Month: May 2024

Robert Burns and his younger brother Gilbert were encouraged by their father to grow acreage of flax on the family farm at Lochlea. There was also some level of encouragement from the government to raise the crop, though the viability of the crop would subsequently be challenged by imported cotton from America. The treated flax… Continue reading Robert Burns in Irvine

Quite deliberately and quite effectively, the recent biography (The Bard) of Robert Burns by Robert Crawford stresses the important role of his mother in introducing him at an early age to the legacy of Scottish word and song. As a child Burns was possessed of a highly retentive memory as evidenced by his ability to… Continue reading Robert Burns: A mother’s legacy