Burns Night – An Immortal Memory
Illustration by John Faed
My father, among a number of other possibly better life-decisions, once memorised Tam O’Shanter in its entirety. This may have made some sense at the time. The general bourgeoiseness of the medical profession makes Burns Night an inevitable yearly event on the calendar for Scottish doctors of a certain generation. These days, memorising poetry is widely-accepted to be an activity that’s at least as good for your mental health as it is detrimental to your social life. Burns Night, however, is the one night of the year where reciting poetry at length is encouraged, and so my father’s recitation of Tam became a popular yearly fixture among the medics. Sadly, he would be plagued with anxiety before every performance, as before most other public speaking events. I have a vague recollection of one of his rehearsals; a slew of unintelligible, guttural syllables heard from another room, the strange flow of it all only ceasi