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur
So blessins on thee! Robin."
Robin was, etc
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19th century ivory miniature of Robert Burns |
I've written so much about Robert Burns that you'd think I'd have seen his ghost by now, but I never have. I suspect if I did see him, he would look nothing like the above romanticised image, although as a young man he was described as very dark and 'spare' - slim without being skinny - with fine dark eyes. He liked to dress fashionably when he could, so I reckon he'd have been an attractive young man. His wife Jean Armour certainly thought so.
Even before I knew much about her, I had a soft spot for Jean. I thought she had been hugely neglected over the years by later commentators. Catherine Carswell, in her biographical novel of Burns described her outrageously as a 'young heifer' while even the present day Burns organisations never seem to make much of a connection between the wee song bird on his self designed seal, with the motto 'wood notes wild' - a phrase he always associated with the wife he loved. She had the finest singing voice in the district.
I've never seen Jean's ghost either, although I would have been very happy to meet her. I think she was a woman of great character, with a wonderful sense of humour. However, something happened when I was researching my novel about her, The Jewel, that certainly gave me pause for thought.
I had been researching Jean, her milieu, her marriage, her life story, for a long time before I ever plunged into writing The Jewel. That's the way it works for me. I try to immerse myself in a time and place for as much as a year beforehand (sometimes more) and then when I get down to telling the story, I'll find out even more things that I didn't know I didn't know, and have to research those too. It's absorbing but exhausting.
For a time, it seemed as though there was nothing but Jean Armour in this old house which, when you think about it, would have been built while Jean was still alive. She died in 1834.
One night, my husband had got up to go to the loo. It adjoins the room I use as my office, just off our bedroom. I woke up too, as you do, so I saw him come back through the bedroom door, halt for a moment or two, say 'oh!' in a puzzled tone of voice, and then get back into bed.
'What's the matter?' I asked.
'I could have sworn I saw a woman standing in the doorway,' he said. 'At first I thought it might be you, but she was wearing strange clothes, a long skirt, a shawl, a cap on her head.'
'The following morning, I showed him a picture of Jean Armour. 'That's her' he said.
I must admit I was a bit sad that I hadn't seen her myself. But we were immersed in her, so perhaps it's not surprising that my 'thought forms' had suddenly become visible to my poor husband! It's maybe just as well I don't write horror stories ... yet.
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Jean and I |
It's no secret that I love Ayrshire. We moved from Leeds, years ago, when I was twelve, and my biochemist father got a job in a research institute here. I never enjoyed school much, even though I did quite well academically - but I adored the countryside and history of this lush, green and, let's face it, rainy county. If you can put up with the rain, it's considerably warmer than the rest of Scotland, and warmer than much of Northern England. Winters are much milder than in my native Leeds.
Holidaymakers tend to pass it by in the mad rush for the Highlands, but the scenery is spectacular and the history is fascinating. Not surprisingly then, it has featured in at least some of my fiction, in novels such as The Jewel and Ice Dancing, as well as in many of the radio plays I used to write, notably a couple of series: The Peggers and the Creelers and Running Before the Wind. I'm planning a new series of novels even as I write this, and guess where they are mostly going to be set?
I was happy to be asked to record a reading for this year's Tidelines Festival and chose a passage from the Jewel, about an early encounter between our very own Robert Burns and the woman who was destined to become his wife, and who was quite clearly the love of his life: Jean Armour. I didn't much want to record myself just sitting on a rock reading and my tech skills weren't up to recording myself walking and reading on a smartphone - so I included a sheaf of my own pictures of Ayrshire, as well as some lovely watercolour images from a Victorian artist called Janet Muir, who lived in Mauchline. Nice to see that the person putting the video together worked a bit of magic on them all.
Anyway - here it is. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and watch the whole Love Ayrshire video. You'll find me, and a sheaf of other Ayrshire writers too.
After many conversations about Jean and Robert Burns, with individuals and groups, I’ve realised that some misconceptions about the poet are still very much in existance. These are beliefs I thought had been disproved by more distinguished academics than me years ago.
So many people have repeated the notion that Burns was a drunkard. He wasn’t, but it goes back a long way. A mean spirited Dumfries draper called William Grierson attended his funeral and wrote that the poet was ‘of too easy and accommodating a temper, which often involved him in scenes of dissipation and intoxication, which by slow degrees impaired his health and at last totally ruined his constitution.’Willie's Mill, at Tarbolton, where Jean spent part of her second pregnancy. |
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Portrait thought to be of Jean in middle age, by John Moir, courtesy of Rozelle House, Ayr. |
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Mossgiel as it once was. |
By John Faed |
Houses at Willie's Mill by Janet Muir |
Near the scene of the 'horse litter letter'. |
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Gavin Hamilton's house. |
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Ellisland |
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All about Jean. |
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Read the poems and letters for yourself. |
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The Cottar's Saturday Night |