This Saturday we drive up to Clifton Hall, Great House in St John, dressed in full Scots regalia. We are out for the evening to celebrate Burns night. After a 30 minute drive through some of the beautiful Barbados countryside, we arrive at this stunning plantation house, the driveway lit by flickering candles, the piper standing at the door with our host, Massimo. It feels like we are in a scene out of a movie and I have to pinch myself to stop my gleeful insides bursting out.
We have agreed, as bone fide Scots, to help maintain the traditions of the Burns Supper and Craig delivers a superlative “toast to the Haggis” where he stabs the aforementioned creature with great gusto until its “gushing entrails bright, Like onie ditch; And then, O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin, rich”!
After some wonderful food, education and entertainment, its my turn. I have agreed to give the response to the Laddies and never one to turn down a speaking engagement, I’m there, ready, in full entertainment mode.
So in case any of you are ever pressed to deliver the lassies response, I thought I would share my words. At least it gives an insight into what thousands of Scots would have been doing this weekend, no matter where they are in the world. What I re-remembered on Saturday is that my culture and traditions live bright in my heart and although I may not return very often, I carry Scotland with me wherever I go.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it falls to me, your allocated lassie for this evening, to take up the challenge of replying to Howard’s unconventional, highly entertaining toast. What a lovely toast it was to us lassies so I’d like to personally thank him for his words. These sentiments are much appreciated, especially now we’re a few drams doon – you may need a few more by the time I’m done.
When I agreed to take on this task, which was at the end of one of those long, noisy, heid-banging Sunday afternoons at the Cliff Beach Bar; Massimo was at pains to point out that previous iterations of this event had been over-long and would I keep it to 5 minutes. Well I’ve never listened to a man before. And I’m not about to start now…
There are various womanly wiles I could use to encourage you to listen; I could use facts and figures for those of you who have logical, rational brains; I could use props and pictures and other “techniques” {shoogle boobies} for those of you who are more visual. Those who are more auditory may prefer the words of the Bard himself, the kinesthetics amongst you may prefer to contribute – not heckle mind – to what I’m sharing. One voice at a time though otherwise I may get all “Ms Jean Brodie” . Actually, this reminds me of a true story I’d like to share.
Great friends of mine, moved up to the home country to a wee village called Braco, just off the A9 (its in-between Perth and Stirling for those geographic types). Nick, who’s originally from South Africa, was in the pub one evening and got chatting to 3 laddies from Wick; the wee Highland town where I was brought up. Now, I have spent many hours with Nick; I spoke at their wedding; I helped him wet the heid of his first born; I’ve sat more evenings than I care to remember, at his dining room table and in his kitchen and had many, many long sober and drunken chats; his wife, Clare, is one of my very best friends. Nick knows me. So in the course of the male bonding love-in going on in the Braco bar, Nick asks if they know a Laura from Wick and hopefully mentions a few of my finer qualities. One of them says, “Laura who”?
By now, Nick is a few pints of Heavy down and he frantically casts around his grey matter for my surname. He remembers a video I had given him when they first moved from England, to assist with his broader Scottish Education, and inspired, he splurts, “ Laura…Brodie”.
By all accounts, three sets of eyes cast upwards to the right as they search for a connection. Laura Brodie. “Aye”, says one of them. “ I remember Laura Brodie. She was in my History Class at the High school. She was a bit of a goer. Popular with the boys. Never said no”. “I was with her”, chimes his mate. “Just for a night. Aye” “Go-an” says the third, “me too; she ate me up”. Nick sits at the bar, shocked, staring at his pint of Heavy and mulling over the fact that the version of the Laura he knows is far removed from what’s just been described.
He staggers home to impart the news to Clare, that her ‘besie’ mate has a colourful past. Clare, a no nonsense Northerner, listens to the whole story and then makes him walk through it again, this time getting more of the detail. These three braggard boys from Wick had obviously been on the mushrooms, or figured that Nick would be impressed that this lass that he knew, was so accommodating. It’s a shame then that my surname is Ferguson. Laura Brodie is yet another figment of a male imagination.
But how illustrative is this, of the male need to compete, over Women; Sport: Life. Rabbie Burns knew this. Take the furore which happened last year when the former national poet of Scotland, Liz Lochhead, referred to Burns as “Weinsteinian”. This serious charge of misogyny and rape is based on a letter he’d written in 1788 to his pal, Bob Ainslie, in which he described having sex with his soon to be wife, Jean Armour who was heavily pregnant by then with his 2nd set of twins. Using Burns’ colourful command of the Scots vernacular he describes how he “ gave her such a thundering scalade that electrified the very marrow of her bones”
Not content with such a graphic description of his sexual prowess, he then goes on to eulogise his penis. And let me share this for it truly is a work of prose;
“Oh what a peacemaker is the guide wheel-willy pintle! It is the mediator, the guarantee, the umpire, the bond of union, the solemn league and covenant, plenipotentiary, the Aaron’s rod, the Jacob’s staff, the prophet Elisha’s pot of oil, the Ahasuerus Sceptre, the sword of mercy, the philosopher’s stone, the Horn of Plenty, and the Tree of Life between Man and Woman.’
Well I don’t know about the rest of you ladies but this makes me come over all in a hot flush! Dear God, there’s not many women who would not pray to encounter one of these at least once in her lifetime, let me tell you!
Frankly, this is more likely to be a bloke bragging to a mate about his sexual prowess, in a situation where this cannot or will not be challenged; a bit like the three blokes in a bar in Braco, pretending to have had their way with the fictional Laura Brodie.
We wise women are aware of the male need to have the ego stroked; the highly strung mind, calmed; the warrior male, aroused; any wounded pride re-built. We are experts at humanness, we can use our energies to help men feel male again. While most men tend to be linear, simple, transactional, translatable; we women, we are atoms of variety and fascination. We can choose to be Sex kittens; Bitches; Queens, Lovers, Mothers, Warrioresses, Sorceresses. Grounded by the earth and nurtured by the soul of the moon; women hold a different power – not better, not higher, just different.
You men would be well advised to take heed of this. Rabbie Burns understood it after all he is quoted “Mither nature…her prentice hand she tried on man and then she made the lasses, O’” . The Burns I know and love, is not a sex pest or philanderer, he loved women; his mother, his aunts, his sisters, his wife, his daughters and, yes, his lovers. Burns valued and appreciated women for our beauty and intellect, along with our political views, our humour and passion for words and language.
Burns’ love of women began with his Mother; Agnes Broun Burns. By all accounts she couldn’t read or write a word but she was an avid storyteller. Imagine this wee slip of a woman with bright red hair, going about her daily chores with a wee Rabbie rapt by her side as she sings the songs of the ancient lands, verbally imbibing his desire for Scots legends, history and folklore. Seeped deep in the art of oral history it’s no wonder Burns developed his passion for rhyme and song.
We all know Burns put into practice his assertion that he preferred the company of women saying “The finest hours that e’er I spent were spent amang the lasses, O’.” This probably explains why there are so many descendants of his lineage running about the world today. His was a seduction of humour, intellect and outstanding rhythmic language. In a world where getting pregnant out of wedlock was considered to be the worst of mortal sins, Burns was Baby Daddy to 12 children by four different women. Thinking about it, Burns could quite happily live in Barbados today ; to the Kirk on Sunday for absolution, the fields for work, the rum shop for stories and the beach for pleasure and conquest. He’d fit right in.
So that brings me to tonight, what would Burns want me to share with you men that gives you hope and rumination in the wee sma ‘oors when the whiskey is still doing a wee dance in the brain. I combed the Burns annals, toyed with “the Rights of Women” still apt today, but thought it ower long and I still have my favourite Scots joke to share. The delight of “What can a young lassie dae wi an Auld Man” made me giggle but it could potentially send some of our present company to the bottom of the whisky bottle. So, I’ve settled on the short and not well known
“A bottle and a friend”
Here’s a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o’ care, man?
Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.
A prescient Burns had it right, long before Carpe Diem and the Dead Poets society.
So before we seize the day, or the rest of the night, or the glass, I want to leave you with my favourite Scots joke:
An armed, hooded, robber burst into the Bank of Scotland in Princes Street, Edinburgh, and forced the tellers to load a sack full of cash. On his way out the door with the loot, one brave Scottish customer grabbed the hood and pulled it off revealing the robber’s face. The robber shot the Scotsman without hesitation! He then looked around the bank to see if anyone else had seen him. One of the tellers looked straight at him so the robber walked over, raised his gun and calmly shot him straight in the heid. Everyone in the bank was by now really feart and were all studiously looking at the floor. “Did anyone else see my face?” roared the robber. There were a few seconds of silence, then one elderly Scottish lady, still looking down, tentatively raised her hand and said:
“I think my husband might have caught a glimpse .….”
Thank you to the laddies who keep us on the slow boil, for the evening festivities and the shenanigans yet to come. Ladies please be upstanding and lets give a toast to to our laddies. Bless each and every one of our scallywags. To the Laddies”.
