When the weather turns ugly on the west coast of Scotland the damp seeps into your very soul. It was day five of our driving sojourn through the Highlands. The highway roundabouts had become less intimidating but navigating an unfamiliar car through traffic on the wrong side of narrow rain-slicked roads was beginning to wear me down. It was still only noon when we pulled into the little town of Fairlie and spotted a B&B with smoke wafting from its chimney. The thought of a warm hearth was irresistible and we decided to stop for the night.
"Aye we do have a room," said the fellow who greeted us at the door. "Come in an’ warm yerself by the fire. Wife’ll bring ye a cup’o tea."
We parked the car, left our packs in an upstairs bedroom of the old farmhouse, and joined the couple, Henry and Meg, in front of a glowing coal fire in their hearth. The conversation was unhurried and friendly. We could have been old friends who dropped in for a visit, and by the time the second cup of tea was poured the tension of the day’s drive had drained away and we were ready for a meal.
"Pub down the way has pretty good food," said Henry. "Ye can drive or walk along the beach, not far really."
I was happy to leave the car parked, so despite the cold, penetrating mist drifting in from the North Atlantic we chose to walk. By the time we found the tiny vine-covered pub we were chilled through. I pulled open the heavy oak door and stepped inside the warm, yeasty interior. The hum of conversation and laughter came to an abrupt halt and during the few moments it took our eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior the place was utterly silent. No one was actually staring at us but their curiosity was palpable. This was a locals’ hangout, unaccustomed to strangers.
We slid into a bum-polished wooden booth and ordered a McEwans. Like the bench, the thick oak table was worn smooth by the comings and goings of countless patrons who had paused here to escape the chill, quaff a pint or two, and chat with neighbours. The dark wood-panelled walls were hung with polished horse-brasses and mysterious hand-wrought iron implements that could have been there since Robby Burns himself laboured in a nearby field. The hand-written menu, propped up between the salt and the vinegar, featured three or four choices; I decided to go for the bangers and mash.
"Where you folks from?" asked an old fellow sitting alone at a nearby table.
"Canada," I replied, happy that the silence had broken, "Western Canada."
"That so," he said. "Maybe you know my cousin Jean. Tall woman, long grey hair. Moved to Canada going on 10 years now. You probably seen her around."
I allowed that I might have but couldn't actually recall meeting her.
The barmaid brought our meals: plump brown sausages, flooded with thick gravy, and nestled between a scoop of mashed potatoes and a pile of peas – tasty, hot, and loaded with enough cholesterol to plug the arteries of a whole platoon of highlanders.
Jean’s cousin ordered another McEwans and turned back to us.
"You go back to Canada be sure and tell Jean you seen me. Name’s Harry, She'll remember me alright."
While Harry’s concept of Canadian geography seemed seriously flawed he succeeded in breaking the ice and we were soon involved in a lively conversation with the other patrons. Asked about Canadian beer we said it was okay but this was better, and hoisted a toast to McEwan. As for whisky there was no contest. We agreed that Scotland led the world but there was serious disagreement about the merits of Talisker vs. Lagavulin. Everyone had compelling arguments about the virtues of single malt and everyone had suggestions about where we should go next.
By the time the bangers and mash were gone we had a huddle of people pouring over our map pointing out their favourite castles, pubs, and monuments. But this was Burns Country, and they all agreed we must not miss the Burns National Heritage Park in Alloway.
In the morning Meg had fresh coffee, porridge, and oat-cakes plus a choice of just about anything else you might fancy. More important, the mist had begun to lift, the road was dry, and we could see across the Firth of Clyde to the inner Hebrides. When we left Fairlie the remains of the sea-fog still hung over the hills, filtering the early light and muting the soft greenness of the landscape. The road alternately clings to the wind-swept coast where stunted trees lean permanently away from the sea, then swings inland through farmland dotted with crofter’s fields and cottages, clusters of sheep and long-haired highland cattle. It’s about 50 km along highway 78 from Fairlie to the bustling town of Ayr, where almost everything is Burns-related and the characters of his poem Tam O’Shanter have become local icons.
We stopped briefly at the Tam O’Shanter pub in Ayr, the place where the hapless Tam spent a boozy evening before a "hellish legion" of witches chased him, astride his mare, Meg, to safety across the River Doon. Retracing his wild ride we drove the 5 km to Allaway, crossed the Brig o’Doon into Burns National Heritage Park, and spent the rest of the day wandering through the exhibits of Burns’s 18th century life in Ayrshire.
In 1757 William Burns moved to the Alloway area hoping to wring a living out of the sodden Ayrshire clay. He built a humble thatched cottage and two years later, in January 1759, his eldest son Robert was born in a box-bed that is still tucked into the corner of a tiny room. The cottage, where Robbie Burns spent his first seven years, has been faithfully restored and its austere, cramped interior is a testament to the Spartan life of an 18th century farm family.
Despite Burns’s description of himself as a "heaven-taught ploughman" his father, William, made sure his son received a sound education. At school the young Burns showed an aptitude for literature and in a period of only 23 years, before his death at the age of 37, he published more than 600 poems and songs. Much of this phenomenal body of work, including a draft of Auld Lang Syne in the poet’s own hand, is housed in a small museum adjacent to the cottage.
The Brig o’Doon (bridge over the river Doon) and the ruins of Alloway Auld Kirk, where William Burns is buried, are all within walking distance of the cottage, as is the Tam O’Shanter Experience, an audio-visual centre which presents a profile of Burns’s life, and a chillingly vivid film of Tam’s mightmarish ride.
Burns’s classic poem follows Tam from a night of boozing and carousing with his buddies in Ayr as he wends his drunken way back to Alloway. In the churchyard of the Auld Kirk Tam comes upon an "unco sight" – "Warlocks and witches in a dance." He spots a pretty one in a "cutty sark" (short smock) and is so taken with her that he calls out "Weel done, Cutty-sark," a macho indiscretion that nearly gets him killed. The whole lot of them take after him on his terrified mare, Meg, and she barely makes it across the Brig o’Doon into a witch-free zone – but not before losing her tail to the "hellish legion" of spooks.
Far from being a sentimentalist, Burns was a tough, hard drinking, no-nonsense poet who spoke for the common people and wrote scathing satire about the hypocrisy of the upper classes and the church. In the 1750s Scotland was still recovering from a century of civil and religious strife, economic ruin and the 1707 Act of Union. Although he was fluent in virtually unaccented English, Burns chose to write in Lallans, the Scottish lowland dialect of the crofters. He travelled throughout Scotland collecting and rewriting traditional songs, and contributed enormously to the rebirth of Scottish pride in its language, culture, and self-confidence as a nation.
