The Immortal Bard Remembered - as Ever

Poet Laureate John Lindsay takes The Lead

Its something other nations envy and the English in particular. How can the Scots set aside a whole day when Burns is so widely celebrated when a poet as great as Shakespeare is not thus revered? Our's not to reason why but to enjoy it thoroughly! And our Poet Laureate took charge ensuring the works of Burns in poetry and in song were properly brought to mind and ear ... and not just for a single day but an entire ......

Burns' Week Was Declared

Never modest with our plans in the Pans, the whole week was devoted in the James Park Bistro to the enthusiastic consumption of the haggis and neaps and tatties, presented imaginatively in clap towers, interleaved with lasagne, as beef olives and in myriad other incarnations. Andrew Laurie our Chef was to be greatly congratulated as customers ate their way through some 300 lbs of the finest haggis to be had. And cranachan and bread and butter pudding were there to follow it down.



To help the digestion, and the waist line, it was clearly necessary to convene a ceiladh on the Friday evening before the formal Prestoungrange Gothenburg's Burns' Supper on Saturday, with the traditional Scottish music band led by The Wild Cigarillos.

The Supper

The formal evening was heralded by our own sponsored Prestoungrange pipers in the Prestonpans Pipes and Drums who played in the bitter cold outdoors. Then after a wee dram it was time for the guests to assemble in the Thomas Nelson Suite and for the piper to pipe in the Haggis after the consumption of a delicious Cullen Skink. The Address to the Haggis and the Toast to The Bard came from the Poet Laureate, with the Toast to the Lassies from Maclachlan of Maclauchlan and the response from Carmel Crummy, all finely executed before Alex Hodgson regaled us splendidly with Burns' songs and a few of his own. And as is his annual wont, our Poet Laureate took the opportunity to put new poetic words to our remembrance of the Coal Miners who enjoyed The Goth until the mid sixties, Black Gold.

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